Good News From the Border

Building Relationships and Understanding Across Borders

Jake Crowther Praying at the Wall with a delegation of Young Adult Volunteer's serving in Denver, Hollywood, and Agua Prieta.

Thanks to Pastor Liz Smith shared images from their first day with us.

November 30, 2015

30 de noviembre, 2015

In his recent reflections Boxes, Bags and Gratitude ,our US Coordinator Mark Adams shares how our partners of Café Justo give thanks to God for bringing life from the midst of death, hope from the midst of despair and unity from the midst of division.

Whether with coffee farmers who envision alternatives to migration, or with folks struggling with addictions who hope for new life, or with members of churches who want to experience more deeply what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ when borders divide, or with migrants who desire to be reunited with family or with young adults volunteering with us for a year, we are grateful for the blessing of working people across borders to witness to and live out the life, hope and unity to which God calls us.

We are grateful also for your partnership that helps make possible our ministry here on the border and beyond and invite you to consider making a year end contribution to help our ministry continue to thrive.

On behalf of your ministry on the border,

Jeni O'Callghan Ramon Garcia Jeff Krongaard Carmina Sanchez

President Vice President Treasurer Secretary

Boxes, Bags and Gratitude

by Mark Adams, US Coordinator

"Muchos de nuestros hijos fueron al norte, y unos regresaron en cajas. Pero ahora gracias a Cafe Justo nuestros hijos estan regresando a cultivar café con nosotros. Many of our children went north (to the U.S.), and some returned in boxes (coffins). But now thanks to Café Justo our children have returned to cultivate coffee with us."

Reynaldo Cifuentes, founding member of Café Justo, welcomed the delegation of small business owners that we facilitated at the end of September with these words. Café Justo is the farmer-owned coffee roasting and exporting cooperative that we helped start 13 years ago to address root causes of migration.

The delegation was a wonderfully strange mix of millennials, Gen X-ers, and baby boomers; Presbyterian, Catholic, Pentecostal, Jewish agnostic, evangelical and religiously disaffected "seekers"; white, brown, and black; Chicano, Mexican-American, Dominican-American, Mexican, and Anglo-American; a synod executive, the chef of Stony Point, one of the national conference centers of the PC(USA), coffee shop owners, shoe store owners, a mayor, a member of the Mexican consulate; politically conservative, moderate and progressive-in short, a slice of heaven.

Click Here to read rest of the Story.

Coffee, Migration and Faith:

Reflections from 2016 Border to Border Delegation

We are grateful to God for the Border to Border delegation which had the opportunity to visit the Coffee Communities of Salvador Urbina and El Aguila, Chiapas!

Click here to see a pictorial reflection of their experience of coffee, migration and faith, let us know if you'd be interested in joining us for the 2016 delegation by emailing Trisha at [email protected]. Also see flyer below.

Migrants at the Border

by Brenda Cuellar, Migrant Resource Center US Coordinator

We are grateful for the ministry of Brenda Cuellar with us! The Christian Reformed Church whose social justice office brought a delegation with us in March asked Brenda to contribute to a series of articles that they are doing this fall expanding the understanding of what it means to be "Pro-Life".

Imagine this:

You are running in the dark. You are out of breath. Your heart is beating fast and you are desperate and anxious. You have not eaten in days and you are dehydrated. You cannot remember the last time you spoke with your family. Your knees are bruised and you have cactus spines all over your skin. Then you see lights. You are yelled at in a language you do not understand, handcuffed, stuffed in the back of a vehicle, and detained. You are placed in a cold holding cell for hours and then returned to what you had been escaping from; poverty, violence, and fear. You feel defeated and hopeless.

This reality is true for thousands of migrants crossing the United States and Mexican border every single day. Here is the true story of two women I met at the Migrant Resource Center (MRC) in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico who have lived this experience.

To read the Brenda's entire article click here.

The Migrant Resource Center has welcomed more than 85,000 men, women, and children into its doors providing a safe space, food, water, coffee, first aid, phone calls, housing, medical, and transportation home referrals since it opened June 30, 2006. The Migrant Resource Center is open 365 days a year. Currently we are seeking persons who will be sustaining partners donate $25, $50, $100 or more monthly in order to continue to provide services for our sisters and brothers who find themselves far from home.

Click here to set up a recurring donation on our secure online site and become a sustaining partners. Put MRC in Memo.

Construction Begins On Café Justo Y Mas

Help Us Make This Dream Become a Reality By Making a year-end donation. Put Café Justo y Mas en the memo.

Click to view more pictures of the construction process.

The borders of the New Jerusalem and ours

By: Jamie Pitts

We were blessed to help facilitate a delegation of the Mennonite Central Committee that included Professor Pitts, author of this article that appears in the magazine The Mennonite. In a time where fear is leading many to close doors, as Christians we are reminded that hospitality is central to our faith. The below article appeared in The Mennonite Magazine.

A headstone in the desert. Photo provided

Jamie Pitts is an assistant professor of Anabaptist Studies at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and a member of Hively Avenue Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Ind.

Near the end of the Book of Revelation, an angel says to John, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the
Lamb." The angel then takes him "in the Spirit" to see "the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God."

John describes in detail the city's high walls and its 12 gates, each a "single pearl" guarded by angels and inscribed with the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. The gates "will never be shut by day-and there will be no night" in the city. People whose names are "written in the Lamb's book of life" will come through the gates, bringing to the city "the glory and the honor of the nations." Unclean things and those who practice "abomination and falsehood" are prohibited from passing into the city, but the Spirit and the city itself call out to all who are thirsty to "come" and drink from the river of the water of life that runs through the city.

To read the rest of Jamie Pitts' article click here.

A Tradition of Welcome

"Presbyterians have been involved in ministries with refugees and displaced persons. It is part of our faith history, and today, it is the mandate of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) to equip and challenge other congregations to be part of that Ministry."

This 4 minute video from PDA is worth your time.

Deuteronomy 10:19 "And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt."