It is through the little things that big things happen. Little lights of mercy are what bring about changes that at first might have seemed too big to happen. Even though world leaders have a lot of say in the lives of people, it is the small and faithful actions of some Baptist churches in Texas that have made big changes in the lives of people who have come from other countries.

Those efforts have been costly, and it has placed them as bearers of some hardships, but to them, the rewards of their ministries cannot be compared to the costs they have paid. And in a time when the rising of intolerance has been permissibly increasing, these churches want to do what really counts. They want to love others.

From the Other Side

Lorena Ortega, 23, was just seven years old when her mother told her to pack her stuff because they were going to go visit her dad in the United States. Lorena had not seen her dad in months, but she knew this would be more than a visit. “My mom said, pack all of your things and go say bye to your friends,” Lorena said. Along with two siblings, her mother, and her grandmother, Lorena rode the bus from Tijuana to San Diego and then to Fort Worth. For Lorena’s mother, Elizabeth Ortega, 51, this plan was not there at first. “My husband and I had a good steady income,” Elizabeth said, “but suddenly we had to look for something else.”

The Ortega’s felt stuck because Lorena’s dad had lost his job and there was nothing else available for him at home, and so, after working hard to have what was needed, he got a visa to go to the United States and move here to look for opportunities. It was only months after that the rest of the family was able to join him. What they left in Mexico were insecurities and the frustration of not being able to provide for the family, and though not everything is perfect here, the Ortega’s are happy to call the United States their home. “I grew up here,” Lorena said, “this is my home, and if I was back in Mexico, I would probably not be in school anymore.”

Lorena is a recipient of the Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) permit, a permit program created during the Obama administration, and one that Trump has called to end in the next six months. DACA requires people to finish high school or obtain the GED, and have no felonies or convictions. Though the permit allows her to work, Lorena still has faced discrimination from the clients she interacts with and from some of her own coworkers and superiors. “They think that I do not speak English and treat me with disrespect,” Lorena said, “supervisors have also said that because of my status they could fire me at any time.” Among those difficult situations, the Ortegas have found peace and comfort in Azle Avenue Baptist Church and its Vida Nueva Immigration Service, a ministry started by the pastor of the church in Fort Worth, TX, Rafael Solis, who also acts as the director of the immigration ministry.

One Brick at a Time

Although the ministry of Azle Avenue Baptist Church’s immigration ministry just officially started about a year ago, Rafael Solis, and the congregation he pastors have been involved in that kind of work since they first took the name of the church sixteen years ago. The congregation had at first been invited by Azle Avenue in 2001 to share the building and also share the costs to maintain it, something the original congregation could no longer do by itself. By the end of the year, the original congregation called Rafel Solis to unify the two congregations and be the pastor of Azle Avenue Baptist Church. But before that, Solis dealt with some immigration problems himself. While trying to work on a new visa that would allow him to continue to stay and work in the United States, Solis found one weekend before his application was due, that his lawyer had been lying to him and done nothing to send the papers to the federal agency. “I went to the office to submit my application at 9 a.m. and at 5 p.m. I was being told that I had the option to defend my case before a judge,” Solis said.

It was at the immigration offices that Solis found out that the money he had spent to get his visa had gone all to waste when immigration officers suddenly came out to put him in detention. “They told me I had two options,” Solis said, “I could wait for a judge to hear my case, or I could surrender and be deported.” If Solis had chosen to take his case to a judge, he would have spent the entire time in a detention facility until a judge was free to hear him, and that could have taken months. “There was a lot of abuse going on in the center,” Solis said, “the officers mistreated the people there, so I told them to deport me.”

Solis was taken to Nuevo Laredo where he found refuge in a church for a few days, and then went back to Jalisco, his native state. He called his wife and told her to bring their daughter back and join him at home. Three months later, all three applied for another visa, and this time they knew what to avoid, how to go to the right people, and how to handle the process. Solis and his family now have their citizenship and have decided to help others see Christ through the immigration services they offer for very low costs. It was after Solis learned from and practiced under the ISAAC Project that he was able to be recognized as Accredited Representative by the Department of Justice.

“Getting the accreditation was not an easy process,” Solis said, “you have to spend a lot of money in books, and look for lawyers who are willing to let you practice under them, which a lot of them are not.” Some of the immigration lawyers’ unwillingness to let a person learn and practice under them may be for fear of competition, but that is why Solis says being an Accredited Representative requires people to have a “vision, a willingness to invest, and a commitment.”

Azle Avenue is one of the few churches that have taken this challenge in the state of Texas and are happy to see the fruits of their work. “We do not do this so people can thank us, we do this because we ourselves are thankful,” Solis said. Since Vida Nueva officially began last year, they have received about 150 clients, and now they are able to consult about fifteen new clients each month. “Each of those new clients who are able to move forward with their application is a relation that the church will have for about a year or more,” said Norma Trejo, Vida Nueva’s Community Outreach Director.

People have come from Austin, Wichita Falls, and San Angelo to see if Vida Nueva can work with them. And besides offering legal assistance, Azle Avenue has also partnered with Tarrant Community College to offer ESL classes at no cost, and citizenship classes for $25. “For churches to do this, they have to understand that this is a full-time job,” said Trejo. And while it may take a lot of time and resources from the church, Solis also says that it is so beautiful when people come back to them and say, “I have my residence now, and I will finally have the chance to see my mom, whom I had not seen in twenty years.”

As Though Everything Depended on God

The waves against this type of church ministry seem to have increased. In the spring of this year, Texas passed the Senate Bill 4, which was first created in response to the Sanctuary Cities effort that the major cities in the state were adopting. The bill, which went into effect September 1st and it has been now partially enacted, allows city and state agents to act as if they were part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The problem with the bill is that “when you racially profile individuals, it goes against what this country stands for,” said FL Sen. and Board of Hispanic Caucus Chair President, Rene Garcia. The SB4 was inspired by the Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which was sponsored by state senator Russell Pearce, the first senator in U.S. history to be recalled. AZ Sen., Martin Quezada, said Arizona has spent millions of taxpayer dollars defending the bill, and that the exact same thing will happen with the bill in Texas. For Quezada, who has had the experience of seeing the effects of the bill in Arizona, SB4 serves only to “loose trust between the public and public servants.”

Because of bills like Senate Bill 4, ministries of Texas Baptists have also pushed for more advocacy. By March or April of next year, Jesus Romero, director of the ISAAC Project will not only be able to help people file their immigration documents, but will also be able to stand in homeland security courts to represent his clients. “These are the perfect times to get involved,” Romero said. From its inception in 2013, the ISAAC Project has existed to help families stay together, which is a goal that Romero said is compelled by Jesus Christ. “Being a Christian means to love others,” Romero said, “and to love others is to stand with those who are more vulnerable.”

The process to be an Accredited Representative can take a while though. Every June the ISAAC Project offers a training that consists of 40 hours and costs $600, this is the first required step for the Department of Justice to recognize individuals as representatives. Romero has sought the help of different San Antonio attorneys to give these trainings, and after that people have to look for other immigration attorneys to serve as their mentors and allow them to practice under them. For Solis, this took about 70 hours of practice with World Relief, where he learned more about different documents, and the process it took to file each one.

The costs and the process have perhaps kept many churches from getting involved. And although many people who are not Baptists and who are out of state have come to get trained by the ISAAC Project, right now there are only about five Baptist entities that are recognized and accredited in Texas. “It is a very sacrificial ministry,” Romero said, “but it is doable and definitely worth it.” Romero also says the program is growing, but that there is always more to do. Scholarship funding would allow more churches to join the program, more churches of Anglo heritage need to see the reality of this immigration issue, while Hispanic churches need to also offer more ESL and citizenship classes. Even for churches that are not of Hispanic background, this kind of work turns out to be a gift.

Scott Collins is part of The Crossing Baptist Church in Mesquite, TX. For ten years now, The Crossing has offered ESL classes, and for the past four, they have also taught citizenship classes. For The Crossing, the classes came at a time when they were starting to see a more multicultural influx in the church, so that might have sparked the idea to offer ESL classes. But now, the church can definitely see that they are more multicultural because of the classes the offered. Currently, the attendance at The Crossing on Sundays is 30% Hispanic, 30% Black, 30% White, and the last 10% percent is a variety of other ethnicities.

“It has certainly changed me a bit,” Collins says. And though at first there were doubts about how congregants, who do not speak other languages, could teach English to non-English speakers, they learned quickly that they had the most important element to teach English, which was to know it. Years after Collins has been involved in that ministry of The Crossing Baptist Church, he has seen several people get their citizenship and receive a new opportunity to live better here in the country. Though “it is not what you get out of it, but what you put in it,” Collins says that he does get to “experience the joys and satisfactions of the people.” While at first the church was concerned about being accused of aiding people with bad intentions, now they have realized this is a missional mindset they have to have. “Ministers have said for over 50 years that the world would come here,” recalls Collins, “now it has finally happened.”

What Will Come

There are several other members of Azle Avenue Baptist Church who have received their papers thanks to the efforts of Rafael Solis and the staff of Vida Nueva. For Loyda Rodriguez, 41, she has found a place that she never thought she would call home. Her idea was never to be here, but because she married a U.S. Citizen and because her children have been born in the country, she now sees this as “a gift from God.” Her children do not consider themselves Mexican, and though she misses her country, she says she has learned to love this country because of her children, “because this country is part of them.”

Since Trump was elected president, many immigrants have seen more discrimination whether their status is legal or not. And even those who are here legally fear that the current administration will also go after them. “I have to think that if God sent Christ for me, then there is really nothing else he won’t do for me,” said Rodriguez. Thanks to churches like Azle Avenue and The Crossing, people can see that while the situations around them may seem difficult, their trust is ultimately in God. “I pray that God will touch the heart of President Trump,” said Aurora Ramirez, 39, who is also a member and has received legal help from Azle Avenue, “the decisions he makes definitely affect many people.” And even if things do not turn around in their favor, Ramirez says that “God will always be faithful, because he has always been faithful.” God has been faithful even before they arrived in the United States, in both the big and the small.

 

This article was first published in the Baptist Standard, you can find part one here, and part two here