Sher Jasperse
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Marion
TexMex Ministry Team Member
We call it the TexMex Ministry, and it has provided many opportunities for friendship, service and deepening faith. (And the food isn’t bad either!)
Over the past eight years, members of several Cedar Rapids-area ELCA churches have developed a special relationship with San Lucas Lutheran Church, a small, but vital ELCA congregation in Eagle Pass, Texas, and Mision Luterana Cristo Rey (Christ the King Lutheran Mission), an even smaller community of faith that is an outreach of the San Lucas congregation just across the border from Eagle Pass in Piedras Negras, Mexico.
For many years, Pastor Bill Bruggeman, coordinator of the La Frontera Lutheran Border Ministry, and his wife Ann, health coordinator for La Frontera, worked with Lutheran congregations all along the Texas-Mexico border. In 2004, several members of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids traveled to Texas to meet with Pastor Bruggeman and visit San Lucas Church. Later that year San Lucas Pastor Hector Vasquez and a handful of his parishioners came to Iowa to talk about the dreams and goals of their congregation.
When asked in what ways Cedar Rapids Lutherans could support San Lucas, Pastor Vasquez identified several priorities, with “prayer and communication” at the top of his list. Other hopes were to expand the small sanctuary at San Lucas and provide a medical clinic at Cristo Rey, which is in a destitute rural area with little health care available.
The planning began, and in 2005, a group of St. Mark’s members – health professionals and others – conducted their first medical clinic at Cristo Rey and assisted with the expansion of the San Lucas sanctuary. They established wonderful friendships with the people there and returned to Iowa determined to carry on the work on future trips.
A mutual exchange
Soon a partnership was formed, with St. Mark’s signing a covenant to build a supportive relationship with the people of San Lucas and Cristo Rey. Eventually other area churches – including First Lutheran (Cedar Rapids), Lutheran Church of the Resurrection (Marion) and Ascension Lutheran (Marion) – began assisting with the Texas/Mexico ministry. The Southeastern Iowa Synod churches offered financial support to the two small congregations, but, from the outset, the relationship has always been about much more than that, says Pastor John Rosenberg, a former St. Mark’s pastor who went on one of the first trips. It was a chance to stand side by side with the people of San Lucas and Cristo Rey, working, learning and growing together.
“They didn’t want it to be a one-way street, but a mutual exchange,” he explains. “They wanted to develop a relationship through which they could give as well as receive.”
As mission groups from Cedar Rapids have traveled to Texas and Mexico twice each year to conduct health clinics, bring needed supplies and assist with various projects, San Lucas and Cristo Rey members have worked alongside us in many ways. With the mission teams staying at the San Lucas guest house (a former orphanage) adjacent to the church, congregational members prepare wonderful dinners for the mission teams, sharing their music, culture and, most of all, their faith in the midst of challenges unknown to most Iowans. Worshipping with both small congregations is an important part of the experience for all those who participate.
Over the last few years, many Cedar Rapids-area church members – young and old, Spanish speakers and non-Spanish speakers, nurses and teachers and handymen and people with no particular skills – have taken part in the TexMex Ministry, working on maintenance and building projects; distributing food, clothing, quilts, prayer shawls and toys; leading VBS for the children and diabetes workshops for the adults; and helping with the medical clinics.
Dr. John Lancaster, a primary care physician from Marion, has been the mainstay of the medical staff, along with St. Luke’s cardiology nurse Anita Haughenbury. Many others assist with clinic tasks, including welcoming and registering patients; caring for children; taking blood pressure and blood sugar readings; dispensing basic health kits, vitamins and medications, and providing encouragement and information.
All those who spend time at San Lucas and Cristo Rey return with a heightened sense of Christian community and the power of God’s love. “It’s about getting out of your chair, interfacing with the people there, and being transformed by the experience,” says Pastor Rosenberg.
An Iowan called to the border ministry
Throughout our ministry, Pastor Hector and his successor, Pastor Nelson Velazquez, both of whom were nearing retirement when they served San Lucas and Cristo Rey, welcomed us into their communities and guided our efforts. Recently, the relationship between the Southeastern Iowa Synod and the two border churches came full circle when Rev. Paul Bailie from Davenport, a young pastor who is fluent in Spanish and felt called to Hispanic ministries, accepted the call to lead San Lucas and Cristo Rey. He is full of plans and ideas for the ministry there, and we hope to surround and encourage him with the support of the Iowa Lutheran community.
That’s where you come in. Have you ever felt called to go on a mission trip but not known how or where? The TexMex Ministry offers a wonderful opportunity to step out in faith and use your gifts – whatever they are – to uphold this vibrant ministry. It’s a chance to do meaningful work in a place of great need without traveling to the other side of the world. (And be assured, although the mission teams are always safety-conscious, the Eagle Pass area has not been affected by the border violence that is prevalent in other communities along the Texas-Mexico border.)
We could use all kinds of help, but are especially in need of primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, Spanish speakers, and people who like to plan and lead maintenance and construction projects. We’re also in search of an optometrist to help lead an eye clinic.