history – The Book of Fellows

At the beginning of December, my students and I participated in a march in solidarity with migrants in transit through Mexico. We walked 20 miles along the train tracks from Huehuetoca to the Methodist church in Apaxco, joining two migrants from Honduras: a father and his 16 year old son.

We started out well, and I naïvely thought it wouldn’t be as difficult as I had imagined. After awhile, though, my backpack started to weigh on me and the sun grew stronger. I slipped on a greasy part of the tracks. I was okay (just covered in grease), but my water got carried off by someone who had stopped to help. My boots felt tight. I was thirsty. I began to wonder if I would make it the rest of the way. We were walking such a small percentage of the journey from Mexico’s southern border to its northern border, yet we were exhausted.

I felt tired and sweaty and thirsty, and as I observed homes and restaurants off in the distance, I felt far from everyday Mexican life. My anger grew. No one should have to live this way, traveling clandestinely and running into thieves, drug cartels, gangs, and exploitative government agents, but U.S. and Mexican immigration policies make it so. I felt in my body a little of what migrants feel every day, and that cemented my frustration with how we treat other people and what our governments have done to do cause this situation. I felt that pain and fatigue in my body, and I won’t soon forget it.

We walked north, towards Mexico’s northern border. The goal is the U.S. for most and Mexico’s industrial northern cities for some (they say there is plenty of work in cities like Monterrey). As we walked, I thought of the U.S. at the end of this 40-day journey—the U.S. on the other side of the border marked by walls and the unforgiving Sonoran Desert. The U.S., my home. I thought of my family waiting for me for Christmas. Some of the people that walk the train tracks towards the north also have family in the U.S. They also think of the U.S. as home. They walk day in and day out to get back there.

Before we began our trek, I had received good news. Isaac, my partner of three years, had gotten approved for a tourist visa to travel to the U.S. After two previous failed attempts and a few years of hoping, this time he had finally been approved. I felt ecstatic—he would finally know my home and my family—and yet on this walk it felt bittersweet. As we walked kilometer after kilometer with our faces towards the U.S., we knew in a few weeks we would fly there together, but we also knew that we couldn’t take along our new friends. Why were we more deserving of a safe travel than them?

When it came time to fly to the U.S., I also thought of my friends from Deportados Unidos en la Lucha. They go to the airport to meet the three planes that arrive every week filled with people getting deported from the U.S.. I was at the airport to fly in the opposite direction. My friends are deportees who call the U.S. home (or a home) and who have family still there who miss them every day. Why am I more deserving of a trip back home than them?

The truth, of course, is that I’m not more deserving. We’re in this situation because of the unequal political and economic power distribution between the Global South and the Global North. We’re in this situation because of xenophobia and racism and racial profiling. Therefore, we can and should give a blanket to a migrant in transit and offer work to a deportee, but we also have to work to dismantle our unjust systems.

Amanda Cherry

GMF International, Class of 2016-2018

Mexico

#3022198

Adventure is an assumed part of being a missionary, and mine started right away upon my arrival at the airport in San Salvador. After getting lost in the terminal, stumbling my way through a conversation with the airport staff about one of my suitcases that hadn’t arrived, and being thrown headfirst into the local Spanish dialect, I finally exited the airport where I saw this smiling woman holding a sign that said “Joseph Russ.” I smiled and waved at her, but her expectant smile was replaced with utter confusion. I told her, to her surprise, that yes indeed I was Joseph Russ, from the United States, here to work for Foundation Cristosal. Apparently, this was my boss, and she took me to the house where I was staying.

It wasn’t until two days later, when she introduced me to her husband, that I found out why she had been so confused. Apparently, she had some different expectations about who I would be. She had been told I was a missionary from the United States, which she assumed to mean I was at least middle-aged, had a long beard, dressed in robes and was very serious. In reality, I’m twenty-two, have a short beard, and I wore a V-neck and jeans on the day she picked me up. And for those who know me, they know that being serious is something with which I have serious trouble.

Despite a slightly awkward arrival, my adjustment to life in El Salvador was fairly smooth. On my fourth day, while touring the city center, I visited El Rosario, a beautiful church near the Catedral Metropolitano and the Central Market. Outside this church was a statue of Christopher Columbus, in honor of him bringing the Christian faith to the New World. When I went home I looked at my prayer card with Junípero Serra’s image, the patron saint of missionaries and the Americas, a “shining example of Christian virtue and the missionary spirit.” I reflected on these two figures, revered for their missionary work, for bringing the gospel to the Christless land, and for bringing salvation to those who didn’t realize they needed saving. Their legacy reminded me of the pride my home church in El Segundo, California expressed on my final Sunday when the congregation expressed their high expectations for me to change the world during my missionary work.

A few days later, I was staying at a co-worker’s house and joined her roommates for dinner. We chatted about our lives, and they asked what brought me to El Salvador. When I told them I was a missionary, there was an awkward pause. They glanced at each other. There was another awkward pause. One asked me how I feel about the history of oppression, genocide, and forced conversion at the hands of missionaries. And if the name “missionary” is so tainted why would I use it, (clearly referring to the legacy of people like Columbus and Serra, known for evangelism by way of the whip and sword). I had the dual opportunity to explain what missionary work means to me AND to practice my Spanish language skills.

It may be easier in English:

As I understand it from my training, missionary work is no longer the thing many assume it to be. It is not just for middle aged or retired people, and though I sport a modest beard, they aren’t required. The robes might make me seem distant, and I have found one of the essential qualities for making friends, integrating into the community, and coping with the struggles of missionary life is a sense of humor. And definitely not taking things too seriously.

The legacy that past missionaries have left behind is polarizing, seen as either heroes for introducing the indigenous peoples to Jesus, or as monsters for decimating populations and stripping away traditions, religions, and cultures of the Americas. I do not intend to be either of these things I don’t have the hubris to suspect that I am bringing something earth-shaking, or that I am a savior of sorts, come to fix problems and show people the ways of which they are blind. I don’t want to be celebrated as such, especially in the tradition of Columbus and Serra, whose atrocities history glazes over in favor of recognizing the “blessings” they brought to the Americas. In many ways, it makes me uncomfortable to see these missionaries, especially those who have perpetrated such heinous acts, celebrated as having fixed something. Nor do I want people to see me and my fellow missionaries as ruthless imperialists here to impose our values on others.

To me, there is nothing more special in missionaries than in anyone else. I want to help the communities I serve however I can, but I want them to tell me what they need, because obviously they know their struggles better than I do. I want to learn from the people who surround me so I can understand other cultures and bring some of that understanding home. I want to see the ways God’s spirit of love, justice, and redemption are already at work. It’s not to fix or shame, to be the hero or the villain. It’s to be as we are. Human.

Joseph Russ