The first wave of winter weather caused temperatures to plummet almost to freezing along the Mexico-U.S. border last week. But thanks to Fellowship Southwest’s friends, we were able to help our partners deliver protection from the frigid onslaught to asylum seekers across the region.

As the temperatures dropped, we began exchanging emails, texts and phone calls with pastors of partner churches, who minister to immigrants camped and otherwise sheltered along the border. When we assured them we would send money for freeze protection—such as blankets, hoodies, beanies and gloves—they went shopping for the best deals they could find on high quantities of supplies.

As winter’s frigid blast buffeted the U.S.-Mexico border this week, pastors pleaded for blankets to comfort immigrants seeking asylum in the United States. 

“Very cold today; 37 degrees,” Carlos Navarro, pastor of Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville wrote in a text on Tuesday. Later, in a phone call, he said churches that provide food and shelter for refugees are desperate to supply blankets, hoodies and other warm clothes. Rosalio Sosa, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Tierra De Oro in El Paso, and Rogelio Pérez, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Capernaum in Lomito, Texas, echoed those sentiments.

A surge of refugees and falling temperatures have created a new set of needs for churches ministering on the border at Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, reported Fellowship Southwest immigrant ministry volunteer Ray Furr.

Furr and his spouse, Jeni Cook Furr, coordinate volunteers for Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry. This week, he traveled to the border, where he met with two pastors who provide significant ministry to asylum seekers on the border—Carlos Navarro of Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville and Rogelio Pérez of Iglesia Bautista Capernaum.