Piedras Nergas

Over the month of January, right after everyone had tasted of the comforts of visiting family, celebrating holidays, and having more spare time on our hands than we did during the semester we were thrown into a whirlwind of an experience. January term was spent in all day classes plowing through areas that I learned where terribly uncomfortable for me. The class was Introduction to Missiology. The goal was (and is, as we continue this class during the spring semester) to consider the place where cultures meet. In this case, our context is the Episcopal Church in the United States- a primarily anglo church of middle to upper class educated people. The first stage of this class was to take an honest assessment of who we are (Americans, Episcopalians, privileged, educated, white, female etc...) and who we are not. As a church it is obvious, especially in the Southwest, who we are not- we are generally not Hispanic. What we learned was that the church does not reflect the population. This we all knew and could agree upon during the first class.

It took us the next month to explore the reasons this is true locally, statewide and nationally. Many of us were uncomfortable looking at the injustices that have shaped our society. Many of us became defensive and complained about the classroom, the weather or whatever to avoid the harsh realities that we were being lead through.

Part of this exploration was to visit Piedras Negras, Mexico a border town that carries scars of poverty. People from Piedras Negras cross the Rio Grande in droves of hundreds every night. Piedras Negras is a town that flows North; people migrate through from all over Central and South America in hopes of making it into the United States to make a buck to send home. We met a young mother of three from Columbia. We met a man who used to work as a coyote, which is what they call the person who charges hundreds or thousands of dollars to guide people across the border. We spoke with border guards who rescue those who risk their lives crossing and near death.

The scars that define the border are undoubtedly in need of healing. We visited with a Anglican/Catholic/cultist spiritual healer and heard of the lengths that people go to to touch the opportunity for healing.

We spent just a few days in Piedras Negras just breathing in the desperation. The only outward 'act of charity' that we preformed was to bring a small amount of food and clothing to those people who had settled in shacks along the rail road tracks. As we drove our white vans, above our honking to alert the people you could hear the children screaming "gringos! Gringos!", alerting their friends of the visitors. We stood tall above crowds of children and handed out food- more as a token than as real help. The idea was for us to feel the enormity of the situation, to see the toddler being lead only by other children all dressed in rags to receive their over sized polo shirt that some Episcopal private school had donated. Droves of hundreds of hungry families living in colonias ran along train tracks hoping to get that something that might keep them warm tonight, that something that might keep their children fed.

With the weight of these brief encounters on our hearts we will spend this next semester examining our roles and callings as Christians and as future clergy. Where it gets really uncomfortable in class is when we realize the construction of a border we all acknowledge keeps us from seeing clearly into the eyes of our brothers and sisters who live on the other side. It is uncomfortable to realize this might just be one of our gravest sins that we often fail to acknowledge in our own lives and the life of the church. When the reality of the border is placed next to the basic tenants of my faith I truly feel the enormity of my sin. The words of Yahweh addressed to Zechariah bring it home; "Apply the law fairly, and practice kindness and compassion toward each other. Do not oppress the widow and the orphan, the settler and the poor man, and do not secretly plan evil against one another." (Zechariah 7:8-11)


Let us pray for an end to the fear that keeps us separated from our brothers and sisters.