In the Sonoran desert south of the wall
Now after [the magi] had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod…
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.
—Matthew 2:13-15a, 19-21
Infanticide will force families to leave home. But less drastic actions can do so as well.
My parents didn’t stay with their families of origin. They weren’t forced from their homes; they chose to leave. Both grew up farmers’ children, but since my father became a mathematician for the Navy, my parents moved to an unincorporated suburb of Los Angeles. It had been sparsely populated since the indigenous Chumash people were wiped out one hundred fifty years earlier.
At eighteen, I followed their example. I left home for college and didn’t return.
Coming to Pennsylvania has reminded me of a different attitude toward family life. When economics permit, people will stay for generations. I am learning once again that not everyone relates to the world as I do.
A recent trip with six other synod executives reinforced that reminder.
In early November, we seven visited Frontera de Cristo, a mission partnership in the border cities of Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora. We walked on both sides of the wall; spent several hours in the Mexican desert; joined a prayer vigil for the hundreds of people who had died in the desert; and met with representatives of a shelter, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, and a coffee cooperative — three ministries aimed at addressing the needs of arriving migrants.
Crosses for those who died in the desert crossing
According to Rev. Mark Adams, Frontera de Cristo’s U.S. Coordinator, the increase in migration from Southern Mexico began with the Clinton administration. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) brought factory jobs to the northern Mexican states, as labor and commerce began to flow between the United States and Mexico.
But the jobs came at a price. To participate in NAFTA, Mexico agreed to remove its agricultural subsidies. Coffee farmers from Chiapas in southern Mexico experienced a price collapse. Hard work no longer could support a family as it had. People had to leave their homes to find work.
It was a revelation to me that they didn’t want to leave home. They came north because they had no choice. They hoped for employment — any employment — on one side of the border or the other.
When they reached Sonora, they found a harsh reception. Members of the northern Mexican states didn’t want them any more than many USAmericans did.
To complicate matters, the police have effectively ceded control of Agua Prieta to a drug cartel. The cartel doesn’t extort local businesses, so townsfolk find its presence tolerable enough.
Migrants from southern Mexico experience something very different. When they arrive at the bus depot, a representative of the cartel will greet them with a choice: pay the cartel’s coyotes to guide them across the border; work for the cartel as a drug mule[1]; return south; or — if they attempt to cross the border without the cartel’s help — be killed.[2]
Frontera de Cristo’s ministry partners attempt to address the realities this situation has provoked. The shelter provides a temporary space for migrants until they decide how to respond to the cartel’s ultimatum. The drug and alcohol center tackles the problems that arise in a city ruled by organized crime. And the coffee cooperative offers a financial alternative.
Of all Frontera de Cristo’s programs, this last ministry — the coffee cooperative — most caught my attention. By eliminating the middlemen, the cooperative allows coffee farmers in Chiapas to earn enough money to stay in Chiapas while supporting their families. And when they can stay, they choose to stay.
Like the migrants from Chiapas, Jesus’s family didn’t settle in Egypt. Joseph brought “the child and his mother” back to Israel as soon as he learned it was safe to do so.
Miriam Maldonado-Escobar (Mark’s wife) with Café Justo staff
Presbyterians once came here as migrants. Legal and economic choices (often outside their control) removed them from their ancestral homes. Our denominational ancestors may have longed for the chance to return, but they and their children didn’t.
This region became their new home. It came to mean friendships and family to many Presbyterians. Unlike my wandering ways and those of my parents, people here — like those in Chiapas — want to stay. I have heard repeatedly of Pennsylvanians’ and West Virginian’s dismay when the lack of jobs prevents their doing so.
Whether we are talking about Mexicans and NAFTA, or members of the Synod and the end of the steel industry, the modern forces of government and economics have driven people from their home communities, and they long to return.
And the Incarnation speaks into those spaces. For even though Joseph brought him back to Israel, he lived a life displaced. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20).
(By the way — I’ve tried the coffee, and it’s quite good. If you’re interested, you can find out more at Café Justo.)
Somewhere Along the Way —
Forrest
[1] Mark said that 80% of border-crossing drugs flow from Mexico to the United States (for the cartels’ profit), and 90% of border-crossing firearms flow from the United States to Mexico (for the cartels’ use).
[2] The border lies in a desert valley between two ridges. On the USAmerican side, the Border Patrol has high-powered cameras to track all that happens in the desert valley and intercept those who attempt to cross illegally. On the Mexican side, the cartel has similar technology. The cartel can determine if someone is in the desert without accompaniment. It can also determine (from miles away) when the Border Patrol is changing shifts, and signal its coyotes when it is time for the migrants to make a run for the fence.
Art on the wall in downtown Agua Prieta