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Dear Posse,
This may be the last Bulletin I send until next week's Border School is completed. Of course, I will try to update you on any major developments requiring prayer focus, even during the School. Please pray for the speakers and the attendees who will be here Tuesday through Thursday. This will be the largest Border School we have done, and the group that has come together is very significant. They have the potential to really call attention to what is happening on the border, including the attention of people who could make a difference. Please pray that they will hear what they need to know and that they will understand what their response is to be.
Recently a political professor at the Autonomous University
of Ciudad Juarez made this statement about Mexico to the El Paso Times. "The
problem is far more serious and complex than law enforcement winning the gun
battles with the cartels... it's a crisis
of the state which cannot protect its citizens and is not accountable to them. In
many ways it is a failed state."
The San Antonio Express News, on 03.21.10, wrote, "... mayhem and anarchy worsens along the
border, with drug gangs displacing the Mexican police as the final authority... "
For many Americans who live away from the border the problem
is as abstract as bombings in Baghdad or Kabul. Reports have trickled in over the past week. I will try to give an overview.
The battle for control
of the border across from the Rio Grande Valley in southeast Texas is between the Zetas and the Gulf cartel and their allies.
ZAPATA
On Good Friday, sheriff's deputies arrested five "alleged"
Zeta members after receiving information that they were in Zapata to kidnap and
kill a Zapata resident who supposedly stole a drug load from the Zetas.
Praise You, Lord,
that this kidnapping ring has been broken up.
Please continue to bring human intelligence to law enforcement personnel
so they may thwart the adversary's plans to bring violence across the
border.
TORREON
A prayer request has
come in through a member of the Posse who is connected with people who live
in Torreon, in the northern region of the state of Coahuila, and have built several
Bible Schools in Mexico to raise up pastors and ministers. Here is what they
shared.
The drug cartel has overrun
the city, run off the police.
Lawlessness is rampant in the streets.
The cartel is now demanding payment for protection from Christian
pastors of local churches in the states
surrounding Coahuila. There have been
shootings in the streets for several months now. Last week the Federales pulled out, leaving a skeleton police force and the military. The cartel is fearless and growing in
numbers. I am calling for the local church leaders
to come together in unity, for the Church to arise, and for a strategy of
prayer and unity.
GUERRERO
There was a firefight in Guerrero, Tamaulipas, MX on
Saturday. It is expected to resume
soon. Sometimes it is quiet for a
while, but there is no truce.
REYNOSA
On Good Friday five gunmen died in a shootout with soldiers
in Reynosa, and armed men stormed a prison and killed three inmates. It was three days before the government
acknowledged 30 inmates also escaped from that prison. It was the second jailbreak from the prison
in Reynosa in recent days.
In far West Texas the
battle for control of the border between Palomas, MX (across from
Columbus, NM, the last "official" location of an incursion by a foreign army)
and El Porvenir is being fought because the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin "El
Chapo" Guzman is trying to take over the lucrative trafficking routes into the
US which have been controlled by the Juarez cartel.
EL PORVENIR
Internet messages and hanging banners warned the people in
Porvenir and surrounding communities in the Valley of Juarez to leave by Easter
Sunday because the worst was yet to come.
Houses are now being burned every week, and reports say
houses and businesses have been systematically burned for the past 2
months. On Resurrection Sunday a church
was set on fire by a group of armed commandos.
Relatives of a Posse member have shared that another
family member who works along the Rio Grande has reported finding dead bodies along the river. Occasionally the
people were tied to stakes and shot execution style, always facing the
US. Bodies of young children are
sometimes found among the adults.
In Porvenir and surrounding areas people who haven't
fled have been told to pay 5000 pesos ($400) or their children
will be murdered.
Last week an older man's eyes were put out with an ice pick.
A Porvenir rancher who works in Ft. Hancock was afraid he
would not be able to continue going back to his ranch, so he turned his 50
horses loose in hopes they would be able to survive.
An American who ranches near Porvenir stated, "There is no
law here. There are burnings, killings
and kidnappings. Many will vacate and run for
the river because it's better to get arrested by immigration than be killed."
The Governor of the state of Chihuahua, which includes
Juarez and the Valley of Juarez, has announced his plan to "increase" the state
police presence in the Valley of Juarez communities, which is good since most
of the area doesn't have any law enforcement presence. He stated, "We cannot
allow this group to continue terrorizing the people. We need to help these communities whose police officers have been
overwhelmed."
On 04.08.10, 5000 federal agents with helicopters, trucks,
etc arrived in Juarez hoping to accomplish what the army failed to do.
Sheriff Arvin West has discussed the possibility of
setting up tents for refugees fleeing Mexico, if they cross into Ft. Hancock in
increasing numbers. Ft. Hancock does
not have any way to house people if many of those remaining in Porvenir with no
place to go should flee across the river.
Pray that a law
enforcement presence in the Valley of Juarez will stem the increasing tide of
violence and lawlessness.
Prominent Juarez Surgeon, Dr. Arturo Valenzuela said
recently, "If Calderon wins in Juarez, he can win anywhere all across
Mexico. If he loses here, God knows
what will happen. We'll all stampede
over to the United States." He is
reported to have made this statement with a grin, but we had better be ready!
Father, I ask You to
give us wisdom to know how to pray.
Show us what to ask, so we will not ask amiss. Forgive us when our prayers are like "kicking against the goad"
because You have a purpose we can't always see. Break our hearts for the hurting, suffering people in
Mexico.
May our hearts be filled with
the compassion of Jesus.
Pam
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