The COVID-19 pandemic has stricken the heart of Pastor Eleuterio González’s ministry to immigrants in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus demonstrates the power of compassion to transcend ethnic and religious differences. Now, 2,000 years later, shared love for immigrants has bound the hearts of Christian brothers from different quadrants of the Baptist denomination.

Carlos Navarro is the Southern Baptist pastor of Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville in Brownsville, Texas, just a mile or so from the Mexican border. Marv Knox is the Cooperative Baptist coordinator of Fellowship Southwest, a network of churches whose territory includes the U.S.-Mexican borderland.

The Statue of Liberty, Mother of Exiles, stands a little taller this week. Her fabled torch shines brighter. Once again, she beckons her welcome to “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Our presidential election signals a change at our borders. Once again, they radiate promise, potential and possibility. Once again, “the homeless, tempest-tost” may dream of opportunity in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Fellowship Southwest works among immigrants amassed along the United States’ 2,000-mile southern border. For the past several years, the refugees we have met placed greater faith in Americans than we placed in ourselves.

I am so appreciative and moved by the contributions made by many clergy, especially younger clergy, regarding systemic racism within the church. These folks are shedding light on how white privilege manifests and maintains itself in religious circles. While I admire and respect the bravery these people show by attempting to address these problems, we cannot talk about white privilege without addressing white exceptionalism.

Despite COVID-19’s grinding misery, pastors who form the backbone of Fellowship Southwest's ministry to immigrants are adapting to an ever-changing refugee flow and escalating needs of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

The heart and soul of Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant shelter in the north-central Mexican village of Palomas is nearing recovery.

María Elena Lao Rodríguez underwent high-risk surgery that spared her life in mid-August. But María, who experienced severe abdominal pain and bleeding while serving other migrants in Palomas, is expected to return to normal by the end of the month.

Rosalío Sosa knows how to deal with obstacles organized crime throws at his ministry to refugees on the U.S.-Mexico border. He has helped redeem many cartel members and has rescued young men from their grips.

But Sosa’s ministry—operating 14 immigrant shelters in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico—has been encountering another hurdle, this time placed by the United States government.

Note: This month marks a transition for longtime Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel Butch and Nell Green. They are moving from Houston, where they have served the past decade, to South Carolina to be near family. This is their farewell letter:

Fellowship Southwest is seeking applicants and nominations for its next coordinator. FSW is a collaborative ecumenical network organized around shared compassion for people in the U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico. The coordinator facilitates endeavors that meet human need, provide spiritual comfort, and strengthen congregations and other faith-based partners. The new coordinator will succeed FSW’s founding coordinator and will overlap as coordinator and coordinator-elect for up to one year. The time of overlap will provide opportunity for a seamless transition into the diverse body of ministry and broad constituency that FSW includes.

COVID-19 continues to pour out its wrath across the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, but CBF West continues to counter with tangible expressions of love and mercy.

Two pastors on the U.S.-Mexico border have more reliable transportation to serve immigrants, thanks to the generosity of Fellowship Southwest churches.

Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz in Laredo drives across the border every day to serve refugees he shelters in Nuevo Laredo and Saltillo. In order to protect them from the cartels, Ortiz keeps them off the streets by shuttling them in a 15-passenger van. He often shuttles immigrants to and from Nuevo Laredo, Saltillo and Monterrey, a three-hour drive one-way, several days a week.

Professional soccer beckoned to Rogelio Pérez. Soccer loved his speed, strength and energy. It respected his great mentor and father, Jaime Humberto Pérez Castillo.

But at age 16, Pérez trotted off the soccer field and onto a much different life journey.

How would you feel if the federal government compelled you and your 10-year-old child to submit to an invasive screening that includes DNA testing, iris and face scans, and voice and palm prints in order to obtain a benefit offered freely to others? How would you feel if you had to go through this process after you and your child suffered domestic abuse?

Jeremiah 29: 1-14 is written for exiles, for those in captivity. The vast majority of the Jews were uprooted from their birthplace, a land they dominated for centuries until 587 B.C. They were forced to travel roughly 700 miles through the Middle East desert. On their journey, these Jews left behind the provisions that sustained them.

The Babylonian customs were foreign to them. Their language was incomprehensible. The scenery was dull. The weather, the routines and the culture were different. These changes shocked them.

In 1954, Pablo Neruda, one of the most influential Latin American poets, published "Ode to the Onion." The Chilean praised the onion—the cheapest vegetable, and therefore most accessible in the homes of the poor. In doing so, Neruda uncovered Latin America’s soul and identity defined by simplicity, observable in sharing plain food.

Today, in the midst of the pandemic, hurricanes, financial crises, economic and political declines, and the collapse of the health systems of our Latin American siblings, I find wish to honor our many Latino cultures with an ode to the rice and the beans.

What does the Bible say about immigration? And what resources are available to study immigration from a biblical perspective?

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Advocacy Team for Immigrants and Refugees has curated an array of resources to illustrate what the Bible says about immigration. The team compiled “Biblical Resources on Immigration” to help people of faith think and act biblically.

When COVID-19 caused several members of Iglesia Bautista Victoria en Cristo to lose their jobs and income, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship grant enabled the Fort Worth congregation provide relief to its community.

CBF established the coronavirus fund shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began inflicting its wrath globally. The catastrophe particularly harmed immigrants, who live closest to their communities’ crumbling edges of vulnerability. In the United States, for example, many immigrants were the first to lose their jobs when the economy restricted. And although they pay taxes, they were not eligible to receive stimulus checks provided to citizens.

Based on his family background, Israel Rodríguez Segura seemed destined for the pastorate. Not necessarily so, but a decision he made as a rebellious teenager turned his life back toward God and made a long and faithful ministry possible.

People of faith must speak up for immigrants before next Wednesday, Sept. 30, when President Donald Trump will set the U.S. refugee quota for the next fiscal year, CBF leaders urged.

Can pizza prevent a kidnapping? Or spread harmony through a community? Or entice people to consider their relationship with Christ?

Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz thinks so. That’s why he’s launching Pizzas el Buen Samaritano in Nuevo Laredo, a city in northeastern Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas.