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MCALLEN—A chain-link fence along the sidewalk separated missionary De Dorman and the rest of McAllen from the immigrant processing center set up at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Beyond the fence, khaki-colored tents stood tethered to the asphalt parking lot. Generators ran air conditioning units in each tent, keeping the temperature inside somewhere near 70—a stark difference from the humid, near 100-degree temperature outside and the reason for the cardboard box full of fleece blankets Dorman carried. Though 70 degrees feels normal or perhaps even warm to the average American, Dorman explained it is a shock to the systems of those who have spent the past several days or weeks traveling from Central America and Mexico to the American border.
“Children always freeze in the air conditioning,” Dorman said. “They’re not used to the air conditioning. So we’ve had people sending blankets, and I got a box yesterday. ”
Providing blankets is one of many ways a team of volunteers from First Baptist Church of McAllen has been ministering to migrants crossing the border. They’ve washed laundry, cleaned showers and guided whole families through the processing. Whatever job has needed doing, they’ve done, and in all of it, they’ve had one goal: Point people to the hope found in Christ. The team makes a point of saying they have no political motives, reiterating that their only desire is showing compassion and hospitality to those who have landed on the town’s doorstep.
“If we make excuses why we can’t,” Dorman said, “we’ll be accountable for why we don’t.”
So they’ve made themselves available, sending volunteers to work at the nearby church in shifts. Dorman, a member of First Baptist and founder of Helping Hands Ministries, has coordinated her church’s involvement. She said she first realized the Lord’s plans for them when she found herself stranded in a Chicago airport because of bad weather in mid-June. For three days, she slept on an airport-provided cot. As she lay there in the airport, helpless to change the situation or to resume her travel plans, Dorman began to identify with the plight of those coming into her own city 1,400 miles south.
“The first night I slept on that cot, I thought about the people I saw on television sleeping on cots … and I just was so burdened for them,” Dorman said.
Recalling a passage in Exodus about remembering the strangers and how it felt to come out of Egypt, Dorman said she “just felt such empathy” for the immigrants crossing the border, enduring harrowing circumstances and finding themselves strangers in a foreign land. She knew clearly that the Lord was burdening her to minister on his behalf and that he had used the three-day airport delay to show her his plans. Dorman said she resolved then to seek out how she and a team of volunteers could be of service back in Texas.
When she arrived at the processing center, Dorman said she found that it sat on Chicago Avenue. What to others may have seemed coincidental was a clear confirmation to Dorman that she was following the Lord’s plan.
Dorman organized a team of about 25 people from First Baptist to begin helping the Catholic church care for the constant stream of people. She said the Catholic volunteers seemed a bit leery at first of the Baptist group coming to help. But almost as quickly, they warmly accepted them, weary from trying to keep up with it on their own.
“They were just so thankful to have the help,” Dorman said. “I sensed a relief on their part because in the beginning there was such a demand on them. They were exhausted.”
Catholic Charities Executive Director Sister Norma Pimentel said as much when she spoke to reporters on July 19 at the processing center.
“It’s been fantastic,” Pimentel said. “The local Baptist church … has united in effort to respond and work together in whatever we need to do.”
Dorman said she and her group have worked hard to be good stewards of the open door given them by the Lord, aiming to show respect for Sacred Heart and Catholic Charities. Because of the good relationship built between the two churches, Sacred Heart leadership has allowed Dorman and her team to give bilingual Bibles and gospel-oriented coloring books to immigrants along with the care packages they take with them for their bus or plane ride to their next destination.
“We tell them wherever your journey, the Lord wants to go with you,” Dorman said. “We do our best, as God opens the doors, to speak to them and to set resources into their hands for that long bus ride.”
Alisia Pina, another woman serving with the First Baptist team, said she has had several chances to speak with children—many of whom are scared and emotionally raw. She said she explained to them that Jesus is light, and that when things seem dark and scary in life, Jesus can take care of them and that they can call to him by name.
Dorman said many of the immigrants had relayed to her details from their journey—heartbreaking stories that made it clear why some of them froze at the touch of a hand or why many seemed too traumatized to speak.
“Some of the mothers have been raped in front of their children on the way,” Dorman said. “Some of them have witnessed murders. I would say shock is the word for it.”
One woman expressed her relief at having the hot meal provided by the Salvation Army, saying all the coyote had given her to eat during the journey was an apple. These paid smugglers, Dorman said, earn up to $5,000 a head to smuggle immigrants through Mexico to the border. The trek is often brutal and sometimes deadly.
Felina Vega has also been volunteering with the group and has two daughters the same age as many of the children coming through the processing center. She said the whole experience has made her grateful for everything she has and helps her and her children count their blessings.
“Sometimes we take things for granted, and being there makes us see how easy we have it,” Vega said. “It makes you grateful, because God gives you what you need.”
Dorman said the three weeks at the center in July reminded her what it feels like to be a stranger. Sixteen years ago, she and her husband moved to McAllen from Ohio. Suddenly, she felt like a stranger and was a minority. That alienated feeling has helped her to minister to those coming into America, she said.
“I never forgot how that felt,” Dorman said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “They need so much, but their greatest need is not material. Their greatest need is spiritual. I believe with all my heart that when they have the Lord Jesus Christ, he’s going to be the father to them. But they have to make that connection. It’s not ‘we’re all brother and sisters.’ We’re not, unless we’re in Christ. They don’t understand that it’s a relationship, not a religion that they need.”
Shannon Talley, pastor of First Baptist, said he is grateful for his church’s response toward the “refugees.” Like Dorman, Talley said for him the most important concern is ministering to the people and praying that his church can touch them with the gospel.
“My political opinion would be I wish the president and the Congress would have made better decisions,” Talley said. “But I’m not a politician; I’m a pastor. And as a pastor I have a heart to reach people, and want to help people. … For me this is not about politics; it’s about people. Ultimately what we’re hoping is that they get to hear the gospel.”
