A letter from Mark Adams and Miriam Maldonado serving in Mexico
November 2014 - Guillermina's Story
“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 at the center.
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Mark and Pastor Brandi Casto and Whitney Moss of First PC Greer, S.C., and paticipants on the 2014 Border to Border Coffee, Migration and Faith Delegation
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Guillermina at the Migrant Resource 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 15 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.
I had been in the Mexican immigration office with 15 passports of our annual Border to Border Coffee, Migration and Faith Delegation. I was getting visas for them while they were next door at the Migrant Resource Center, a ministry of Frontera de Cristo and the Sagrada Familia Parish that has provided a welcoming and safe place for over 80,000 men, women and children in its eight-year history.
When I entered the offices, there were about 15 men and women sitting on the floor in dark and dirty clothes, putting laces back in their shoes—a sign that they had just been deported from the United States after a failed attempt at crossing the border without the type of visas that I was so easily getting for my compatriots in absentia. While I was waiting as one immigration officer was processing our papers, another officer who had a stack of Mexican credeciales (official identification papers) called up each of the folks from the floor and began asking them questions—
“Where are you from?”
“Motocintla, Chiapas,” responded one.
“How far is that from Tapachula?”
“Four hours.”
“Are you sure it’s that far?”
“By bus it is, if you go in a private car I imagine it is less.”
“Are you sure you aren’t from Guatemala?” interrogated the man in his own country in an attempt to ensure that the U.S. had not deported a Central American back to Mexico.
I felt the uncomfortable reality of the power and privilege difference between these human beings created in the divine image and beloved by God, these sisters and brothers less than seven feet from me whose names I did not yet know.
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Brenda Cuellar, Frontera de Cristo bi-national Intern serving as U.S. Coordinator of the Migrant Resource Center
I introduced myself to the group and let them know that after they were finished being readmitted to their country, next door there was a place of welcome for them where they could get something to eat, call home to let their families know they were safe, receive a new pair of socks or underwear, find a place to stay in one of our partner shelters if they needed it, receive first aid if needed, and arrange a ride (free or half-price) home.
A woman who had been laughing held out her hand that had about 60 percent of the skin peeled off and asked me if we could wash her hand there. She had tried to hold on to the beam of the 20-foot steel dividing wall as she fell into the United States.
Right before I left, one of the women who was being interviewed asked the officer how she could locate her husband who had been separated from her at the Border Patrol Station.
“Oh, you can call the Mexican Consulate at the Migrant Resource Center—it’s a great place.”
Despite the fact that I arrived after them, I left with visas in hand before half of them had been processed. I rejoined the group who were receiving an orientation to the center from Cesar, a young man from Honduras who had once been a guest at the Center after fleeing the violence of his homeland and then being kidnapped and held for ransom far from his home.
I let Cesar and the other volunteer know that soon there would probably be 15 guests arriving who would need welcome and care. About 10 minutes later I heard Cesar saying, “Bienvenidos!”
“Hey, Marcos, she’s from South Carolina!”
Guillermina had moved to South Carolina about the time I moved to Agua Prieta. She had been living in Myrtle Beach for 10 years, working in hotels and restaurants—the irony of her working in the hospitality industry is a painful reality. She loves living in South Carolina despite not always feeling welcome, and she has had to work to help feed her family—Jose, her husband, and Kevin, her 6-year-old son.
She had not seen her dad in more than 16 years and had crossed back to Mexico because her dad had had a heart attack. Tears welled up in her eyes and in the eyes of most of us gathered in that humble building.
With her voice trembling, she said: “When I left, he said, ‘Hija, this will probably be the last time we see each other. Be a good mother to my grandson. I love you.’ My world is torn in two—my dad is on this side of the border and my son and husband are over on the other side.”
Pastor Brandi Casto Waters of First Presbyterian Church in Greer, S.C., one of the participants in the visiting delegation, led us all in prayer with and for Guillermina, and we joined together in the hope for the day when the border would be a place of encounter and peace and not a place of division and conflict.
As I left, I let Guillermina know that I had a son Kevin’s age and that I would keep them in my prayers, I also let her know that I and the ministry with which I serve are committed to continue the hard work of changing laws that tear worlds apart. I asked her if she would like me to share her story with you. “Please ask them to pray for us," she said.
On November 20 President Obama announced an executive order that will provide an opportunity for almost 4 million parents to come out of the shadows and not have to live in fear of being separated from their children. Unfortunately, Guillermina's decision to join her dying father and being caught crossing the border without authorization while trying to be reunited with her husband and son disqualifies her from benefitting from the executive action. It is an imperfect solution, and Congress needs to act to align our laws more with the gospel’s call to radical hospitality and with Emma Lazarus’ words on one of the iconic symbols of our nation: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
In this season of Thanksgiving, let us give thanks to God for those folks who are not even seven feet from us whose names we do not yet know. Let us give thanks to God for the opportunity to know and be known and commit ourselves to ask their names, to laugh and to cry, to work and pray for God’s kingdom to be manifest more fully in the midst of our world that is torn apart.
Peace,
The Adams Maldonado Family
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 37
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