It was the first week of January 2009. My wife, Debbie, opened the front door at 6:15 a.m. to retrieve the newspaper from our driveway. In the darkness, she passed what she thought was a cat. Our dog, Yoda, who normally followed her, remained motionless at the door just inside the house. Debbie quickly knew why.

A skunk was scurrying from our living room to the kitchen, where he/she scampered laps around the island before heading back to the living room. Debbie screamed at me safely tucked in bed upstairs, “Glen, there’s a skunk in the house!”

Your church is encouraged to invite a woman to preach in February and to participate in the Baptist Women in Ministry Month of Preaching, announced BWIM Executive Director Meredith Stone.

BWIM launched the annual emphasis in 2007. The Month of Preaching “has been a deeply significant source of joy and discovery for many churches as they have celebrated the giftedness of women,” Stone noted.

Este ha sido un año difícil pero gratificante para Jorge Zapata, coordinador asociado de CBF Texas, director del ministerio de ayuda a inmigrantes de Fellowship Southwest y fundador de Hearts4Kids, una organización sin fines de lucro que sirve a las comunidades más pobres del Valle del Río Grande.

Una pandemia, un huracane y miles de familias inmigrantes hambrientas a ambos lados de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México han redefinido el ministerio de Zapata en 2020.

This has been a tough-yet-rewarding year for Jorge Zapata‚ associate coordinator of CBF Texas, Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief director and founder of Hearts4Kids, a nonprofit ministry that serves the poorest communities in the Rio Grande Valley.

A pandemic, a hurricane and thousands of hungry immigrant families on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have redefined Zapata’s ministry in 2020.

La identificación de una iglesia Hispana en Houston con el nivel de vulnerabilidad en el que viven las familias migrantes la impulsó a apoyar un ministerio que sirve a refugiados en Matamoros, México, justo al otro lado de la frontera con Brownsville, Texas.

Y es que mientras el pastor Eleuterio González se veía forzado a cerrar un refugio para migrantes en Matamoros por órdenes del gobierno como respuesta al brote del COVID-19 en la ciudad, el pastor David Deulofeu se preparaba para bendecir el ministerio de González con provisiones para el invierno, vestimenta, abrigos, mantas, toallas y ropa de cama, así como comida y material escolar.

Shared understanding of weakness and vulnerability prompted a Houston church to support a ministry to refugees in Matamoros, Mexico—just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

As Pastor Eleuterio González responded to the COVID-19 outbreak that forced him to close an immigrant shelter in Matamoros, Pastor David Deulofeu prepared to bless González’s ministry with winter provisions—warm clothes, blankets, towels and bed linens—as well as food and school supplies.

As 2020 recedes with each darkening day, families the world over might pretend (who could blame them?) their Advent candles represent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Imagine little Cindy Lou, reading the initial Advent meditation: “Every night this week, we will light the first purple Advent candle, Death. Next week, we will light the second purple candle, Famine, followed by the pink candle, War. And then, the week before Christmas, we will light the final purple candle, Conquest.”

Thinking about Thanksgiving from the sinkhole otherwise known as 2020 seems at once harder and easier than it has in years past.

Unless you got married or had a baby or backed into a positive life-transforming event, you’ll probably agree 2020 is the sorriest year in most of our lifetimes. But it also has revealed—in contrast—the simple pleasures and joys for which we can be thankful in any year.

God always has a plan, Pastor Carlos Navarro and Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville believe. And the Nov. 15 dedication of the church’s brand-new immigrant respite shelter proves their point.

The shelter—funded almost exclusively by Fellowship Southwest—prepares IBWB to respond to refugee surges on the U.S.-Mexico border, Navarro said.

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.