Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Advocacy, CBF Global Missions and Fellowship Southwest are collaborating to place Elket Rodríguez, an attorney with extensive experience in immigration law, on their team on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Rodríguez, a native of Puerto Rico who lives and practices law in Harlingen, Texas, will become CBF’s immigrant and refugee specialist Monday, March 2.

Thanks to your generosity, Fellowship Southwest provided more than 500 meals per week—2,250 breakfasts, lunches and dinners—to asylum seekers in Nuevo Laredo the past month.

Pastor Lorenzo Ortiz operates three refugee shelters in the Mexican city, just across the Rio Grande from his home in Laredo. Most of the immigrants come from Central America, but some are natives of Cuba, South America and elsewhere.

Joy and gladness radiated from the desert about 100 miles west of Juarez, Mexico, early this week.

A shelter for refugees opened in Palomas, Chihuahua—thanks to a coalition that includes the village of Palomas, the state of Chihuahua, Red de Albergues Migrantes (the Migrant Shelter Network), regional nonprofits and Fellowship Southwest.

Although Palomas is isolated and surrounded by hostile terrain, asylum seekers still flow through. They strive for passage into the United States at the border crossing on the northern edge of town. 

Construction of an immigrant respite center at Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville will begin soon, thanks to a Christmas miracle of generosity.

IB West Brownsville ministers to refugees who pass through Matamoros, Mexico, as they seek asylum in the United States. 

The U.S. immigration policy requires asylum seekers to “wait in place” in Mexico. So, they live in a tent city in Matamoros—without running water, heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer—as they eke their way through the asylum system. They fill out applications and participate in multiple hearings with U.S. officials in northern Mexico. The process takes months. Then, only a tiny fraction eventually enter the United States, where they live with sponsors until they attend their final hearing.

The location changed, but the wonder and heartbreak remained the same this week, when Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry sponsored a tour of shelters for asylum seekers in and around Juarez, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

This year, one aspect of the Christmas story hovers over my heart. It’s the part where an angel of the Lord tells Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and immigrate to Egypt, so Jesus would be safe from King Herod, who was hell-bent on killing him. 

Technically, this didn’t happen at the first Christmas. If you pay attention to Matthew 2 and do the math, you’ll realize Jesus was several months old, maybe even a toddler. But if you look at almost any Nativity Scene, you’ll see wise men and most likely agree the Holy Family’s immigration to Egypt is part of the overall Christmas story.

The humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border is personal—illustrated by tear-stained faces and heart-breaking stories—for Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leaders who toured Fellowship Southwest refugee-ministry sites last week.

Thirteen CBF state and regional coordinators from across the country participated in the tour, sponsored by Jorge Zapata, associate coordinator of CBF Texas and director of the FSW Immigrant Relief Ministry, and Marv Knox, coordinator of Fellowship Southwest. They completed a circuit from San Antonio, to Brownsville/Matamoros, then McAllen, Laredo/Nuevo Laredo and Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras, and back to San Antonio.

Asylum seekers will receive a much more comfortable welcome when Fellowship Southwest and Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville complete their first collaborative project.

FSW and the Brownsville congregation are teaming up to build a respite center on the church’s campus. Refugees will be able to shower, wash clothes, rest and receive Christian hospitality before taking a bus or plane to live with sponsors while they await their fate.

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.

Thanks to your support, Fellowship Southwest is helping Iglesia Bautista Tierra De Oro get immigrants off the streets of Juarez, Mexico.

For several months, FSW has provided funds so that the El Paso church could rent what we thought was a single building across the Mexico-U.S. border in Juarez. Jorge Zapata, associate coordinator of CBF Texas and director of FSW’s Immigrant Relief Ministry, recently traveled to the region and toured IB Tierra De Oro’s immigrant shelters with Pastor Rosalio Sosa.

On Halloween, when princesses and goblins and super heroes rang doorbells across the United States, visitors from all across the world landed on Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville’s doorstep.

Twenty-six immigrants—from Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, several Central American countries, and Cuba—received a warm welcome on a frigid South Texas day, reported Pastor Carlos Navarro.

IB West Brownsville is one of three refugee respite centers in Brownsville, just across the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico. For months, the church has provided gentle care and the message of Christ to immigrants seeking asylum in the United States. 

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. 

The level of dire human need—and opportunity for gospel ministry—has expanded in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, just across the border from Laredo, Texas, reported Jorge Zapata, director of Fellowship Southwest’s Immigrant Relief Ministry.

In fact, the border itself—the bridge over the Rio Grande between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo—has become a focal point of need, explained Zapata, associate coordinator of CBF Texas.

That’s because so many asylum seekers have clustered in Nuevo Laredo, they have overwhelmed the local immigrant shelters, and they’re sleeping on the bridge, he said.

The Fellowship Southwest Steering Committee held its fall meeting this week at First United Methodist Church in Dallas. Two members (pictured below)—Andy Stoker, senior minister at the host church, and Victoria Robb Powers, senior associate pastor at University Park United Methodist Church in Dallas—offered devotional reflections to start each session.

Because of your help, here are some things happening on the border, and some ways you still can pitch in.

• Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville was able to update and improve their outdoor showers. IB West Brownsville is one of Brownsville's best refugee shelters. Pastor Carlos Navarro specifically credits Fellowship Southwest for these improvements.

Refugees all along the Mexico-U.S. border feel the love of Jesus, thanks to you. 

This week, Fellowship Southwest sent more than $10,000 in aid to six ministries serving immigrants from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. FSW’s Immigrant Relief Ministry supports border congregations that provide food, shelter and gospel hope to refugees crowded on their doorsteps.

This photo is from our trip to Piedras Negras, Mexico. A mother washed the shoes her children wore on their journey from Central America and hung them to dry so they can be worn again. We saw men wearing too-small women's flip flops. We saw women with blistered feet wearing shoes unfit for walking. And we saw many barefooted children.

Lorenzo Ortiz, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Buen Samaritano in Laredo, Texas, is one of Fellowship Southwest’s close partners in ministry to refugees on the border. 

Pastor Lorenzo lost his previous church when the congregation he pastored grew weary of serving immigrants in their community. But he and his wife, Oralia, felt called by God to continue. So, they fed more than 6,000 refugees out of their Laredo home across three months. Fellowship Southwest, which already was working with them, continued its support. And Samaritan’s Purse also came alongside to keep the ministry going.

Saludos desde la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, donde un equipo de Fellowship Southwest ha cruzado de lado a lado esta semana conociendo tanto a los refugiados como a quienes les sirven. Hemos escuchado sus historias; reflexionado, soñado y orado juntos sobre la mejor manera de apoyarles. 

Nuestros corazones están llenos de dolor, gloria y gratitud mientras procesamos todo lo que hemos visto y oído. Nos apenamos por los refugiados, por la violencia y el sufrimiento que los llevó a huir de sus países de origen. Nos hemos deleitado en la gloria de verdaderos santos que se sacrifican para ministrarles en el nombre de Jesús, día tras día, semana tras semana, mes tras mes. Y estamos agradecidos por cómo Dios está trabajando incluso a través de esta horrible crisis para acercar a gente a experimentar la fe y el amor de Jesús.