Fellowship Southwest will celebrate its fourth birthday this Sunday. How can Aug. 1, 2017—our launch date—paradoxically seem like only yesterday and decades ago? Well, joyful activity seems to make time fly. And we have traversed the pandemic, which made weeks feel like months and months seem like years.

This summer, friends in ministry demonstrate how helping one another in times of need actually helps extend our community ministries to others. Isa Torres, pastor of Cliff Temple en Español at Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas, and Carlos Valencia and Anyra Cano, pastors at Iglesia Bautista Victoria en Cristo in Fort Worth, already were friends and ministry partners in the DFW community.

Misinformation creates mental barriers that affect the lives of many migrant families, immigration attorney Elket Rodríguez told more than 600 refugees stranded in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.

Los cubanos en el exilio han sufrido junto a sus compatriotas en la isla, aseguró el pastor David Deulofeu del Templo Bautista de South Houston.

Texas Impact organized a rally at the Texas state Capitol July 19 to protest the proposed voter suppression legislation. Over 400 people of faith gathered on the south side of the Capitol and listened to a dozen inspirational speakers. The speakers, representing Christians of many denominations, Jews and Muslims, all professed convictions about the importance of protecting the right to vote.

Cubans in exile have been suffering alongside their activist sisters and brothers on the island, reported Pastor David Deulofeu of Templo Bautista de South Houston—Baptist Temple of South Houston.

Can you think of a word more maligned than “politics”?

Some people believe it’s a dirty term affixed to a despicable craft. That’s because, for the most part, it’s practiced so poorly.

Cooperative Baptist leaders expressed disappointment after a Federal Court in Texas ruled that Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is illegal. The ruling prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from approving new DACA applications, but it does not bar new DACA applicants to submit their applications or affect the more than 700,000 recipients who already have applied successfully.

Members of Iglesia Valle de Beraca in Matamoros, Mexico, have helped evacuate more than 600 victims of floods that submerged the city and surrounding colonias, just across the U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville, Texas.

Pulpit plagiarism has been making the news again.

“Again” is the operative word. This is not new. A couple of friends, now in their 80s, recall making a wager about which swiped sermon a famous Baptist preacher/evangelist would deliver to a captivated crowd at Oklahoma’s Falls Creek Assembly when they worked there as young men. That was at least 50, maybe 60, years ago.

You can understand if Maria Elena De Los Angels feels like Job. She’s one of the victims of the deep freeze that pummeled Texas last February—folks Fellowship Southwest is helping through its close partner, Hearts4Kids.

¡Mírame! Eso me susurró Jesús todos los días que estuve en la gira de Fellowship Southwest visitando los ministerios que componen su red de apoyo a migrantes. Por espacio de dos semanas, fueron muchas las veces que me encontré a Jesús por la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México.

Kyle Tubbs believes Cooperative Baptists in Oklahoma will “dream big” about their future. And from what Tubbs has seen, he’s confident that future is as big and bright and open as the Sooner State’s vast horizon.

Tubbs became the Cooperating Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma’s fourth coordinator June 1, succeeding Steve Graham. Previously, Tubbs led the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s national church-starting program. Before that, he started one of CBF’s most innovative congregations, Peace of Christ Church in Round Rock, Texas.

“Look at me,” Jesus whispered every day as I participated in a recent tour of Fellowship Southwest’s immigrant relief network. Many times, I saw him on the U.S.-Mexico border.

• I saw Jesus in the anguished eyes of a deported veteran, feeling betrayed.

• I saw Jesus scrambling to scavenge used clothes thrown into the street by Mexican residents.

I mowed my lawn Saturday morning. No, this is not an unusual chore, but it didn’t feel the same.

After spending 10 days along the border with pastors who sacrifice so much for their neighbors and talking with refugees who walked out of their homes with only what they could carry, it was jarring to go back to such a common, mundane luxury. It seemed just so inconsequential. (According to their letter, my homeowners’ association disagrees.) I rarely consider how fortunate I am to have this chore.

Goals most U.S. fathers take for granted—building a family and living in peace—seem like luxuries in Central America. And hopes of life free from the grasp of organized crime “gangs” feel more like fantasies than achievable dreams.

A paradox of the refugee crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border sat smiling on the floor of a Chihuahuan desert shelter. She cooed and waved and charmed three Fellowship Southwest visitors.

Fellowship Southwest received great news last week—from the Internal Revenue Service.

“We’re pleased to tell you we determined you’re exempt from federal income tax under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3),” the IRS said in a letter sent to FSW Coordinator Marv Knox.

Los cristianos fieles siembran la semilla del evangelio que produce almas nacidas en el reino de los cielos, incluso en el pedregoso suelo de los caminos migratorios.

El domingo pasado, la Primera Iglesia Bautista de Piedras Negras, México, llevó a cabo su primer servicio bautismal desde el inicio de la pandemia del COVID-19, y fue una celebración infundida por la inmigración.

Even on the rocky soil of migration pathways, faithful Christians sow gospel seeds that yield bountiful blessings—souls born into the kingdom of heaven.

This past Sunday, Primera Iglesia Bautista of Piedras Negras, Mexico, conducted its first post-COVID baptismal service, and it was an immigration-infused celebration.