What I experienced on the South Texas border in a word (or two)?

Human suffering.

Human suffering is straight up evil. And when it can be lightened or alleviated with what seems like fairly straight forward ways, but isn’t, it seems particularly malicious. When problems feel so big or so complicated that I feel powerless to do anything about them, then I have found it helpful to start with what’s right in front of me. Make it small and personal. So it was both heavy and heartbreaking, as well as encouraging and hopeful to hear story after story of asylum seekers, border patrol agents, aid workers, everyday Christians, everyday residents and workers along the border. 

Officer Sauri and Officer Sandoval conveyed the pressure to perform a very specific function - control who may and may not cross the border - that makes them a target from two different directions without any power to actually speak into why or how they perform their duties. They don’t represent any political perspective, and yet they are accused of acting politically. Their job has inherent dangers and risks: being viewed as the “bad guys” by those they apprehend, as well as also being viewed as “the bad guys” from countrymen because they can’t delineate from a criminal element with bad intent and desperate people fleeing desperate circumstances. They felt under-resourced, overwhelmed and under constant pressure. 

Maria, a volunteer at Brownsville Good Neighbor, saw the needs of asylum seekers being admitted into our country through a cold process that is incredibly unclear and unhelpful and on her own began serving meals, giving out shoe laces, and providing directions to help people communicate with their sponsor, figure out transportation to their destination, and find assistance along their journey without speaking much English. Now her organization is partnered with customs & immigration as an integral part of welcoming and resourcing our new neighbors. 

We heard the story of a young husband and father, separated from his family by the cartel. And in a display of power and coercion to be used as a mule, brutally made to watch cartel members rape and ultimately murder a young woman while powerlessly standing by with others under the threat of being killed themselves, or family members meeting the same fate. He shared this story with Maria while heaving with sobs and trembling on his knees under the immense weight of powerlessness and anger. It’s just 1 story of countless daily atrocities perpetrated on vulnerable people along a cartel controlled border. 

We spoke with Pastor Roberto who shepherds his people with no pay out of a calling from Jesus, while running a camp that shelters both work and ministry teams going into Mexico as well as asylum seekers coming into the US. He does appliance repair to support his family of 12, 7 of his kids adopted after just being given to them from desperate families. He also has a side gig, doing maintenance and repair for a local company and he sends that entire income to several pastors in Mexico to support their work and families. We stared in awe as he shared about his wife discovering two tumors and being given only weeks to live last March, and yet had been miraculously healed and now working tirelessly alongside us as we worked on their camp. 

We conversed with Emilio who grew up in the US from the time he was 8, but because his parents took the dangerous path to get their family here without the official asylum permission, he has simply tried to blend into suburban white culture as much as possible and ignore his Mexican roots. As a 25 year old he didn't have any pathway available to him to now legally become a resident or citizen without being deported and risking not getting to see his home or family for 10 or more years. Fortunately, he met and married an American citizen and they are pursuing Jesus's calling on their lives for ministry. It's not why he got married, but it has become the only way for a person like him to gain legal access to the country he calls home.

The stories are endless, but you get the gist from these few that it’s essentially a mishmash of people experiencing the worst life has to offer and yet time and time again (not every time, but many times) hearing people share how they have seen and experienced God in those same horrific circumstances. I saw Jesus time and time again in the lives of people who were self-sacrificially trying to make a difference, meet a need, care for an individual or for large groups of people. 

Make no mistake, as I shared with our team, I think that God is drastically underperforming! I think that God should immediately end the agony and injustice that we encountered. I think God should make the miraculous far more common than the daily drone of suffering. But I simultaneously, and sometimes begrudgingly, have come to trust in his incredible patience and kindness and goodness as an ultimately loving Dad to deal with this situation both now and once and for all in a far better way than I could. 

In the meantime, I felt my heart moved while walking around Roma, Texas and overlooking the sister city Miguel Aleman. While trying to fathom what it would take, or what dangers exist, for a family to leave behind their extended family and their country of birth, only to face natural disaster, a vicious and inescapable cartel, an incredibly small chance (the smallest chance it’s been in the past 50 years) of being allowed into the US legally, and the high likelihood of facing better odds trying to get across the Rio Grande and evade Border Patrol at the cost of having to work with whatever extortion or coercion tactics the cartel will utilize. AND YET, in that desperate situation and location, hearing the songs of praise echoing across the river along with the joy and celebration of a church feeding their neighborhood. We were moved to pray big, bold prayers while reminding ourselves of how God loves to move and work with faithful prayer warriors in the darkest of circumstances. We could see ourselves joining with the prayers of those who had gone before in that location, like the priests from that town in the late 1800’s who had been nicknamed the Cavalry of Christ. We could hear ourselves joining the prayers of believers on both sides of a man made border in many languages. And we imagined ourselves joining countless other prayers, like a single droplet in a growing, swelling river of prayer about to flood its banks and spill into every nook and cranny with God’s compassionate and rescuing action on both sides of its banks.

I’m aware that may sound like a lot of fanciful, wishful thinking in the face of a lot of pain. But to me it felt like a God-given faith moment, that joined his heart in simultaneously being broken and moved to do something.

Both Republicans and Democrats recognize that our immigration system is broken and needs reforming.

But before we can make change at a macro level, we ned to come face to face with the men, women and children who live on both sides of our border. We need to hear the stories of those who want to find a new life within our country.

Border Perspective provides a unique and comprehensive encounter with the broad range of perspectives - from hearing directly from Border Patrol officers, to hearing from border town residents, from learning about what churches and non-profits are doing to meet needs, to hearing from those who have entered the country as well as those who are still awaiting a chance.

Everyone in our country needs to expose themselves to the humanitarian crisis that is life on our southern border.