TAY-HAAS

I'm doing it. I'm finally writing about when I went to Texas in...uhh...the middle of October.

My home for the weekend. Worship en Español!

Yikes.

That's really embarrassing. Where has time gone?!

Okay, let's get down to it. In October, I flew to San Antonio, Texas with 3 other Nebraskans. Interestingly enough we were on the same flights and together for over 12 hours before I met any of them...let's just say that I'm not the most observant person when my day begins before 3 am. Well anyway, we drove a couple of hours to Eagle Pass, which is 1 mile from the U.S./Mexico border. We stayed in a nice hostel provided by an ELCA congregation. The purpose of the meeting was to bring leaders in hunger, global mission and justice from Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma together for conversations about what is working in their areas, exchange ideas, reflect (and possibly make steps to change) unhealthy action, and to discuss how each of us approaches our lives/ministry differently based on the generation we were born into (yes, we have characteristics of our generations that maybe don't apply to us so well..but how does it apply to our peers and how does that affect the ministries going on around us). Additionally, since the border was such a physical presence at the meeting, we did discuss migration, specifically the migrant children that have been seeking asylum in our country.

The "wall".

An extremely powerful moment happened when we headed to the border...to the "wall". In reality, it's a fence. And not even a fence that is continuous. And it's on the U.S. side. There's actually probably a good half mile between the fence and the true border. The in-between area on the U.S. side is sort of a park for people to play soccer. And there's a pretty large parking lot, too. Supposedly there's a really nice firework display there on the 4th of July, which brings up all sorts of interesting thoughts as you can't exactly miss the 34 X 60 m Mexican flag (it's the largest flag in the Western hemisphere!) flying the background. For such a contested area, the border was quite serene the morning that we were there. A few youth soccer teams were practicing before a game. Truly the loudest thing that happened was the border patrol guys getting in the airboat and speeding down the river to see if anyone was stranded and needed rescuing. And it was SO loud when that was happening. Deafening. What a visceral moment.

The Mexican flag, as seen from the U.S. border

Undocumented Jesus

Later we watched a documentary about the community before the wall and the predictions that local residents had about what the wall would do to the community. You have to understand that Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras (the town on the Mexican side) are literally one mile away from each other. They are the same community, in essence. In the documentary, there was a priest at a local church talking about the "Undocumented Jesus". I guess a few years ago the border patrol recovered what they thought was a person from the middle of the river. Turns out it was a 6 foot sculpture of Jesus. It made it's way to the police station and become somewhat of an idol. Later it was given its name and moved to this Catholic congregation where it still resides. There are all sorts of theological discussions to be had about the "Undocumented Jesus," but I will just leave you with a photo.

We had someone come from Lutheran Social Services of the South to talk to us. They are contracted via the U.S. Government to serve the migrant children that are coming to our country. They work to place the children into homes of family members that are already here (85% of the kids) or into foster care (15% of kids). They also provide legal assistance, medical care, education, safe homes and spiritual care. 10% of the children who entered our country this year were served by LSS (they are 1 of 3 groups doing this work). I think that's amazingly impressive. He told us that the majority of the children/youth are coming from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. They are leaving their families and native countries because of hunger predominantly and coming here for education and work. Their trips can take anywhere from 2 weeks (the more wealthy youth) to 6 months or more (the youth that have to stop along the way to work to make money to pay for the next leg of the trip). It was quite the humbling and eye-opening conversation, to be quite frank. While the masses of children crossing the border have slowed for the fall and the winter, many predict it to start back up again in February and March, so this isn't an out-of-sight-out-of-mind situation, no matter the lack of widespread conversation it is currently experiencing.

While we were in Eagle Pass, the congregants of San Lucas cooked meals for us. Let me just tell you that I ate well. I'm having dreams of fresh tamales as I type. I might need to stop for a bit to make myself a snack actually... They were so hospitable and made vegetarian meals for me (and Mikka!) as well. Yum!! We were so fortunate that they also worshiped with us as a community on Saturday night and Sunday morning, too. Incredible services to be part of. 

Nachos!

Sunday afternoon we headed to Piedras Negras (the community just across the border) for the International Nacho Festival. Apparently Piedras Negras is the birthplace of the "Nacho". Legend goes that there were two travelers that were shopping in PN for the day and either came too early or too late for food. They were starving and so they went to a restaurant and begged the waiter to make them some food. He didn't have anything but some tortillas, cheese and jalepeños, so he quick put the tortillas in the fryer and shredded the cheese. The women were so ecstatic and loved it so they asked him what he called it. His name was Ignacio, "Nacho" for short, and so he called it "Nacho's Special." Thus the Nacho was born. I have to say that I prefer my nachos to be smothered in cheese, fake taco meat, avocados, salsa, sour cream, etc, but it still was an awesome experience! The people in charge of the festival even came over to give us free t-shirts (how often do people from Chicago, Nebraska, and all over Texas make it to their fine celebration...?) and they got some free publicity out of it too. I have to say that I'm still partial to the Kool Aid Days festival in Hastings though. 

Oh hey, I'm an International Nacho Festival international star!

The whole town was decorated for the festival and there was some sweet sawdust art in the road too.

The Mexican flag, as seen from the Mexico border

When we arrived in PN, the big flag was flying, but we we're preparing to have rain, so the military came to take it down. Wow. That was absolutely an amazing sight to see. That flag is B.I.G. And truthfully it didn't take near the amount of time I expected it to for it to be completely loaded.

The first steps to loading. 

Loading the truck. 

These men are not small men. But they look teeny
tiny compared to the flag! 

In all, it was a great trip and I learned quite a bit about what is going on in other communities regarding hunger, justice and global mission. AND, not bad, that's when I was initially asked to do the UN thing. So that's super happy! I also wrote a paper for a class without the use of wi-fi, which seemed like the most scary of tasks when I first arrived. Somehow I managed to survive though! :)