Ministry on the Border

By Andy Behrendt
M.Div. senior

Rose Mary Sánchez-Guzmán lives on the border—in more ways than one.

As pastor of Iglesia Luterana Cristo Rey in El Paso, Texas, less than a 10-minute walk from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, she has centered her life on the physical border that separates two nations. But, in ministering to a congregation in which issues of immigration and poverty seem inescapable, she deals daily with another type of boundary.

"Before, I was black and white, but I am all gray now," says Sánchez-Guzmán, a 1996 Luther Seminary graduate. "I am gray all over because I'm struggling between the law of men and the grace of God. He cares for people. We need to preach the gospel to them, too. They are children of God, as well."

The daughter of two World Gospel Mission pastors, Sánchez-Guzmán first knew she wanted to be a pastor or a missionary as a 13-year-old growing up in Bolivia. She also knew she wanted to study in the United States, and, after beginning at Bolivian Evangelical University, she attended college at the Lutheran Bible Institute in California. In her final year, she became a Lutheran and received a scholarship to attend Luther Seminary. It was in those years of study that she had the life-changing experience of coming to know a God of grace—the God she now proclaims to the people of Cristo Rey.

She arrived at the border community in 1997 in what began as an interim role, evaluating whether the ELCA mission church, started in 1992, should close or organize as a congregation. She was shocked by its poverty. Families were making $6,000-$7,000 a year and sometimes living with as many as six children in one room. Meanwhile, she faced her own challenges as pastor to an unfamiliar culture.

"When I came out of seminary, I thought, 'I know a lot of things. I'm an expert.' I was no expert at working with this community because, first of all, I'm Bolivian. I don't eat chili, I don't eat tortillas, and I don't eat beans. When I told them that, they said, 'What do you eat?'" she recalls with a laugh. "It took them a long time to trust me, actually. They're living here in fear. They really are not sure if people are good or bad to them."

Sánchez-Guzmán determined that the ministry at Cristo Rey was viable and that she would stay as pastor. Ordained in 1998, she worked to redevelop the young congregation despite the obstacles. When she approached parishioners with the idea of a three-year plan, they told her they couldn't even plan for one day in their own lives—how could they plan for three years for the church?

After 13 years, there has been progress for the congregation, which now has 138 members. Cristo Rey has built a worship band whose music has become central to the church and changed lives. With the help of the Rocky Mountain Synod, the congregation bought its building in 2007 and completed its first renovation in 2009. At the same time, it called both a lay pastor to assist Sánchez-Guzmán and a missionary doctor who already had a successful partnership with Cristo Rey offering medical care to the poorest folks in Juárez and helping 100 students go to school through a scholarship program. Cristo Rey's after-school program has also helped more than 20 students graduate from high school and attend college.

But enormous challenges remain. Only about six of Cristo Rey's 55 families are making more than the $17,500 a year needed to fulfill the basic needs of rent, utilities and food. Understandably, the congregation still struggles to be self-sufficient.

And, in the last two years, the number of members deported has increased to between 15 and 25 a year. That often brings Sánchez-Guzmán to counsel members from across the fence as border guards look on. One such member, sent back to Mexico over a year ago, is still waiting to return to the United States legally since she married a U.S. citizen shortly before she was deported. Meanwhile, her oldest daughter is struggling to care for her siblings while also caring for a child of her own. Sánchez-Guzmán recently had a visit at the fence with another deported member who was recently shot in the knee in Juárez, where violence is among the reasons its residents flee to El Paso.

It's here that the flexibility, the methods of pastoral care and the theology of grace that Sánchez-Guzmán learned at Luther Seminary have been so crucial.

"As a church, we have to show the grace and the mercy of God," she says. "The Bible doesn't tell me to feed the hungry of only those with a Social Security number. And the Bible doesn't tell me, 'clothe people—just the ones that have a Social Security number.' Everywhere they go, they're asked for a Social Security number. When they tell their stories, it's funny because they say, 'Oh, here (at the church), they didn't ask me for a Social Security number!'"

Sánchez-Guzmán notes that the claim that a church is a family sometimes becomes a model for exclusivity, but, at Cristo Rey, people call the church their family in a more literal sense. It's a community where they can share their pain amidst their struggles, especially as their own families are often divided by the border.

"It's a place where they can cry and everybody cries with them," she says. "And it's a place where they can celebrate, have their parties and dance. It's funny to see people that are living in despair like that, but they're also able to celebrate. And I think that's why I have stayed, because I think I have learned new values and new ways."

Indeed, along with her own family—her husband, Fernando, and their daughters, 10-year-old Ariella and 7-year-old Mariella Sharon, all of whom have grown to become active in the congregation—the family of Cristo Rey has sustained Sánchez-Guzmán through one of the most complex cross-cultural ministries a pastor could ever imagine.

"I have been able to find a community, and, even in churches, it's hard to find a genuine community that cares for you. And so it's part of me," she says. "I give a lot, but I also receive a lot from them and from being together. They have taught me to believe in the providence of God. And that feeds my spirit."

To learn more about Cristo Rey and its Border Immersion program, visit http://borderimmersion.webs.com and http://cristorey.webs.com, or find Pastor Rose Mary on Facebook.