Lee Ann Grace and Howard Henry are members of University Presbyterian Church who have just completed spending three weeks at Frontera de Cristo, one of the Presbyterian Border Outreach Program sites along the US-Mexico border. Joca Gallegos, the Mexican coordinator of Frontera de Cristo, visited the Presbytery in September.
As always, it is refreshing to be on the border, in a culture unto itself.
At one Tuesday evening vigil we shared the somber memories of those who have died in the desert with a student group from Eastern Mennonite University, and Lee Ann then had the pleasure of doing an analysis of the EMU student evaluations of their experience here.
One student commented that talking with Tommy Basset (a former maquiladora manager) made him want to change the way he uses his money. A large percentage of the group relished the opportunity to speak with a Border Patrol agent who believes that he can still respect the dignity of the migrants he may detain. Other students remarked that hearing the stories of individuals and families as they broke bread with them was the most meaningful.
Howard was challenged in tracking down the appropriate contacts to follow up on a mailing of calendars to the top churches purchasing Café Justo. We also realized once again that the sense of time on the border is so different from at home, when we received only two responses to a request for biographical profiles from board members by the deadline.
We traveled to Tucson to provide a meal of tamales, beans, rice pudding and hibiscus tea, as well as a worship service for the Presbyterian Campus Ministry at the University of Arizona. Howard was a reader and Lee Ann played the flute.
We worshiped twice at First Presbyterian Church in Douglas, where Lee Ann offered special music, playing and then singing a cappella a favorite selection from Mendelssohn's oratorio St. Paul. How we do value having an accompanist at home!
Lee Ann tried the chiles rellenos - her favorite Mexican dish -- in every restaurant in Douglas that serves them and decided that El Pato's were all-round the best. We did not, however, pig out on gingerbread pigs (cochinitos) on this visit.
Lee Ann spent time translating and interpreting recipes for a planned cookbook, discovering that there were many steps that Mexican cooks would simply assume that an English speaker unfamiliar with Mexican cuisine would have no idea of (wash your hands after working with chiles, take the seeds out if you want a less spicy dish) and ingredients that appeared in the instructions but weren't listed in items required for the recipe. One chicken recipe even omitted how it was to be cooked! When Lee Ann started asking questions about the recipes, she found that some of those who had submitted them were now deceased. She has also become an expert at metric to British system conversions!
We reviewed the Frontera de Cristo website and consulted via Skype with the web designer in Tucson. General organizational work led to cleaning out and recycling/shredding outdated files (four large boxes
of paper to recycle and six bags of shred). Lee Ann has already identified an additional three file cabinets in the back room at the Frontera office as a possible target for next year.
Howard and Adrián González, Director of Customer Relations for Café Justo/Just Coffee, arranged via telephone for a coffee house in Buffalo, NY to begin serving Café Justo. They also renewed the commitment of a Latin American store in Buffalo to sell packages of Just Coffee.
We had a lovely Sunday afternoon excursion to the Chiricahua Mountains, where we saw many white tailed deer and even a cheeky javelina who came sauntering out into the parking lot of the general store in Portal, AZ. We got to drive the new Frontera van, in between visiting groups that had need of it. What an improvement over the old one!
Our visit with the widow and children of Pastor Rodolfo of the Iglesia El Lirio de los Valles was delightful, as they remembered how much he loved to cook and the Stars Wars inspired birthday party he once ideated for his sons, complete with hamburgers that looked like flying saucers.
The Wednesday morning Bible study with the Café Justo staff at the roaster - surrounded by the marevelous aroma of freshly ground coffee -- always reveals new dimensions of the passages studied. Reading them and speaking of them in Spanish, as well as hearing the perspectives of our Mexican brothers and sisters, broadens our understanding.
Our faith is renewed witnessing and sharing the faith of those we have come to know so well over our 25 years (14 visits) volunteering at Frontera.
