Your children did an amazing job tonight, aiding the transition of 35 new migrants who were passing through the Border Servant Corps on their way to their sponsor families. Many of these families have endured long voyages from Honduras or Guatemala, followed by a stay in a Detention Center upon crossing the border. To be welcomed at dinner by your children, and to have their children engaged and enthralled by the attention and love they received from the W+H crew has to be a moment of grace on a difficult journey. A lot of smiles, a lot of meaningful connections made in one evening!
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On Tuesday, the group has been in several environments that don’t allow photographs, but they have continued to explore the realities of life at the Border. In the morning, a trip to Federal District Court gave us all an education in the interplay between criminal and immigration proceedings that many migrants face.
At at lunch some of us met a group of migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America, just released from detention. They will be staying at Holy Cross for a couple days, before traveling to stay with their sponsors in various parts of the U.S. where they will ultimately have their asylum hearings. The afternoon began with a learning exercise (acted out in some very creative skits) about leadership/personality styles. Everyone identified some of the strengths and weaknesses of their “type”. After some journal writing and reflection on what they have seen, the students return to Grace Lutheran Church, on the other side of town. They have also received a new group of 35 refugees — the ones for whom we helped prepare beds and supply kits yesterday. The students will meet these families, play with their children, and otherwise come face-to-face with the realities they face. After arriving at 1:30 AM and taking some rest, the group rose and got ready for a scrumptious 8 AM breakfast of cereal, oatmeal, hash browns, eggs, yogurt and juice. To begin the week on a collective note, the members of the group each shared an interesting fact about themselves and went over the rules together. Then they went across town to Grace Lutheran Church, where they learned to cook (and eat!) “gorditas,” or stuffed fried pastry pockets, from a lady from El Paso named Carmen Hernandez.
They also learnt some new games and learned that people attempting to cross the southern border come from countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The group then heard Carmen’s story on how she had crossed to seek a pediatric nephrologist for her daughter across the border. She spoke of her attempts to seek work and support her daughter while beginning the process to become a legal resident. In the evening, the group sorted clothes and made air mattress beds in anticipation of the new migrants arriving on Tuesday at the Grace Lutheran Church. The group ended the day with a discussion and written reflection while looking forward to a long night of sleep and rest. matangi melpakkam W + H - El Paso 2019 The 23 Wardlaw + Hartridge students and 2 faculty members are excited for our trip to El Paso to begin. We will be posting regular accounts of our experiences here, so check back regularly while we are in Texas! Our home base for our stay is the Holy Cross Retreat Center Facility in Mesilla Park, NM. We expect a lot of learning from our stay in this dynamic part of the world. |
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