The Fellowship Southwest staff just completed a tour of most of the partners we support who serve migrants at the border. We started over Labor Day weekend, mainly as a way to touch base with partners in person, but also to introduce our new staff person, Anyra Cano, to the ministries there. Anyra is the director of programs and outreach, and she will be the primary person who helps to coordinate mission trips and experiences at the border.

Each week of Hispanic Heritage Month, FSW is featuring a Hispanic woman who does good work for God’s kingdom.

Nora Lozano is from Monterrey, Mexico, and has been involved in theological education for more than 25 years. She came to the U.S. at age 25 to pursue her Masters of Divinity and PhD in theological and religious studies, while raising a young family at the same time. She lives in San Antonio where she is a faithful member of Woodland Baptist Church. She currently serves as supplemental faculty at Central Seminary, and most notably, she is the executive director of the Christian Latina Leadership Institute.

Last time I checked, Haiti was not on the border of Texas.

I was born and raised on the border, in El Paso, TX. My parents are immigrants from Mexico, so traveling to the neighboring city of Cd. Juarez and into Mexico was very normal to me.

I’ll never forget waiting in the car for hours to cross back to El Paso. The trips back were filled with dismay, as the bridge was filled with children begging for money or selling candy or souvenirs. It was a reality that always disturbed me but taught me empathy and compassion. It was always an opportunity for my parents to teach us about our privileges, despite the fact that we were a low-income family.

Our new friend Alma Ruth says, “You can’t unsee what you have seen at the border. What you see makes you a witness to the humanitarian crisis. And then you have the moral authority to advocate.” Let me tell you what we saw last weekend on a border trip touching base with our ministry partners.

This past month, nearly 200,0001 encounters occurred between Border Patrol agents and migrants seeking to enter the U.S. This is only a fraction of the number of people awaiting official entrance and sanction into the country. When accounting for every person who is awaiting their case, seeking entry, or being processed, that number easily reaches into the millions. These numbers are staggering, and yet, for me, they were easy to miss. Unless you live in a border town where those seeking asylum consistently arrive weary, confused, and often carrying little more than their children, then distance creates a barrier to experiencing this reality. While many churches and organizations have heard the news about our nation’s border, and perhaps have taken a stand on the issue, very few are engaged in the ongoing work it demands. And yet, Scripture clearly calls us to love the foreigner, and to welcome them. Although not every church is called to serve in the same way, our calling to love the foreigner is an unavoidable imperative. It is mentioned throughout the Scriptures dozens of times and is reaffirmed in the New Testament through Jesus’ own immigration story. I take this as indication that every church ought to consider how they will pursue this calling regardless of how it may differ.

Have you seen the headlines that Biden is making DACA more permanent? This is something to celebrate! But it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Here’s the download, which I got from Elket Rodriguez, our immigration legal specialist.

Elia Moreno is the executive director of the Texas Christian Community Development Network (TxCCDN). She is committed to helping people in their network understand the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Since she hadn't traveled to the border herself since she was a child, she sought the help of Brenda Kirk from the National Immigration Forum and Elket Rodríguez, CBF field personnel in the Rio Grande Valley.

It has been a little over a year since I made my first trip to the border for Fellowship Southwest. I’ve been back several times since and I’ve stayed in consistent contact with the pastors in our border network. Thanks to your generosity we’ve been able to maintain our support of their ministries and respond to unexpected critical needs.

Cintia Aguilar graduated from Baylor University’s dual degree graduate program in May 2022 with a Master of Social Work and a Master of Divinity. She was also an intern at the Center for Church and Community Impact last school year.

C3I is a close partner to Fellowship Southwest. Thanks to a generous grant, FSW financially supports a few of C3I’s interns each year. We were able to get to know all the interns fairly well, sharing the articles they wrote and the results of projects they focused on during the year.

A group from Second Baptist Church in Lubbock drove six hours south to Piedras Negras in early August. They had been there before. Three years ago they built and delivered 75 bunk beds to this shelter, run by Pastor Israel Rodríguez and his church, Primera Iglesia Bautista. This time they were coming with their trucks loaded with picnic tables.

Fellowship Southwest is proud to announce the addition of our new full time staff member. Anyra Cano will officially start her position as Director of Programs and Outreach on August 15. Anyra comes to Fellowship Southwest from Texas Baptist Women in Ministry where she served as coordinator, and Christian Latina Leadership Institute where she served as academic coordinator.

CAMERON:

Five years ago this summer I had just started a job working for a public affairs group with some dear friends. We had an exciting new client which they hired me to help out with. It was a network of churches and organizations brought together by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship all focused on mission and ministries in the Southwest. They were calling it “Fellowship Southwest.” My friends sought me out because of my experience with churches and my personal connections inside these networks. I was part of the team who would help strategize and assist with communications for this budding new organization.

There seems to be an assumption that fewer people will choose to emigrate from their homes in the wake of tragic migrant deaths they hear about along with us in the news. But these tragedies should not be used by politicians as a deterrence method. First of all, it doesn’t work. Secondly, it’s callous and inhumane.

With so many needs on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and restrictions from COVID on the decline, participating in a wide range of missions opportunities is now a welcome option for church groups through Fellowship Southwest.

Remain in Mexico no more. In the midst of so much legal uncertainty, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in Biden v. Texas that the President has discretionary authority to terminate the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as the Remain in Mexico policy or MPP.

Fellowship Southwest enjoyed being in person at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, for the first time since 2019. There were many wonderful experiences during the week, but a highlight was surely a quick afternoon gathering of supporters in a hotel suite.

Elket Rodríguez is now an officially commissioned field personnel on behalf of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship for his transformative work on the United States-Mexico border. "Field personnel" is the preferred terminology by CBF for what is more commonly called a missionary. Elket's work encompasses mission work, but it is so much more. As an attorney and a minister, Elket offers trainings and workshops to migrants and asylum seekers to help them navigate the legal immigration system. He advises the network of border pastors supported by Fellowship Southwest on U.S. and Mexican immigration policy. And he represents CBF and FSW in national immigration advocacy coalitions.

¿Cómo lo hacemos? Esa es la pregunta que se hace el pastor Eleuterio González cada vez que piensa en su ministerio con los migrantes en Matamoros, México –al otro lado del Río Grande con Brownsville, Texas. Durante casi tres años, González y la congregación que pastorea, la Iglesia Valle de Beraca, se han levantado temprano en la mañana para alimentar, albergar, transportar y proteger a los migrantes en la ciudad fronteriza.

How do we do it? That question keeps lingering in Pastor Eleuterio González’s mind every time he thinks about his ministry to migrants in Matamoros, Mexico –across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. For almost three years, he and the congregation he pastors, Iglesia Valle de Beraca, have woken up early each morning to feed, shelter, transport and protect migrants in the border town.

On Friday June 3, Fellowship Southwest executive director Stephen Reeves received a call from Terry Burton, a leader in the Border Collaboration Network and FSW supporter, with the terrifying news that Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz had been kidnapped. Lorenzo is a dear brother to Fellowship Southwest and a member of our border pastor network. He receives monthly support from the Knox Fund for Immigrant Relief for the three shelters he operates in Nuevo Laredo and one in Monterrey where he shelters, feeds, protects, and safely transport migrants who find themselves with nowhere to go in northern Mexico. A kidnapping like this is something we have always feared, since Nuevo Laredo is known as the most dangerous city in North America because of cartel activity.