STORIES FROM THE BORDER
PART ONE: Wading Into The Water. A 3-Part Series On My El Paso-Juarez Border Encounter Experience
NOTE TO READERS: You can read all my posts in full here.
Hi, Friends.
I’ve just returned from a trip to El Paso/Juarez and a 3-day Border Encounter experience through the ABARA organization alongside some of my Living School circle members. Abara means “ford” in a number of Semitic languages, signifying a natural place where a river is shallow enough to cross. Sami DiPascuale, who is the Executive Director of Abara, is a member of our circle and was our guide for the encounter.
WHAT IS A BORDER ENCOUNTER?
Abara Border Encounters (a.k.a. "listening trips”) are 3-day educational immersion experiences designed for students, faith leaders, and groups of all stripes to re-humanize relationships outside the news cycle. These encounters are an invitation to listen, learn, and reflect on what the border can teach us, who we are meant to become, and how we can engage closer to home. This is not border tourism. Through a border encounter, we want to hear differently as we connect across divides. We desire to sit with our neighbors, stand with one voice, and walk with those who sojourn over many miles in search of refuge, safety, and wholeness.
I knew going into this encounter at the border that it would be educational, deepening, convicting, and heart-opening. I’d been looking forward to sharing this weekend with my circle group, learning and stretching our souls together through our shared experience of hearing the stories of those living along the border. This is a prime example of what I mean when I talk about listening to and learning from “the curriculum of your life.” As our days unfolded, so did ever deeper and more impactful experiences, until each of us was shaken at our foundations and inspired to share this work more widely.
This is my attempt to both process my experience and share it with you. What follows are excerpts from my journal as the initial “warm-up” installment of this series. I plan to write two more parts of this series and I understand that while this might not be for everyone, I am compelled to share it. I hope you can hang with me through the series. It is simply too much for one post.
Over the past three days, we were introduced to the complicated legal process of immigration in the US, the theory of global migration, the theology of immigration, and much more. We learned about and witnessed the various versions of “The Wall” that have occurred from Bush to Biden, as well as through private landowners who contributed to the extension of the border fence. Most powerfully, we heard stories from people who, against all odds and unimaginable conditions, miraculously made their way from Venezuela, Guatemala, and Honduras. We met and listened to leaders of multiple migrant shelters as well as those they shelter. We spoke with Border Patrol agents ( two of whom met with President Biden on his recent visit) and a retired Border Patrol agent who now works at a migrant shelter. We listened to views and concerns from many perspectives.
I am wrung out. Mostly due to the stories we heard firsthand from people in the shelters and what they had to overcome to get here. The complex trauma and loss are staggering. And the complexity of this issue is enormous. While I’m very clear that this is not about me, that I am not the center of this story, still, this experience was personally life-changing.
You know, there is a concept in storytelling structure that goes something like this:
“Normal - Explosion - New Normal”
This weekend was an explosion.
PREPARING FOR THE TRIP
As our group prepared for the experience, I told Sami that when it comes to our borders, I only know how much I don’t know.
I admittedly have only a rudimentary understanding of what is happening along our borders and global migration in general. News sources mostly only add to the confusion with their varied agendas. It feels nearly impossible to understand what is actually happening if you aren’t there, and even those who live there and serve the migrant populations, must continually adapt and respond to a dynamic and ever-changing situation and rotating power players.
I can only share my own experience over the past few days.
The middle of the Rio Grande river is technically the border.
So, let’s wade in.
PART ONE
WEDS. JAN 25: ARRIVALS + RECONNECTION
One by one we arrived in El Paso. Joy was the first to arrive last night from St Louis. I ran into Dave (from Austin) at the airport and we shared an Uber ride to Abara, and Shawna arrived a few hours later from Denver. Gail, a kind and cheerful Abara team member and our logistics coordinator, came upstairs to greet us and brought muffins yogurt, and more for our breakfasts. We have plenty of sleeping space - two rooms have 4 bunkbeds each and a third room with more beds, a common area, a kitchen, and a dining table. The big comfy sectional is a great place to land and have the conversations that are already beginning. Just downstairs and next door is the Abara office and our meeting space.
Once we had all gathered and settled into the space, we walked to downtown El Paso while Sami finished up his end-of-day meetings.
We found the Central Plaza and Plaza Theatre, a fabulous mural of recycled items (above), as well as the Plaza Hotel (formerly a Hilton) where 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor lived for a time as she prepared to marry Conrad “Nicky “ Hilton Jr.
We walked back to our apartment because it was almost time for Sami to join us. The temps had dropped even more since the sun had set so we bundled up further and prepared to walk across the border via the bridge to Ciudad Juarez. We poured ourselves into Sami’s van (I had the job of closing the sliding door with a little bump from my hip) and then Sami pointed out a few things on the El Paso side of the border.
Even as recently as a few weeks ago, there were hundreds of people camping in tents on the El Paso side of the border when news spread that Title 42 might be lifted. Tonight, with the temps in the low 40s and a strong wind whipping through the streets, there were only about 25 people gathered near the warming buses near Sacred Heart cathedral and shelter.
Who could forget the terrible news and images of detained families huddled behind fences under the bridge? Sami pointed out the area to us. It was chilling and painful to recall and as we drove by the spot where they were detained, our thoughts turned back to the sight of so many families huddled together in that biting cold.
A few blocks over, Sami showed us Chihuahuita where a few hundred people still live in a tiny community now wedged into a small area between El Paso’s downtown and the looming border fence. They are truly living on the margins. The little houses back up to the border fence of steel and cement and concertina wire.
We pulled into a parking lot near the bridge.
As we began walking over the bridge, we looked through the framed screens as Sami pointed out the show of force at the border - humvees and military personnel, multiple layers of concertina wire, in addition to the primary fence. It’s a foreboding site, to say the least. (The word overkill comes to mind.) As we continued to walk up and over toward the Mexico side, the lights from Juarez and El Paso began to blend seamlessly, somehow reaching out to one another, denying the multiple layers of wire and fence and the sharp separation of the two cities, only a few hundred steps apart.
As we approached the border, we walked through a small, cement room the size of a large closet. A guard with an automatic rifle eyed us as we moved through. I looked at Sami afterward and questioned why we weren’t asked for our passports. That certainly isn’t the case the other way around. The answer? Mexico isn’t worried about who enters from America.
The five steps in that small room that transitioned us from the US to Mexico reminded me of the steps Dorothy took as she moved to the door of her small Kansas farmhouse after the tornado that landed her in Oz. We emerged into Juarez and our entire group agreed that it was like walking through a mini-portal to another world. Pavement became brick roads, little colored lights illuminating the restaurants, mercados, and bars. Fairly empty streets due to the weather, but altogether a different feel from just over the bridge with its high-rise hotels and modern downtown.
Don’t get me wrong. This is not my first time in Mexico. I’ve been once with my husband when we dated, once with a church group building houses, and once to visit my daughter who worked there one summer, but this is my first experience walking into Mexico versus driving. Crossing the border on foot. It’s a completely different experience. More visceral. More personal.
We made our way a few blocks to La Feria restaurant and shared a great meal…
and then a quick stop at the World Famous Kentucky Club nearby …
…where Sami shared some of its celebrity and prohibition histories which included multiple claims: visits from the likes of John Wayne and Liz Taylor, they are known to be the birthplace of the margarita, and, eh -hem, there is a trough - yes, I said a trough, that runs beneath the bar. I’ll let you do the math there. (Or chemistry?)
This was a night out with friends before we begin the structured Border Encounter experience. But an encounter was beginning.
As we made our way back, Sami pointed out the “Justicia” sculpture dedicated to the thousands of women who have gone missing; to those who were abducted, raped, and murdered in Juarez. Our group grew quiet as we walked toward the border from the Mexico side.
I experienced a slight feeling of anxiety anticipating going through Customs even though I had my passport and I have done this multiple times. My attempt to build rapport with the agent fell flat. “Did you bring anything back from Mexico?” “Only a full belly…” I said. He didn’t appreciate the humor. Or at least he didn’t show it. Although I was last to be admitted back to the States, I was finally cleared to go.
Soon we were back over the bridge to the van and back to our apt for the night. I fell into bed early. Tonight was like wading emotionally into the shallow end of the river anticipating what would soon become a deep dive over the next few days.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Please take some time to check out Abara’s website and learn more directly from them about their work and mission. Maybe you’ll even be inspired to go on an encounter yourself. Or go back with me.
xo Mary
“What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.” ― Jean Jacques Rousseau
In February, I will be donating a portion of my paid subscriptions to:
Abara House Donations: “Friends of Abara recently helped secure historic properties with a dream for "Abara House” located at the historic La Hacienda restaurant. Abara will enter a capital campaign in 2023 to raise funds to purchase and restore the properties. This property sits directly on one of the oldest known crossings of the Rio Grande River, an ancient indigenous pathway predating Spanish colonization in 1598, later becoming the famed "Camino Real de Tierra Adentro." We hope to honor the stories of this land by exploring our histories, the beauty, and the tragedy, and the stories that are yet to be written.” - from the website
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Mary, thank you sharing this powerful experience with us. I look forward to all you are willing and able to share with us about your encounters in future installments.
Wow, what a powerful experience. I can't wait to read the rest. Thank you for sharing! <3