Editor’s note: A team of women from Illinois Baptist churches spent a week with the Send Relief Center in Laredo, Texas. The center, operated by the North American Mission Board, has served thousands of “the least of these,” migrants and refugees at the Rio Grande border with Mexico. Today, about 20 people arrive each week.
I packed last minute, but I’d been praying about the trip for months. Jill McNicol, our state WMU President who organized the mission trip to Laredo, Texas, had reminded us while we were still at the airport in St. Louis that we’d need to be “flexible and patient.”
Osvaldo Lerma, the Send Relief Ministry Center’s director, and his wife, Vanessa, repeated the same advice: “Be flexible and patient.” Osvaldo added, “Be listening and available for the Holy Spirit.”
Send Relief is there full-time in the border city of Laredo to show Christ’s love and serve families in transition. Their model is one of partnership and cooperation in meeting physical needs, but more importantly, sharing the hope of the gospel through face-to-face interactions. Osvaldo and Vanessa make it look easy—easy enough for seven women from Illinois to give it a try. So we did!
We took beds and bedding to a couple of families with children who had no beds. OK, putting those beds together was not as easy as it should have been, even after we consulted the instructions. But we got it done. Those beds made seven kids very happy and made a way for us to connect them with Send Relief and hopefully a local body of believers.
“Time,” Osvaldo stressed after a full list of what it takes to reach people and then disciple them. “It takes a lot of time.”
Osvaldo Lerma, the Send Relief Ministry Center’s director, prays with a man.
We visited a center that a few months ago had been overwhelmed with unhoused families in transition. The load on the workers there has lessened, but there is still a sense of great need. The most we could do for them was to pack groceries, assembly line style, for the next batch of families that would be coming through. Seven women can break down 50-pound bags of rice and beans into family-sized bags and pack a boat load of groceries in an hour or two and still have time for conversation.
My favorite part of going to Laredo was not the weather, although we all enjoyed a wonderful peek at spring. My favorite was not the food, although our hosts fed us well. My favorite was not the laughing or the storytelling, although I added some really good stories to my collection and a good belly laugh is great medicine.
My favorite was seeing tears from a little boy’s eyes when he heard that he’d been wrong. “No,” I said. As best I can recall our conversation, I continued. “God loves you. He isn’t looking to ‘catch’ you doing something wrong or to punish you. He loves you. He’s looking to save you. He wants to provide for you—to protect you.”
There’s a picture in my heart though of Raymond sitting on a concrete step—no shirt, filthy feet, and eyes that were almost hidden by obesity. “I got a new bed.” he said. “And a pillow!”
Encountering Raymond and offering him one truth about God would have been enough to make the trip to Texas worthwhile. But God is way better than great.
Two or three spiritual conversations per day is so far above my average. But everything we did in Laredo, Texas, I could do right here in Pekin, Ill.
Spiritual Breakthrough: “We distributed sack lunches for unhoused people in one of the city parks. [Mission Center Director] Osvaldo asked for a volunteer to tell the story of the Prodigal son in English and he would translate in Spanish. Afterward a man came up and wanted to pray with me. Walter has struggled with addictions. He wanted to recommit his life to Christ.” ─Jill McNicol
I met Camilla at a downtown park. It’s near the bus station and where unhoused and restless people can rest in the shade. We prayer walked the perimeter a couple of times before unloading the van and handing out hygiene kits, freshly packed sack lunches and bottles of ice-cold water. Camilla came to collect her goodies.
She sat at a picnic table at the edge of the park and with her back to the crowd. The majority of the people had been served, so I made my way to Camilla.
I had thought to pack some keychain flashlights. People living on the streets might appreciate such a trinket. I pulled one from my backpack.
“I’d like to give you this flashlight,” I said to draw her attention. “Would it be okay if I tell you why I want you to have it?”
Oh, Lord! What am I supposed to say next? I haven’t a clue!
I started to sit across from her still not knowing what else to say.
Easy, Rita. Take time. There’s no rush.
I prayed in the time it took to grab a deep breath. “I don’t want to interrupt your lunch. I don’t mind if you eat while I talk.” She shuffled the lunch bag, but kept her eyes on that little, red flashlight. “This flashlight reminds me that Jesus is the light of the world.” I held it out. Dangled it.
She started to reach for it, but then didn’t. Her blank stare wasn’t as strong as the Holy Spirit’s presence.
“The light of the world,” I said. “Duh. Everyone knows that’s the sun. Right?” She grinned as if accommodating an old lady who must be 40 or 50 years her senior.
“Tell me, what do you think about Jesus? Has anyone ever told you that he is the Light of the World? That he created light?”
“No.” Camilla looked straight at me.
Unexpected guest: It was 6 a.m. and I was stumbling toward the restroom in a pre-coffee haze when Nancy calmly asked, “Jamie, can you help me with something?”
I figured it was a fashion emergency or a stuck zipper. Instead, she pointed a finger and said, “There’s a tarantula on my shoe.” We named him Waldo. ─Jamie Bond
With no clue how to direct this conversation, I played nervously with the flashlight. “A flashlight seems useless in broad daylight, doesn’t it. Do you think you will be able to use it? I promise it’s bright at night.”
She nodded and smiled. Her teeth were rotten or missing, but what a beautiful smile. I talked about how we don’t think about light until it gets dark. She agreed.
“A dark day happens to all of us,” I said. It happened to me.”
“I’ve had dark days,” she said. Hers was a story of loneliness, hopelessness, addiction, and shame. There was no Roman’s Road confession, but I quoted John 8:12 imperfectly. Camilla gave me permission to pray with her, just a simple prayer for her safety, that she would soon desire to know Jesus and understand that he wants to light up her world.
I pointed out Osvaldo and Vanessa who regularly bring a crew to feed people in the park, and I gave her directions to their church, just around the corner. I trusted an outcome that was not for me to see or finish, but to pray about.
I tucked one last flashlight in my purse for the flight home. I’ve always wanted a good airplane story of my own. I’d claimed a cherished aisle seat. A tiny Indian woman sat in the middle.
She’d noticed my red pen and manuscript. “You’re a teacher,” she said.
“No. I’m a writer.”
Normally, I’d encourage that conversation to continue, but what I really wanted was a legitimate reason to pull out that last flashlight and tell the Light of the World story again. But our conversation had nowhere to go.
Once the plane stopped at the gate in St. Louis, I reached for my phone. I had only one message during the two-hour flight. It was from a man in Peoria who is working to plant an Indian church there. He’d sent me a flyer about an upcoming Easter event.
“You won’t believe this,” I said to the Indian woman. “But the only message I got during this flight is from a man who came from India to be a missionary. He’s inviting me and any of my Indian friends to an event.” I tipped my phone, hoping she would take a look at the colorful flyer.
“Where is that?” she asked.
“Peoria. Are you going on to Peoria?”
“No,” she said. “I’m going to Miami. But I have a daughter in Peoria. She might be interested.” In spite of the chatter around us, I’d heard her clearly. She added, “And it would be good for her.”
The young lady in the window seat was getting restless, but the Indian lady took her time and pulled her own phone from her purse to take a photo of the flyer. I then pulled a business card from my purse and gave one to my new friend, whose name I can neither pronounce nor spell.
So our mission trip to Laredo is not over. God is taking time to finish what he started in the lives of the people we met and in our lives, too.