An ancient proverb states: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Rosalio Sosa believes a paraphrase of that proverb: Give a man a concrete block, and maybe he can sit on it in the shade. Teach him to make blocks, and he can build a future for his family.

Sosa thinks he’s found a way for Cuban refugees to construct productive, dignified lives in northern Mexico—by building blocks.

Pastors who comprise Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief ministry network recently gathered in a webinar to talk about their work with refugees along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Six pastors talked with FSW Coordinator Marv Knox about how they express the love of Jesus to immigrants they have found, almost literally, on their doorsteps.

Pastors along the U.S.-Mexico border are finding strength in numbers and comfort among partners equally committed to serving refugees in Jesus’ name.

Members of Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry—strung from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean—get together through video calls to share their lives, encourage each other and to pray for God’s blessings on their ministries and the immigrants they serve.

Fellowship Southwest’s Border Pastors Peer Learning Group began convening a few weeks ago. And while the concept is new on the border, its roots run deep within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. For years, CBF has promoted and sponsored peer learning groups—gatherings of ministers in similar situations, with similar jobs and usually at similar places in their careers—for encouragement, learning and prayer.

The dire situation in my opinion is environmental, of public health concern, economic and social and much of it also involves bureaucratic red tape - Federal, State (AZ, NM, UT, and CO), and local Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and San Juan Southern Paiute (these are Native tribes actually exercising viable tribal sovereignty within the Navajo Reservation geographic boundaries). And then, you have to throw in additional tribal interests - those surrounding tribes which technically fall within an area termed "Navajo Area" but are technically located outside the Navajo Reservation geographic boundaries - the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico, Jicarilla Apache Nation, Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, Kaibab Paiute, Havasupai, Hualapai, Yavapai, and the Western Apache - Tonto, White Mountain and San Carlos. Commensurate with all these are the exertions placed upon the Navajo Nation from all counties, communities, municipalities and metropolitan areas associated with the "Navajo Area" of the Four Corners region of the United States - and then, I cannot fail to mention corporate or business interests either! So I see both an advantageous and dysfunctional landscape, which I will label "Status Quo" confounding the situation along with the present reality simply facing every Navajo person; this present reality we call "Life." This is a most complex topography upon which Covid-19 has been thrown in!

The pastors on the front lines of Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry do not labor alone. Their strongest allies—their spouses—support, encourage and fortify them as they fight hunger, depravation, exploitation, injustice and vulnerability all along the U.S.-Mexico border.

These women’s tenacity, commitment and passion is unparalleled. They willingly sacrifice most of their time and effort for their ministries. Their success can only be measured by their loyalty to God.

For months, we have told you about their husbands. This week, the spouses speak.

“I don't care if you die.” The U.S. government repeats this message to immigrants every day, reinforcing it over and over. Policies flip, and explanations flop. But one message remains consistent. “I don’t care if you die.”

For our God of truth, facts matter. And the government’s callous disregard for immigrant life is a matter of factual record. Last week, an immigrant named Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejía died of COVID-19 in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. That is a fact.

Webinar moderated by Marv Knox, coordinator of Fellowship Southwest.

Contributors:

• Benjamin Dueholm, pastor of Christ Lutheran Church

• Mike Gregg, pastor of Royal Lane Baptist Church

• Victoria Robb Powers, senior associate pastor of University Park United Methodist Church

• Kerry Smith, pastor of Greenland Hills United Methodist Church

• Andy Stoker, pastor of First United Methodist Church

As governments loosen shelter-in-place restrictions and churches consider the next phase of ministry in light of COVID-19, Fellowship Southwest is producing webinars to help church leaders think about when to reconvene in person and how to go about it.

“These will be open-ended conversations about the spiritual, ethical and technical questions involved in ‘doing church’ face-to-face again,” FSW Coordinator Marv Knox explained. “We wouldn’t presume to tell congregations it’s time to go back to church. In fact, we advocate caution born of love for neighbor. But we know pastors and church leaders have to think about opening their doors again, and we believe these conversations will help.”

COVID-19 has transformed Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief ministries all along the U.S.-Mexico border. Among the pastors who guide the effort, some are reinventing their ministries, others have identified new service opportunities, and still others have suffered losses and obstacles that put their work at risk.

Yet they demonstrate resiliency only achieved through God’s grace and mercy. The pandemic has delivered more work, but more opportunities. It has created more challenges, but more paths for God to bless them and their ministries.

Sometimes, caregivers need care, and Fellowship Southwest has expanded its Immigrant Relief Ministry to support them.

Two stalwarts in FSW’s ministry to asylum seekers on the U.S.-Mexico border—Juvenal González in Tijuana and Rosalio Sosa in Juarez—recently reported an alarming result of the COVID-19 pandemic: Pastors in their local networks don’t have enough money to feed their families.

Immigrants up and down the U.S.-Mexico border will protect themselves with high-quality face masks, thanks to the CBF Advocacy Action Team for Immigrants and Refugees—including CBF Advocacy, CBF Global Missions and Fellowship Southwest.

The Fellowship Southwest Steering Committee looked toward the future even as members watched each other on computer screens during their spring meeting April 27.

The committee originally planned to meet at Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio but opted to convene via videoconference in light of COVID-19.

A crisis among global immigrants who hope—or who once hoped—to obtain asylum in the United States is playing out in desperation and hunger hundreds of miles from the U.S-Mexico border.

Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state, is one of the world's most important migration corridors. Races, nationalities, hopes and frustrations clash in Chiapas. Northbound immigrants, hoping for a homeland in the United States, cross paths with southbound rejects, the formerly hopeful, who reached the U.S. border only to be defeated by government policy and/or cartels, now resigned to head home, wherever that is.

Now, compounding their misery, global pandemic has disrupted their access to food, shelter and health care.

Immigrants in South America are the "most vulnerable among the vulnerable" on the continent, especially in the wake of COVID-19, reported Loida Carriel, the Latin American and Caribbean regional advocacy advisor for Tearfund, a Christian nonprofit that focuses on ending poverty.

"Even with the stay-at-home orders, they are exposing themselves on the streets, trying to sell whatever they can to survive," Carriel said. "Without a home, without food and with physical strain, they are an easy grip for the effects of Covid-19."

Partners committed to preserving the heritage of Logsdon Seminary are developing plans for extending and expanding the seminary’s legacy in light of its closure next year by Hardin-Simmons University.

Citing financial stress, the university in Abilene, Texas, announced in February it would close the seminary. HSU is offering final contracts to seminary faculty through May 2021 as part of a teach-out process. Previously, Logsdon had been singled out for criticism as too progressive by a few conservative West Texas pastors.

“Let the unaccompanied children come to me,” Rosalio Sosa says—in deeds if not actual words—as he responds to immigrant children being returned to the Mexican desert by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Sosa coordinates Red de Albergues Para Migrantes (Migrant Shelter Network), a ministry that serves 2,800 refugees in 14 immigrant shelters in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. Most of the shelters are located in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso. But his network extends to Palomas, a village about 100 miles west into the desert.

People of faith are helping provide a buffer of protection between the coronavirus and thousands of immigrants along the United States border, a government leader in north central Mexico reported.

"The best (protective) efforts have been working side-by-side with organizations of faith, specifically the evangelical churches," Enrique Valenzuela said of the government’s efforts to contain the virus and protect the population. "The merit goes out to the churches. Some of them stopped using their temples and converted them … to help social distancing during this pandemic."

Care packages brightened the day for 90 refugees living at Albergue Juventud 2000, a youth shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, early this week. Pastor Juvenal González handed out the little boxes containing high-demand hygiene products that are hard to get in Mexican immigrant shelters.

Two developments—both propelled by increasing concern over the COVID-19 pandemic—have begun to affect Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry along the breadth of the U.S.-Mexico border.

First, the border now is closed to all but selected travelers. This situation developed in stages. In mid-March, the U.S. and Mexican governments instituted a partial border closing. Initially, pastors and other relief workers feared they would not be able to cross the border to minister to refugee asylum seekers living in tent camps and shelters in northern Mexico. Officials maintained uneven enforcement, allowing pastors, chaplains and other aid workers to cross in most locations.

My buddy Brent accompanied me through one of the longest days of my life. “Wanna go deep-sea fishing?” he had asked. Adrift of sanity, I had answered affirmatively.

We awoke way before dawn—on vacation; that should’ve been a clue—and trekked toward the harbor. A flashing “Hot Donuts!” sign lured us off the road for a few minutes. Fortified with coffee and buzzing with sugar, we arrived at the dock on time.

Before you could say, “Bait your hook,” we paid real money to join about 120 strangers on a vessel that should’ve held half that many. The first mate lectured about all kinds of safety procedures I don’t recall. But he said one thing I’ll never forget: “If you have to throw up, throw up outside the boat.”