Photo by Dallas Palmer

Living on the border can cripple a person’s emotional range. I grow more numb with each passing day.

Charles Bowden, High Country News

The choice that we made to move to the desert cost Misty and me dearly. This has been a grueling battle on almost every level, but the longevity of the fight is what stunned me. I mean, I have been through some hard times, but I had never learned about endurance before moving to Ciudad Juarez. We had exhausted ourselves for over a year and a half in the desert trying to sustain our organization on our own with grit and determination, learning the hard way that we could not continue under that senseless pressure. And until recently our lives have been a whirlwind, a psychedelic mixture of beauty and difficulty, but we have survived the season and we are are not giving up.

In September of 2009 we came home exhausted, burnt and beaten up from a long struggle in Ciudad Juarez. We had been limping along our path, heads down against the wind and dust, locked in survival mode. We came home to recuperate and to be healed by love, not knowing that over four months would pass before we would be back to the border. The short story is that the old framework was not working anymore, we had to let go of our dependence on visiting ministry groups to sustain us. It was the summer of 2008 that the first groups started canceling their trips. I did not understand. I felt offended by the decision that so many people made to not stand with us and our new Mexican family. But seriously, how many moms and dads are going to send their children off to a city where over 4200 people have been murdered? How many adults would be willing to brave the Borderlands? The organization, like so many others on the border, took devastating blows when everyone recoiled from Juarez. When people stopped coming, funding stayed home with them.

I know what we are doing seems crazy, and I have often wondered what people really think when they look at us with those strange looks when we tell them what we doing in Juarez. I suppose it really is crazy, but what blows my mind is that nearly everyone we meet in El Paso says something like, “You couldn’t pay me enough money to go to Juarez!” Meanwhile, those same people often have close family members living south of the border. One guy said that he had not crossed the border in over a year even though his grandmother lived just a few minutes away on the other side. I find it interesting that people who are enamored with fear live in as much absurdity as people who are blinded by love.

Looking back on the road we have traveled over the past two years, I marvel that we made it. The desert did not kill us. Neither did the cartel or the thugs who wanted to kidnap us, or fear for that matter. Instead, in October we raised the stakes by embarking on a wild journey and the vigorous task of rebuilding, from the ground up, the entire Amigos organization. If I had know what I was getting myself into back in October I might  have given up and gone back to swinging a hammer. I am still learning, but I have a better grip on life and God after walking through the dark valley, the shadow of death. Through it all I have harvested some of the most priceless treasures, it has been a significant and adventurous fight.

The violence in our city has had far reaching effects and since the recent murders of Americans from the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Misty and I have had a lot of conversations with people about safety in Mexico. Sadly, this is a conversation that has been ongoing since we moved to Juarez in June of 2008. Some 4200 people have been murdered in just two years and in my next post I will recap some of the important information for beginning to understand the enormity of, as Charles Bowden says, the war next door. Although we are not currently living in Juarez, our work there goes on and we have been back on two short visits. Juan and Carmen have pushed through this journey with us and at every turn in the road they have led us from Juarez with their tireless faith and rooted hope for their people and their sad city.

There is not a darker or uglier city than Ciudad Juarez, so to me it makes sense that Jesus called us light. He said to go and shine it and to not be afraid. God’s love for his children who live under the heavy fist of injustice has marked me, and the hope that I have for their liberation drives me.