I Can Hear Mexico Calling
Following the call as a YAGM through the ELCA
Dear Mexico, I’m so thankful for you. I’m thankful for all the smells you introduced me to—of roasting poblano peppers and of the flowers sold on the corner. I’m thankful for the sights you shared with me—how the sun set over the mountains on days when I could see through the smog, the bright colors of the houses all stacked on one another, and the metro dogs sleeping during the golden hour. I’m thankful for the sounds that I had grown so accustomed to—the kettle whistle of the sweet potato vender, the methodical thunder of a metro train pulling into the station, and the melody of a mariachi band playing a few blocks away. Mexico, you have truly become a home for me. You welcomed me in. You showed me hospitality like I have never known, and you taught me how to love the stranger, to convivir—to live with one another, to be present, and to know that sometimes that’s all that’s necessary. Most importantly, you taught me that meeting my neighbor is an important step in loving my neighbor. Mexico, you are beautiful and broken and beloved, and I love you in all of it. I celebrate your beauty, your vibrancy of color, food, music, and mountains. I celebrate seeing palm trees, pine trees, and cacti on the same street. I celebrate meeting new people everyday who call you home. I see you in your brokenness, in the shared humility that we find in all human societies. You remind me that our countries aren’t so different, and that the problems of one place and people are the problems of all, because we are all citizens of the same world. And you are beloved. You are so beloved! People come from all over the world to visit, to live, and to seek refuge in your community. There is a pride and an affection for living in Mexico. It goes deeper than patriotism or politics. It is rooted in the heritage, strength, and perseverance of the people. For me, it’s rooted in the kindness that I’ve experienced here. I love you, Mexico. You and your people have transformed me. I miss you and I am better for knowing you. With peace and love, Kathryn This is my thank you letter to all the places and people who shared their home with me this year.
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I recently did a workshop for four men from Cameroon, Uganda, and Iran—all of whom spoke English and none of whom spoke Spanish. As we talked about acclimating to Mexico City, they told me that they had only gotten out of the immigration detention facility the day before. Sharing only a shelter, a language, and a migratory status, these four men overcame social divisions and developed a solidarity between them. They were committed to traveling together, learning Spanish together, and making it through all the challenges of the first few weeks together. They are of different races, nations, histories, and probably different creeds, yet through shared experience, they created a brotherhood. They have made me think a lot about what it means to be a community. They have made me think a lot about what it means to build or be a part of the kingdom of God. In the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” but what does that mean? From my experience in Mexico working with a refugee resettlement agency, I have started to think of a migrant shelter as a beautiful metaphor for the kingdom of God—a place where all people are welcome, are safe, and can take refuge. It is a place where people from all nations and languages can live and love their brothers and sisters. It is a place where the hurting, the weary, and the outcast no longer need to hide, but instead are embraced, given a meal, a blanket, and a family. We need more migrant shelters in this world—both literally and figuratively. I pray this kingdom comes. Last Tuesday may have been the first time that I have ever truly experienced a sabbath. Before last Tuesday, I had never dedicated an entire day to rest and communing with God. This past week was our spiritual retreat as a YAGM cohort. We went to Cuernavaca and stayed at a retreat center that is hosted by Benedictine nuns. The retreat focused on quieting the business of life to fully be able to listen to ourselves and to God. The main event of the retreat was spending 36 hours in silence in which we had no schedule except for meals. We were dissuaded from using any technology. And we were encouraged to pray, sleep, read, craft, write, and walk—anything that would help us to rest in the presence of God. On the one hand, those 36 hours were daunting. Even though I am as introspective as I am introverted, I’ve never been forced to sit alone with my thoughts or with God for so long. I found that it required a different kind of vulnerability. When I wasn’t willing to be vulnerable, I was bored out of my mind, but I found that before I could rest, I had to sort through the things that make me restless. I often don’t realize just how easily I am distracted, or how often I postpone processing my thoughts or experiences in a day. It seemed like all the things that I had pushed away came floating to the surface, and they floated with a fury. There was an overwhelming quality to this time of silence, but there was also something honest about it and something relieving about it as I no longer had to suppress anything. On the other hand, there was something luxurious about the 36 hours of silence. I didn’t have to cook or work or clean or even interact with anyone. I can’t remember the last time that I slept all afternoon, or the last time that I sat with myself long enough for my daydreams to become prayers. I’ve gotten so used to living in exhaustion that it seems miraculous to me that I felt more energy at 8:30 pm than when I woke up to start the day on Tuesday morning. I found that after I got through the muck of acknowledging and considering the things that weighed heavy on my heart, I felt free to rest in a more profound way. I felt like I could rest not just in body, not just in mind, not just in spirit, but as one whole person, reconciled to myself and at peace with myself. Is that what happens when we finally and truly rest? Is this what we are invited to do once a week? I know that this retreat offered an intense experience on one end of the spectrum. I don’t think that you have to live in silence for 36 hours to have a true sabbath. I think that a sabbath can be anything that brings you rest and closeness to God. And I think that you can experience the sabbath for a few moments every day. But there was something that felt truly sacred about detoxing from the pressures of society and replacing them with an opportunity to sit with myself and with God. And that should not have to be a luxury. Shabbat Shalom – Peace be with you as you seek sabbath. As many of you know, I went on a trip with the other YAGMs in Mexico to better educate ourselves about life on the US-Mexico border. We spent a little bit of time in Tucson, but mostly stayed in Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora (Mexico). We slept in a church in Agua Prieta. We met with people, organizations, and ministries on both sides of the border. We spent a lot of the time walking along the border—both in Douglas and Agua Prieta. I’m still processing the experience, and am generally speechless, but I want to share just a few of the thoughts and a lot of images that I am left with after walking a couple miles on both sides of the barrier... I wish that everyone knew what the border really feels like,
that they felt the breeze through the fence and smelled pollo asado and truck exhaust in the distance. I wish that everyone appreciated the culture that tacos come from. I wish that everyone shook the hands that make the tortillas that can’t be bought from a store. I wish that everyone was familiar with the various forms of salsa — both the dance and the sauce, knowing that here, they seldom come out of a jar. I wish that everyone knew that most drugs are smuggled through official immigration entry points. I wish that everyone knew that the US-Mexico border barriers are only as old as I am. I wish that everyone could see how Douglas and Agua Prieta could be, and were once, a single community. I wish that everyone could hear it come from a person's mouth when they say, "living on the border makes it look like the US and Mexico are at war." I wish that everyone could see how the sun washes over the mountains that cross the border morning, noon, and night. I wish that everyone felt the crunch of the earth that soaks up all the desert’s beauty and pain in the same dry cracks in the ground. I wish that everyone walked along the border to experience how life keeps going. And I wish that everyone had the chance to appreciate the murals on the other side of the barrier… I’ve talked about accompaniment a few times, but here’s a new context. At Casa Refugiados, we are often asked to do accompaniments with people to banks, social services, job interviews, etc. This serves 2 main purposes: 1. to ensure that people are treated with respect and dignity as they establish themselves in their new community; and 2. to make sure they get to where they need to go in the giant and unfamiliar urban wilderness that is Mexico City. The beauty of accompaniment is that we do nothing. The focus is entirely on the other person. We are but a supporting role, someone who helps them to get to where they are going and let them know that they are not alone. Today, I had my first taste of this kind of accompaniment. I accompanied a man who is seeking asylum from Cameroon. He speaks English and French, but very little Spanish, so I accompanied him to a job interview, helped to translate the paperwork and interpret during conversations with the HR representative. This is what I expected to do, however this is only a fraction of the experience. Objectively, this day was a professional outing between an asylum seeker and a volunteer, but on a more honest level, it was a humbling, joyful, and somewhat surreal experience between two foreigners in a land they’re trying to make their home. Objectively, a shared language was the only thing we had in common, but on a more honest level, he is my brother. Objectively, the whole point of the accompaniment is the interview, but on a more honest level, every moment matters. That being said, it took a long time to get to the business (it takes a long time to get anywhere in Mexico City). During that time, we talked. We talked about why he chose to seek asylum in Mexico. He opened my eyes to a part of our world that I have been painfully ignorant of as he described the social and political climate in Cameroon, the civil war that he fled from, and the child soldiers that are still fighting there. He asked me about my taste in music and told me about his love of Dolly Parton. I heard stories about the dogs he grew up with and how he’s learning Spanish by playing basketball with the guys in his neighborhood. Religion, family, travel, joy, and suffering—we covered it all. We discussed the world as an overwhelming macrocosm as well as the peace and intimacy of living in one moment of one person’s life. So much of what we shared was different, and yet so much was the same. I never would have met him if not for coming to Mexico and working at Casa Refugiados. I never would have met him if he hadn’t decided to seek asylum in Mexico City. I never would have gotten to known him if not for this accompaniment. I have always loved the scripture from Hebrews (13:2) that says, “Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for many have entertained angels unaware.” I would like to elaborate on this: Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for many learn to see themselves in the other. Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for you are a stranger to them. Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for they don’t need to be strangers for long. Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for they may be your long-lost brother or sister or friend. Be not afraid to entertain strangers, for we are called to love and not to fear. Be not afraid to love the stranger. It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been busy with adapting to life in Mexico and wrestling emotionally, politically, and spiritually with how to respond to asylum seekers here and in the U.S. And I’ve realized that while I’ve talked about working with Casa Refugiados, I haven’t explained much of what I’ve been doing. Casa Refugiados is a non-profit committed to accompanying and supporting asylum seekers who want to establish themselves here in Mexico. They provide legal aid, support in finding housing, food, and employment, and help asylum seekers to integrate themselves into life in Mexico City life whether it be through education, work, or community events. I have the honor of working in the integration department where I help give workshops on employment and how to navigate life in Mexico City (ironic, coming from a recent immigrant myself, I know). Bureaucracy is also a big part of the job as I help to process tax documents that people need in order to work in the formal sector. Beyond that, I help in whatever is asked of me each day to support my team and the people that come into the office. Yesterday was a day that I was asked to break routine. My supervisor asked me and the other volunteer to call all the people that we have attended since September to invite them to the Posada (an advent celebration that follows the story of Mary and Joseph looking for a space to stay in the Christmas story). I spent almost all day making calls, probably 80-100 if I were to estimate. At first, I was overwhelmed and displeased with my tedious task. But then the first person answered the phone, a middle-aged woman who sounded cold as most people do when they don’t recognize the number. Her voice softened as I said that I was from Casa Refugiados, asking me how I was and making small talk. Then her whole demeanor melted into smiles that I could hear through the phone when she realized that I was calling her to invite her to a celebration. The next several people who answered had the same reaction. The tedious task became joyful as I realized how lovely it was to spend the day calling people one by one to invite them to a party, to tell them that each of them are wanted as part of the Casa Refugiados community and welcome here in Mexico. I began to feel like the servants in the parable of the great banquet (Luke 14:15-24) that were sent out into the streets to invite everyone they could find to come and join in the celebration! Never before have I connected much with that parable, but this experience really resonated. I was reminded of how Emmanuel—how God is with us in hospitality, reminding us that we are each welcomed and wanted in the Kingdom of God as it exists right here and now. In all honesty, I have always struggled with hospitality. I have struggled with the vulnerability of welcoming people into my space. And I have struggled with the pressures of hosting. But making those dozens of phone calls made me realize the healing and reconciliation that is possible through hospitality. It is powerful to tell people that no matter what has happened in the past, they are wanted and welcome now. And it makes me wonder what would happen if we embraced practices of hospitality on a larger—even national or global scale. How might things be different? "In case of persecution, every person has the right to seek asylum and and enjoy the rights of asylum in any country."
Only four days till the church season, advent, leading up to Christmas. I adore the season of advent! It feels like a season of honesty, of embracing the anticipation and the uncertainty of life while holding hope at the forefront. I need advent in my life. Actually, I think I live in a constant season of advent, always preparing myself and longing to feel God’s presence in day-to-day life.
Today marks being in Mexico for 100 days, and I am overwhelmed by the number of joys and pains that I have been witness to. My mind is flooded with questions and it feels like the waves are washing away any possible answers rather than helping them take root. The current leads me to wonder about why so much pain exists in the world and leads me down a whirl pool where I wrestle with the nature of God and humanity. The saltwater stings my mind’s eye as I try to understand why we still struggle so much to love our neighbor. And my tears just get lost in the sea. This overwhelming ocean is made up of my questions and lamentations regarding poverty, sickness, substance abuse, and loneliness, silence, intervention, and the way people and governments treat asylum seekers, hate, fear, and vocation. One hundred days ago, I dove into this ocean of anticipation and uncertainty and I am barely treading water. For the past few weeks I have been wallowing in spiritual angst. And I think that’s ok. If anything is true about my faith, it is not complacent or easy. However, the problem with wallowing for so long in angst and indignation is that I stopped feeling hopeful. My eyes have been stinging for so long that I stopped seeing Emmanuel. When I say Emmanuel, I am referring to more than just God’s life on Earth in human form as Jesus. Emmanuel means “God with us,” so I believe that the good news of Emmanuel is about all the ways in which God is present in our lives yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I’m sure that I will continue to wallow in the depths of uncertainty, but in this season of advent, I am committed to looking for Emmanuel each day in Mexico, in Canton, Ohio, and wherever else we might experience God’s self. I, along with three other YAGM volunteers, attended a conference this week on faith and migration given by the Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana (Latin American Theological Brotherhood). Together we met with people from all over the Americas—everywhere from Argentina to Canada. It was heavy, and we were met with more questions than answers as we discussed the realities and natures of migration in each of our countries. Unfortunately, the consensus was that although some countries treat them better than others, no country in the Americas treat immigrants and asylum seekers well. The conference was planned long before there was any word of the caravan of asylum seekers from Central America and yet that became the tangible focus of the conference. There are now more than 7,000 people crossing borders in search of refuge from the violence and corruption of their homelands and in search of the human rights that they have been denied. At the conference we discussed our call to react to the issue of migration from the perspective of Christian theology. One of the presenters focused on the story of Ruth and Naomi to illustrate the intersection between faith and migration. In the story of Ruth and Naomi, Naomi left her home in Bethlehem because of a terrible famine. She moved to Moab with her husband and two sons. There her sons each married a Moabite woman, one of whom was Ruth. After Naomi’s husband and sons died, she heard that the land in Bethlehem had been restored and she decided to move back home. She told her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab, but Ruth wanted to go with Naomi, famously saying, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God” Ruth 1:16. Naomi left Bethlehem grieving the state of her homeland and moved back grieving the loss of her husband and sons. Ruth, having lost her husband had no rights in her homeland of Moab, and so decided to follow Naomi to Bethlehem. Ruth accompanied Naomi in her grief and in her travels. Ruth and Naomi represent the vulnerability of women in migration, having to rely on the kindness of strangers, gleaning the fields for food, and trusting in the grace of God. The people in the caravan seeking asylum each have a different story for why they are leaving their country. It might not be because of famine. It might be because of oppressive governments, gang violence, economic disparity, or family reunification—all of which the United States government has had a hand in whether it be by supporting dictators (such as the Oswaldo Lopéz Arellano of Honduras, Efraín Ríos Montt of Guatemala, and Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador), funding cartels, imposing oppressive companies upon Central American economies such as the United Fruit Company and Standard Oil, or the separation of families. I learned during the conference that 90% of women are raped during the process of migration. People do not flee their country because they think it will be fun. They flee their countries because they believe that whatever they encounter could not be worse from the reality they were living at home. Caring for the foreigner, for the migrant, and for the refugee is not only a civil responsibility. It is a spiritual responsibility as the people who seek asylum today walk the same footsteps as our spiritual ancestors. For Jesus, who came from the line of Ruth, was also a refugee. Just as I believe that God walks with the asylum seeker, I believe that we are called to walk with them in whatever ways we can—physically, emotionally, spiritually, and politically. Maybe we are called to the openness and accompaniment of Ruth, saying to the traveler, “My home can be your home…” Brené Brown is one of my biggest intellectual crushes! I’ve been reading one of her books, Daring Greatly, which talks about shame, courage, and vulnerability. I decided to read this book because I thought it would be an uplifting read from a familiar voice. Little did I know that she had so much to say to me right now.
There are beautiful and difficult things about every experience. I love my job at Casa Refugiados and I really enjoy my host family. However, these first two months in Mexico have been really hard. Since arriving in Mexico, I’ve had pinkeye, caught a bad cold from a baby, struggled with catcalls and machismo, cut myself on a fence, burned myself, gotten lost, and gotten bedbugs. My primary states of being have been distracted and exhausted (which is the exact reason for pouring boiling water over my hand). I had been beating myself up about why I haven’t been handling this transition better, and was frustrated that I was having so many issues in Mexico. Then I started reading Daring Greatly and a different voice spoke to me. It said, “Of course you’re struggling! You threw yourself into a foreign land away from all the things that were comfortable for you. You moved in with 20 people you had never met before, and started a new job. You spend 95% of the day speaking a language other than your mother tongue. You are learning to navigate a city that is home to more than 23 million people… You have dived deeper into the pool of pure vulnerability than you ever have before.” This voice sounded like a mixture between my mom and Brené Brown. It was telling me, “Be kind to yourself. Give yourself some grace. Treat yourself as you would treat others in this situation.” Part 1 was acknowledging my vulnerability—whether it was to germs, people, bugs, or buses. I realized that I am essentially vulnerable 24 hours a day. Part 2 was embracing this vulnerability and finally reaching out to tell people where I was/am at. This meant getting medicine from the pharmacy, explaining to people that I have food allergies, telling myself that it’s ok not to say ‘hi’ to everyone if I don’t feel safe, and talking to my host family about how to get rid of bedbugs. I found bedbugs in my bed the day before my birthday. I was homesick and exhausted and didn’t have the energy to deal with bedbugs (which I’ve never had before). I had to talk to my host family about it as well as my country coordinator. I told my work supervisor so that I could take off work to clean my room and asked one of the other volunteers if I could stay with her and her family. When I told this long list of people what I was going through, I expected to receive grumbling about having a problem, needing to take off work, and imposing upon other people’s lives, but that’s not what happened at all. To the contrary, I was met with concern and compassion. The volunteer and her family welcomed me with open arms and offered that I could stay with them for a month if I needed it. My supervisor let me take off work. My coordinator and next-door neighbor offered to help me deep clean my room, and my host family ordered a new mattress. Don’t get me wrong, this past week was awful, but after embracing being vulnerable, swallowing my pride, and asking for help, I finished the week feeling like I have a support system—like I have friends and a community here. I was spending so much time focused on trying to be independent that all I was left with was exhaustion and loneliness. When I finally showed people how I was falling apart, I entered into a community where I didn’t have to be independent to be empowered. All of this has made me wonder what this means for community building and healthy relationships in other contexts… What would happen if we embraced our own vulnerability in the same way that we embrace that of other people? Mexico is a predominantly Catholic nation, yet by chance, I moved into a Jewish town with a Lutheran family. This family is so religiously diverse. My host parents are Lutheran, yet within the extended family there are Messianic Jews, Mormons, Catholics, and Evangelicals. Living with so many different spiritual perspectives has definitely challenged my assumptions about religiosity in Mexico. When I moved in with the Lutheran side of the family, I also moved into a new church home. For many generations, my host family has worshipped with a bilingual, Lutheran congregation called, Buen Pastor (Good Shepherd). There are only about 10-20 people in attendance on a given Sunday, yet they have a profound sense of community and commitment to this church. Much of this has to do with the pastor there who welcomes everyone individually and connects with them mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Meet Rev. Miguel (shown in picture), who comes from El Salvador and sees social justice as being directly linked to spirituality. I’ve only heard four sermons from Miguel, but in each one he applies scripture to current-day power structures, to the 43 missing students who are among many others that have not seen justice, and constantly emphasizes that all relationships and situations are not just between people, but between people and God. Today, Miguel preached on Mark 9:38-50 in which Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell…” These are often noted as harsh words from Jesus, however Miguel offered the interpretation of our hands, legs, eyes, etc. as metaphors for our pride, power, greed, and privilege which keep us from the peace and humility of an authentic relationship with God and with others. Issues of privilege and power have been on my mind a lot lately, both as I follow the news in the U.S. and as I wrestle with the power and privilege that I have here in Mexico. My mind began to spin thinking about if we apply this interpretation to other bodily metaphors in scripture—from being the body of the church to recognizing our bodies as temples of the holy spirit. The hymn “Take my Life and Let It Be” came to mind as it consecrates one’s hands, feet, and voice to God. I was struck by this. What would happen if we consecrated our whole selves to God?—not just the parts that are easy to offer, but the parts of ourselves that we try to deny. What would happen if we consecrated our pride, power, and privilege? What would that mean? And how might that change our society? I certainly don’t have the answers, but I think that’s a big part of what we are being asked to do as YAGM volunteers. We are asked to acknowledge our privilege—even the fact that it is a privilege to be able to leave our country, to travel, to pause our lives in the U.S. and begin new ones in a new community, and that it is a privilege to choose to serve. I am so thankful for Miguel for challenging my faith each week, for reminding me that God is not limited by borders or language barriers, for teaching me that scripture is truly a living word and that it speaks to us today regardless of our social, political, or spiritual contexts, and for encouraging me to evaluate how my faith in God intersects with my worldly privilege. |
AuthorMy name is Kathryn Ophardt. I am spending this year in Mexico City as a Young Adult for Global Mission with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. During this year of service, I'll be working with the non-profit, Casa Refugiados. Archives
October 2018
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