Posted: 8/03/07
| Pablo González, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Antioquia in Juarez, consults with one of the residents in his church’s transitional living home. The mother of three cares for her children during the day while her husband drives workers to and from the maquiladora factories. |
WMU FamilyFEST joins Buckner,
BGCT to minister on the border
By Jenny Pope
Buckner International
JUAREZ, Mexico—Jan Burton sat with Pastor Pascual Juarez from Iglesia Bautista Genesis as he told her, through a translator, about the hardships of serving God in a border town. Weeks earlier, thugs burned his trailer to the ground, held him at gunpoint and threatened to kill him and his family.
“He told us that he was not going to leave Juarez until God sent him away,” Burton said.
Burton, a nurse from Athens, Ala., was one of nearly 100 people who devoted a week to serving others recently during the national Woman’s Missionary Union FamilyFest in El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.
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| A volunteer nurse provided a routine health checkup to an infant in Juarez, part of a traveling medical clinic during WMU FamilyFEST week along the Texas/Mexico border. |
WMU volunteers from more than 15 states partnered with Baptist General Convention of Texas Border/Mexico Missions and Buckner Border Ministries to provide light construction, medical clinics, crafts, haircuts and sports camps to children and families living in some of the poorest colonias—unincorporated communities—straddling the border.
The week of ministry was their 14th since 2001 in an effort to bring families together for missions and encourage others to get involved.
FamilyFest volunteers endured heat and swirling sandstorms in Sparks Colonia in El Paso to minister to families whose average annual income is $12,000. About 20,000 people live in Sparks, where homeowners build their homes brick-by-brick with each paycheck earned, taking an average of seven years to construct their “dream home,” typically a one- or two-bedroom shack.
Ruth Ann Smith sat on the floor scrubbing paint splotches in the middle of newly painted Tierra Prometida church in Sparks.
As a former Girls in Action member and traveling on her 12th WMU FamilyFest mission trip with her husband Owen, Smith said missions is in her blood.
“We just enjoy doing church work,” she said, meticulously scrubbing one white spot before noticing another halfway across the room.
“I can’t do everything, but I can clean the floor. You just do whatever it takes; whatever needs to be done.”
Her daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Dan Foley, made repairs outside as their two sons, Brendan, 16, and Ryan, 14, finished the exterior paint. It was the Foleys’ first mission trip as a family.
“I think it’s good for these kids to be here,” Dan Foley said. “It’s given them a different perspective on life and how to help others.”
A few team members repaired the leaky roof of church member and neighbor Soccoro Sepulveda, while others conducted adult crafts and a sports camp at the Sparks Community Center down the road.
Less than 10 miles away, on the other side of the Rio Grande, volunteers worked alongside pastors and church members in Juarez to provide minor construction, food boxes and routine health checkups at four Baptist churches—Alpha Omega, Nosotros con Dios, Genesis and Antioquia.
With an estimated population of 3.5 million, Juarez has experienced a surge in working-class citizens migrating from the south to labor in one of the many maquiladoras, or factories.
The swelling population and lack of police authority has brought a near-crippling increase in crime, drugs and disease.
Volunteer Bonnie Eaton, an El Paso native, was among the many nurses and two area doctors who checked blood pressure and basic health conditions of Juarez citizens in need of medical care.
A small construction team worked to repair the roof of several families’ homes at Iglesia Bautista Antioquia, located in the impoverished Avelina Gallegos colonia.
The homes are part of Pastor Pablo González’s social ministry Brindando Ayuda al Necesitado (Giving Help to the Needy), a multi-service program to help struggling families get back on their feet.
Each family in the church’s multi-unit home occupies about a six- by six-meter space. They share an open courtyard and one bathroom. Several of the men work in the maquiladoas or as bus drivers.
Mike Boyd, Taylor Johnson, 17, and Kenneth Little, 16, from Birmingham, Ala., have little construction experience.
Even so, it took them just three days to repair the roof covering three family units in the home.
It’s a roof that will last more than eight years, González said.
“It’s more than just work,” Johnson said. “There’s meaning behind it.
“It’s been one of the best experiences of my life.”
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