Dear Fellowship Southwest Friends,

Thanksgiving is the appropriate season to write to you. My heart overflows with thanks to all of you—individually and collectively—as I count down my final days as founding coordinator of Fellowship Southwest. How retirement arrived so soon (I feel I should be 32, not 65) baffles my imagination, but this is the moment.

All along the U.S.-Mexico border, the pastors who comprise Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry are facing a nuanced and complicated migratory flow. The number of Mexicans fleeing violence has skyrocketed, due to an ongoing cartel turf war in the southwestern states of Michoacán, Veracruz, Guerrero and Chiapas.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I suspect you might as well. It sometimes feels both as essential to modern life as the telephone and a potential cause of the downfall of humanity.

It is easy to love some of what Facebook, Twitter and Instagram bring to our lives. Connection with friends and family across the miles and years. The ability to “watch” kids grow up from afar. A constant stream of interesting information.

Goodness starts with God and can draw others to God, Fellowship Southwest Executive Director Stephen Reeves told Baptist Standard Editor Eric Black in a recent episode of “On the Way,” the Texas Baptist news organization’s podcast.

These past few months have been busy as we began preparing for Afghan families to arrive here in Fort Worth and then began to welcome them. God has stirred the hearts of so many to welcome new families and donate items to help them settle into life here in America.

Fellowship Southwest launched a new era this week, conducting its first board of directors meeting under the leadership of Executive Director Stephen Reeves in San Antonio.

The board elected Reeves, who has guided the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s advocacy program, early this year. Since mid-March, he has overlapped with Fellowship Southwest’s founding coordinator, Marv Knox, who will retire late this year.

Iglesia Valle de Beraca—a key partner in Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief network—is making progress on construction of a community center in downtown Matamoros, Mexico.

The wall dividing the Biden administration from nongovernmental organizations that assist refugees on the U.S.-Mexico border is growing taller.

Fellowship Southwest and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship have joined a broad coalition of faith organizations and faith leaders who have urged the Biden Administration to hold U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers accountable for abusing Haitian migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The coalition has asked the administration to pursue all possible procedures that would guarantee humanitarian protection for the Haitians.

Women called by God into ministry must run to rather than flee from God and their callings, speakers stressed during Texas Baptist Women in Ministry’s annual meeting Oct. 13 in Dallas.

Texas BWIM held its first in-person event in more than a year and a half, noted Executive Director Anyra Cano. The organization collaborated with the Baptist House of Studies at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology, which hosted the event, and Faith Commons, a Dallas-based organization that promotes public discourse rooted in the common values of many faiths.

Thousands of Haitian migrants are stranded in northern Mexico following the largest mass-expulsion of migrants by the U.S. government, in Del Rio, Texas.

Many of the deported Haitian migrants relocated to Matamoros, Mexico—across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas—waiting for a chance to enter the United States officially.

Rosalío Sosa sat at ringside when boxing legends Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield battled for the world heavyweight title in 1997. As millions watched the sluggers, Sosa waged his own fight, struggling with God’s call to ministry.

Life in ministry came full circle for Sheila Klopfer Oct. 3, when Del Sol Church in Albuquerque ordained her to the gospel ministry.

Change never stops on the U.S.-Mexico border. From a Haitian caravan encamping under a bridge, to a surge of unaccompanied migrant children, to the expulsion of asylum seekers, the border is the setting of hundreds of stories every week.

Every news outlet frames its narrative according to its perspective: Some depict the border as a war zone, where Customs and Border Protection officers clash with migrants. Others portray border dynamics as a humanitarian crisis. Many frame the border as a political challenge. A few claim the border is open, while others insist it is closed. Many Americans believe most migrants are criminals, while others think asylum seekers only desire safety from persecution.

The Cooperating Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma will honor a musician/composer, denominational leader, educator and pastor at its 2021 Celebrating Excellence awards dinner, Oct. 24 in Norman, reported Kyle Tubbs, the organization’s new coordinator.

The annual event recognizes individuals who honor Christ and strengthen the church through the excellence of their careers in service to others, Tubbs noted.

Pastor Israel Rodríguez-Segura received shock after shock when he heard the news about 15,000 migrants, mostly Haitians, camping under the international bridge between Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, and Del Rio, Texas. The number of migrants shocked him, as did reports of their squalid conditions, as well as the fact government officials had closed the bridge.

Treinta pastores y líderes hispanos del Compañerismo Bautista Cooperativo en los Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico se reunieron en Mérida, en la península de Yucatán en el Golfo de México a mediados de septiembre para disfrutar de un espacio de descanso y renovación auspiciado por Familia, la Red Latina de CBF.

Durante aproximadamente una semana, los pastores y líderes se recuperaron de los estragos del ministerio ocasionados por la pandemia de COVID-19, incluyendo la pérdida de seres queridos y la merma en la asistencia a sus iglesias. El retiro ofreció un oasis para el clero que necesitaba desconectarse de sus rutinas ministeriales diarias.

Familia, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Latino Network, provided a haven of rest and renewal during a mid-September retreat on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Thirty CBF Hispanic pastors and leaders from the U.S. mainland and Puerto Rico gathered in Mérida, on the Gulf of Mexico. For about a week, they recuperated from the ravages of ministering through the COVID-19 pandemic, including the loss of loved ones and suppressed church attendance. The retreat offered an oasis for clergy who needed to disconnect from their daily ministerial routines.

On Sept. 7, I was blessed to join 18 other pastors, ministers and faith leaders from the Southwest and beyond for a three-day retreat at the beautiful Mary and Joseph Retreat Center in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

Set among green gardens on a hilltop overlooking the lights of Los Angeles and just a few miles from the coast, it was the perfect location for quiet reflection and building relationships.

Happy birthday to me.

There, we got that out of the way. This week, I’m celebrating a “significant” birthday. It’s not round. It’s a gateway. My wife, Joanna, will celebrate the same-number feliz cumpleaños in five months. Because of those birthdays, we’re passing from one life-phase to another.