Los Desaparecidos

"Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back" (Deut. 30.4)

Their eyes gazed upon ours from wilted, yellowing sheets of copy paper.  Black marker ink sketched out a name, age, and the last location they were seen.  “Los Desaparecidos.” The disappeared ones.  In 1970s Argentina and Chile, the government was responsible for the disappearance of tens of thousands of civilians who were viewed  to be in opposition to the authorities.  Today the use of this phrase is no longer limited to South Americans who disappeared at the hands of the government but instead is a general term coined for those who simply vanished. 

We talked, prayed and sat with transient migrant men.  Their daily, earthly feast--of bologna and onion stew and bites of re-fried beans scooped up with stale bits of bread--was shared with us but for three days.  Their eyes and lips told the story of men seeking bread…of the nations seeking sustenance.  Coming from Honduras, Guatemala, San Diego, Oregon, seated around metal tables, served a basic meal on industrial plates.  They were in this place, in Tijuana, for a season.

And then...

And then…our paths would only cross again on the other side of eternity.  After seven sunsets in this place, they would walk beyond the gate and disappear.

They would go to…

The answer was as absent as the bread in their bellies.  Some would attempt to cross into the United States again through the sweltering high desert west of Tecate--from Jerusalem to Jericho, but with no Good Samaritan to be found--only bandits, drug smugglers and searing thirst to plunder them along the way.  Others would find work but no pay at the hands of human traffickers, locking them in metal sheds at dusk after 15 hours of bone crushing field labor.  A few would achieve their dream, find work, bread, sustenance.  And some were the bandits along the road.  They would travel to jail or slip through the fingers of the law.

And then…and then  Los Desaparecidos.  The story written but the ending unknown.  After a time of silence, a family member or friend would tape an old frayed photograph to a piece of paper, and, with tears in their eyes, and fear in their souls, write the disappeared's name, and age, and last known location.  They would photocopy the page, taking it to the mission. “Have you seen him?  Do you know anything about him?  Could you post his photo?” 

And he would join the wall of los desaparecidos, their names, ages and stories blending together in an overwhelming sea of papers, blown gently by the sea salt air of Tijuana.  No one would know their story... but everyone knew.

Children of God.  Named.  Sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever….Los Desaparecidos. 

….Come, Lord Jesus….

The Body of Christ in Orwell's Friendship Park

“Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  (Romans 8:38-39)

The sandy beach and dancing Pacific coastline bordering Tijuana and San Diego is home to an area known
as “Friendship Park.”  During the '70s and '80s, Mexican and American families would frequent the park, sharing picnics with their international neighbors, the sound of children laughing and playing on chain link swings  harmonizing  local Chicano musicians.

In a twist of Orwellian irony, Friendship Park is now  flanked with two 15 foot tall steel column fences.  Strobe lights dance through the night sky creating a constant and disorienting light over the city while three cameras, one infrared, one panning, and one motion sensor activated, stand tall above the former lighthouse.  Drones circle high overhead, searching for activity and testing the latest in US military technology.  Border patrol agents guard this and the additional 2,100 miles of borderlands between the US and Mexico.  The fence extends hundreds of yards into the Pacific and then continues below the sea reinforced by cemented iron rail road ties pulled from old California railways laid half a century ago--by Mexican American laborers.  The Mexican side of the fence is peppered with graffiti reminiscent of West Berlin circa 1986: “This fence won’t save your economy;” “I was a stranger and you welcomed me;" and names of hundreds of migrants who died trying to cross into the US.  

The area between the fences in Friendship Park is locked except for 5 hours each day on Saturday and Sunday when one gate is opened, allowing US and Mexican residents to stand within inches of one another, speaking through the steel mesh.  Mamas with their niñas sit on the concrete ground for hours, speaking to papas on the other side.  Abuelitas, speaking in a rapid clip and wide gestures catch up with neitos, while the sea breeze blows through their chestnut hair and brazenly ignores the border as it slips through 1/8 inch openings in the fence.

While nothing is permitted to pass through the border, the Word of God seeps through by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Each week, priests gather on either side of the fence in Friendship Park.  Though it would take over two hours, an international border, and a visa to stand on the other side of the fence, these men of God live Romans 8 “neither life nor death…nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come can separate us from the love of God through Jesus Christ.”

With bread and cup in hand, they speak the WORD that transcends all that separates the faithful.  “On the night in which he was betrayed…Nuestro Senor Jesus el pan y dio gracias, broke it, and gave to all to eat, saying, es mi cuerpo que por vosotros, do this in remembrance of me.”  Take and eat.  Take and drink.  And they do. 

Across the border, Bread becomes Body, Wine becomes Blood, the WORD becomes flesh and dwells among all.  And for a moment, God’s children are ONE.

When I was Thirsty, You Gave Me Something to Drink...

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink." (Matthew 25:34-35)

Passages such as these often seem serene and simple.  The easiest of Jesus’ teachings to follow.  Yes, we believe everyone should have clean water.  In worship, we sing the Canticle of the Turning and boldly sing “The hungry poor shall grieve no more for the food they can never earn…”  It is Gospel.  It is the way, the truth and the light.  But in a world as broken as ours, we are pushed to understand, to see, what these passages are asking us—how we are called together to serve ALL who thirst.

Border Angels, a nonprofit ministry, places water along common routes in the deserts and mountains so migrants who are attempting to cross from Mexico into the US will not die of thirst.  Over 10,000 souls, about two people every day, die as they attempt to cross through the mountains or desert into the US.  Border Angels believes Jesus' call to give all who thirst something to drink commands them to enter into these remote places and save lives.

In an issue as controversial as immigration, few principles bring people from across the borders together—but giving drink to those who thirst is one.  Upon speaking to a border patrol agent, patrolling the deeply contested fence along the Tijuana/San Diego border, this child of God spoke to us, saying “We all want people to have water.  We don’t want people crossing illegally, we don’t want people breaking US law, but we certainly don’t want to find people dead in the desert.  All people deserve water when they thirst.”

Jesus commanded that water be given to all who thirst.  If we are to truly live out the call to do unto the least of these, then we are to do unto the undocumented worker.  We are to do unto those who make us uncomfortable.  We are to do unto those who are breaking the law.  We are to love the neighbor we never knew, or, if we are honest, may have never wanted to know.  We are to fill the cup of all who thirst.

In this post, I am not advocating changes in Immigration policy.  I am not saying we should build more fences or tear them down.  Instead, we look for places where the deepest divides can be closed, where we can reach across borders and find the work of God among us.  Until we live in a world where none thirst, we call out—“Come, Lord Jesus.” 

Seeing the Mark of the Beast

“(The Beast) forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads”  Revelation 13:16

In my Lutheran tradition, it is rare to spend a great deal of time in the book of Revelation.  Few of its mysterious and misunderstood readings fall in the lectionary sequence.  Most Lutherans do not read Revelation as a literal interpretation of the exact ways in which the world will come to an end.  Instead, we understand it as God’s WORD spoken to an oppressed people under Roman occupation with the message “At the end of time, God wins” being the central theme.  Those familiar with Revelation have heard of the term “The mark of the beast.”

In Revelation 13, we read of a dragon like creature which emerges, speaking blasphemes against God.  The beast creates a mark upon the hand or forehead of people (666) claiming them and co-opting them for evil.  The take away from this passage is the fact that evil forces will leave their mark upon this earth.

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounce them.

I have seen the literal mark of the beast in Tijuana.  It is real.  More real than any terrifying image that could be conjured in our minds. It confirms beyond any doubt that the forces of evil are truly present in our world. 

Every year, thousands of undocumented migrants,  braving bandits, extreme heat and hunger, cling to the wagons of "the Beast," a freight train that runs from southern Mexico to the US-Mexican border.  Traveling upwards of 700 miles on the tops of train cars or clinging to metal bars inches from the roaring wheels, migrants travel in search of jobs in Mexico and the US.  Along the journey, the Mark of the Beast and all the forces of evil assault the dehydrated, starving migrants with brutal gang rapes, murders and robberies.

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounce them.

After breakfast on our fourth day in Tijuana, a Guatemalan man walking with the aid of crutches, his leg missing from the knee down, offered me a warm and friendly smile.  Greeting him with my broken Spanish, we sat on a wooden bench near the courtyard of the mission where my group was staying.  He pointed to a map to show me his homeland—“Aztec,” he told me.  Slowly circling a small dot on the map with his finger,  “Mi casa, aqui.”  As I attempted to politely ignore his missing limb, assuming in my mind he had been born without part of his leg, the man shifted the conversation. 

“The Beast,” he told me, “I was robbed.  I was pushed.  The train. My leg is gone,” making a slicing action with his hand toward his knee.  I gazed upon the Mark of the Beast, remembering our Lutheran Baptismal vows:

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounced them.

I later learned this Child of God lost his leg the first time he rode.  His body beaten, robbed, tossed from a height of 2 stories off the train by the forces of evil,  before being marked by The Beast.  The second time he rode The Beast, his prosthetic leg, for which he worked over a year to afford, was ripped from his body as he was beaten in his sleep.

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounce them.

The Mark of the Beast is real. I have seen it.  But I know, and the Child of God I met knows, Revelation doesn’t end in chapter 13.  For then we see a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  God’s dwelling place will be among God’s people…and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  And there will be no more death, no more mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away.

But until that day, I shall name the Mark of the Beast, and all the forces of evil.  And I shall I renounce them.

     

Transforming Gehena

In the Gospels, Jesus talks of Gehena, translated as “hell” as a place of fire, wailing and gnashing of teeth and constant despair.  While many have interpreted Gehena as a place in the afterlife, reserved for those who did not believe or have done wrong, the word Gehena as Jesus speaks of it in the Gospels is the constantly burning garbage dump outside the city gates, where the poorest of the poor dwell.  It was a place of great suffering and struggle…those who Jesus spoke to understood the pain of Gehena.  Through the power of God, the presence of Christ, even Gehena could be transformed.  This is the hope and promise we read of in Scripture, and it is the transformation which still takes place when Emmanuel is present in today’s Gehenas.

I spent the afternoon dwelling in Gehena. Like many major cities, Tijuana’s landfill is home to the poorest of the poor, who take what has been thrown away by others and transform it.  Decades worth of garbage have created huge mounds of earth, which were covered by sand.  Those who cannot afford any other land build their homes on the landfill out of left over and discarded materials.  The children suffer skin lesions from methane gas which leaks from the earth.  Rain water and erosion wash away the sand, exposing garbage, which eventually flows downward into homes.

But Emanuel, God with us, is present in Gehena.  In 1999, a pregnant 13 year old girl living in Gehena was surviving by sifting through garbage to find recyclable materials and selling them for a small profit.  She met Sister Teresa, a 63 year old nun serving in the area.  Sister Teresa asked the young girl what she would like to do if given the opportunity.  She wanted to learn how to do hair and nails. 

The pair set out together and found 15 other women in the community.  Following a micro-loan system, Sister Teresa helped the women receive training and open a small business.  Things went well, and soon a bakery was added to the organization, and then, using the money the women were making in their businesses,  a daycare to tend to the women’s children while they worked.  Time passed, and the daycare became a school and a generation of children had, for the first time, the opportunity for an education.  Recently, the women closed the beauty salon, deciding a health clinic was the best use of the space—a doctor volunteers once a week while the women continue to work and provide for their families.  Gehena transformed.

This is not to say that all is as it should be.  Families still live in substandard dwellings on top of a landfill.  Poverty and health issues are still profound problems for the community, which lacks basic sanitation and running water.  But through the power of Emanuel, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, present in a 63 year old nun and a 13 year old pregnant girl, life has been transformed in Gehena. 

And this is the power of Jesus, crucified and risen.  Our world is not as it is in heaven.  We wait, long, for the day when we experience the world as God intended it to be.  But on this day, we live knowing transformation is possible, that Emanuel dwells in each and every broken and dark place on earth—even and especially Gehena.

An Immigration Story

"(Ruth replied) Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God...." (Ruth 1)

As we spent Monday in transit from Indiana to San Diego, I’m considering my own family’s immigration journey.  When many Caucasian Americans think of their immigration story, they look back to places like Ellis Island, envisioning 1880s ships packed with huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  I too am a product of the great 19^th century European migration, but my family is also enriched and touched by the story of 20^th and 21^st century immigration as half my immediate family was born outside the US.

My mother was born in Liberia, the third child of missionary parents.  They lived overseas until she was three, when they moved back to their native Canada.  She spent her childhood in Canada and never expected to leave.  However, she moved to the US after graduating high school to attend college, planning to return to Canada after college.  It wasn't Ellis Island, but a crossing at Pembina, North Dakota that welcomed her to her new country. 

Instead of returning home, she met an American farmer and never returned to Canada.  Though she has lived in the US decades longer than she lived in her native Canada, she never changed her citizenship.  She still carries a Green Card, a Canadian passport, and is proud of her Canadian heritage.

Being that my mother is a Canadian citizen, I had dual citizenship in the US and Canada until I turned 18.  Without much fanfare, one day in 1998 my Canadian citizenship ceased and I was simply an American citizen.  No paperwork, no visits to court.  Just the stroke of midnight on a cold January day, and my citizenship changed to simply “American.”

My husband and I have spent a significant amount of time working with US CIS services.  We’ve been fingerprinted, our backgrounds checked.  In 2005, and again in 2008, we boarded an airplane bound for Ethiopia and welcomed our children home.  O’Hare International Airport was our Ellis Island.  A sealed manila envelope, two inches thick, accompanied us on our journey.  Citizens of another nation, birthed by other women, by the stroke of a pen, the stamp of a document, became US citizens.  And we became parents.  “Welcome to the United States” was our greeting—a phrase echoed through the centuries. 

It’s a complicated journey, this story of American immigration.  Not all who wished to be welcomed had the privilege of setting foot on these shores.  Not all who came to these shores did so willingly, but were instead enslaved, their blood shed so others could receive the American dream.  But, no matter how complicated our story, we are assured that we have a God who joins us in the complexity of the journey.  Joseph, sold into slavery and sent to Egypt.  Israel, enslaved for 400 years and led through the desert for 40 years.  Ruth “Where you go I shall go…your people shall be my people…”  These accounts of immigration, of transition, of new lands are captured in scripture because they are OUR story—God’s story.  The story of people, who, while citizens and residents of many lands, are citizens of God’s nation first.  Wherever the journey may lead, we are assured that our God has gone before us, that our God joins with us in the story of immigration.  Wherever we go, God shall go.  God's people are our people.  For we are citizens of the kingdom.

Children of God--Beautifully and Wonderfully Made

The Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream...Get up, take the child and his mother and go to Egypt....So he got up took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt where they stayed until the death of Herod...and so it was fulfilled who the Lord had said through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt I called my Son." (Matthew 2)

As I write to you, I'm still in Indiana, but my bags are packed, my Spirit is filled and I'm grateful for the week ahead. I hope (wifi permitting) to update you on my journey over the next several days. As many of you are aware, I have been participating in the Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program, a Lilly Funded grant for pastors. The program gathers together 16 pastors with 5-10 years of ministry experience from various denominations throughout Indiana to learn about issues that impact the communities in which we serve. We've met at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN every other month and speak with leaders throughout the state, including experts in education, economics, grass roots community development, and government to learn how churches can build stronger communities and be intentional about the ways we share the Gospel with those around us.

Tonight, however, I prepare to travel not to Crawfordsville, but to Tijuana, Mexico as we gain a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding the hot button topic of immigration. While we too often look at immigration in sound bites, and as an issue marred in passion and controversy, this week my colleagues and I will be immersed in an issue that isn't simply a talking point for politicians--it has impacted the lives of those we will meet. It's not an "issue." It's people's lives, people's safety, people's families and livelihood. We'll hear from faithful civil servants who work to protect US citizens and provide safety in the southern US. We'll speak with young adults who came to this country as children but were deported after spending over a decade in the US. I will be privileged to visit an orphanage and speak with local workers to understand the joys and struggles of life in this region. Upon our return, we will discuss immigration's impact on Indiana and consider how the church can speak faithfully and deeply to one of the most complex issues of our time.

I expect to be conflicted, uncomfortable, challenged. I expect to see Emmanuel, God with us, in the most broken of places. I expect to see joy, to see the Spirit of the Living God alive in those whom I am privileged to meet. But above all, I go forth on this journey, praying for open eyes and an open heart, seeing all those whom I meet, not as citizens of one nation or another, but as Children of God. Beautifully and wonderfully made. For this is who we are and whose we are.