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Building Relationships and Understanding Across Borders
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 | | Happy 30th Anniversary! |
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November 30, 2014
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30 de Noviembre, 2014
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Dear Sisters and Brothers,
For 30 years, Frontera de Cristo has shared the good news of Jesus Christ across borders. Whether through your prayers, your presence, your talents or your financial support, you have helped Frontera de Cristo provide physical, emotional, and spiritual nourishment to thousands of men, women and children.
We are grateful for your support that has helped us partner with individuals and organizations on both sides of the border to make the border a place of grace-filled encounter with God's love and peace. Please include Frontera de Cristo in your year-end giving and/or becoming a sustaining partner by setting up a recurring donation at our secure Donate Now site.
Peace,
Jeni O'Callaghan Rodolfo Navarrete Arrieta Monika Patience Carmina Sanchez
President Vice President Treasurer Secretary
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30th Anniversary Celebration
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 | | Jerry Stacy sharing reflections on the history of Presbyterian Bi-national Ministry. Adrian Gonzalez translating. |
For over thirty years, Frontera de Cristo has been building relationships and understanding across borders, seeking to discern what God's will is for our ministry together, and putting into practice our faith that Jesus Christ is our peace.
In an article in the Arizona Daily Star last Sunday, Perla Trevizo quoted co-founder of Presbyterian Border Ministry Jerry Stacy: "We wanted to learn how to build bridges of common understanding and friendship."
Many bridges and friendships have been formed in the last thirty years and we look forward to the new ones that will be formed as we continue journeying forward into the future God has for us.
Click to read AZ Daily Star entire article!
Check out some pictures of the Celebration!
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Seven Feet Away:
Obama's Executive Action and the Lives of Our Neighbors
by Mark Adams, US Coordinator
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 | | Guillermina longing to be reunited with her son Kevin. |
"Hey Marcos, she's from South Carolina!"
Adrian Gonzalez, director of customer relations, pulled on my shoulder and announced excitedly the news that another one of my "paisanos" was less than seven feet away from me. We were both in the Migrant Resource Center, yet we were miles apart in the reasons for finding ourselves in the center.
I turned and saw a woman not too much younger than me standing in dark clothes and a baseball cap shading a hint of deep sadness in her face.
"Buenos dias! Me llamo Marcos, como se llama Ud.?", I asked, assuming that this fellow Sandlapper's first language was Spanish.
"My name is Guillermina," she responded in perfect English.
Not fifteen minutes before, Guillermina and I had been less than seven feet apart, but did not yet know each other's name, much less that we shared a common connection to and love for South Carolina.
Read Entire Article!
We know that most of your communities have populations of folks who will benefit from the Executive Action and others who will not-- for instance, even if they meet all other requirements, if they have not been in the country continuously for five years, they could be disqualified.
Below are resources that you can use as you continue to inform your audiences on executive actions.
USCIS breakdown of initiatives, who is eligible and how to apply:
http://www.uscis.gov/immigrationaction
http://www.uscis.gov/es/accionmigratoria
White House Fact Sheet on Executive Action
http://www.whitehouse.gov//the-press-office/2014/11/20/fact-sheet-immigration-accountability-executive-action
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/20/hoja-informativa-acci-n-ejecutiva-de-responsabilidad-por-la-inmigraci-n
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"The First Stone Laid" For Coffee Shop
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Raul Garcia, director of CRREDA, Jocabed Gallegos, Mexican Coordinator of FDC, and Ildefonso Ortiz, Socio of Café Justo (not in picture-- he put on the mortar).
As part of the Anniversary Celebrations, FDC together with partner organizations CRREDA drug rehab center and Café Justo symbolically began the building of the new coffee shop we are working together to develop.
The new coffee shop will provide:
1) an avenue to increase local sales of café Justo and spread the economic impact;
2) a safe meeting/hang out space for adolescents and youths as part of FDC's new prevention and intervention ministry;
3) an opportunity at job training/a reintroduction to society for folks from CRREDA;
4) a space to hold community artistic events-- open mic nights, poetry readings, art etc.;
5) a space for CRREDA graduates and other graduates of drug and rehab centers to have AA/NA meetings;
6) a bigger space to receive visiting delegations and to have weekly FDC/Café Justo reflections and meetings.
While we have not yet raised all the money needed, we have felt called by God to go forward with the construction and trust that the final funds will arrive. The architect will have the final blueprints for us this coming week.
Please consider joining us in the exciting new ministry by giving a year end donation on our secure online donation site or sending a check to Frontera de Cristo Just Trade Center, PO Box 1112, Douglas, AZ 85607.
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| "Soul Shaking": Border to Border Delegation | | |
 "Thank you for facilitating the Border to Border Delegation. It was soul shaking", Carol and Bob Olmstead wrote us.
From October 31-November 7, a delegation of 16 men and women born in every decade from the 30s to the 90s, from Mexico, US, and Guatemala and Presbyterian, Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, non-denominational faith traditions journeyed together to explore the connections between coffee, migration and faith.
Pastor Brandi Casto Waters travelling more than 16 hours on Saturday to return home to preach at First Presbyterian Church of Greer, SC on Sunday, tossed the sermon she had written before going and wrote a whole new one-- a soul shaking one.
We highly recommend you take the time to listen to her sermon. It begins woth the reading of Luke 10:25-37 at minute 27. (FYI--The sound gets better soon).
Carol ended her journal with these reflections:
"People ask "How was the trip?" It is difficult to answer in a word or two. It was wonderful, excellent, fantastic - but those words don't do it. It was moving, yes, educational, yes, but there was still more. This trip was a "plunge" into the complex issues of migration; we travelled via the personal stories of migrants, of recovering addicts, of faithful and persevering souls who try be a loving, humane presence in extremely messy situations, of those who struggle to farm and raise a family in rural Mexico... all of them living in the midst of corruption and violence and frustrating bureaucracy. We swung from despair to hope, back and forth, for 8 days. The Biblical reflections were profound and crucial to the plunge. Now I know that this is OUR fence and OUR coffee, MY fence and MY coffee."
In November of 2015, we will be facilitating our 12th annual Border to Border: Coffee, Migration and Faith delegation. The dates will be announced in January. Email us if you are interested in receiving more information.
Click to see beautiful images provided by delegation member Vicki Willan!
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Faithful Mission
by Linda Valentine,
Executive Director of Presbyterian Mission Agency
(This was Linda Valentine's bi-monthly article for November))
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"In Napo's story and in Mary's song-as the expected order of the world is reversed and overturned-we hear anew God's call to attend to the poor, the hungry, and the marginalized as we work together for justice, freedom, and peace." Linda Valentine writes.
In October, Coordiantors Jocabed Gallegos and Mark Adams and Community Garden coordinator Miriam Maldonado Escobar each had an opportunity to interact with Linda Valentine, Joca while serving for a month in the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s International Peacemaker ministry and Mark and Miriam while at the PCUSA Mission Latin America Co-worker regional gathering.
Linda was so moved by the ministry that Frontera de Cristo is engaged in that she highlighted it in her bi-monthly article on Faithful Mission.
Read entire article!
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Support
Frontera de Cristo by:
1) Joining us in giving thanks to God for:
--the blessing of our call to witness that Jesus Christ is our peace across the borders that seek to divide us;
2) Praying with us for God's guidance and help in:
--Responding to the reality of the impact of drugs on the families and communities of Agua Prieta;
3) Providing Support to the Migrant Resource Center:
-The MRC invites YOU to visit or volunteer. Come, learn, and be blessed by our brother and sister migrants.
-MRC Donation needs:
-Shoelaces
-Underwear
-Socks
-MRC Volunteers commute by bike-but we need helmets and bike lights! Please consider donating to help keep us safe on
the roads.
-Financial donations will help pay MRC operating costs, but food items when donations are scarce and keep our bicycles in operating condition.
3) Donating by clicking the donate now button.
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