Photo by Garrett Larson

We made beauty from ashes this week. Thirteen incredible souls chose to brave the border war and to partake in what to many seemed insane. With inquisitive eyes and perplexed neighbors in the streets above, we gathered garbage from the arrollo that runs into our backyard, the one that used to be a beautiful fresh spring years ago, the one that was a source of life and beauty, the one that now, since poverty and desperation have moved in, is clogged up with discarded dreams and tossed away ambitions.

Fire and passion are flowing in the streets of our neighborhood tonight. The shadows of beautiful souls still linger in our patio, beauty discovered, hope uncovered.

We have walked with our brothers in Juarez through dark days and dreadful nights, but we stand with them now in the momentum of hope increasing under and above us. We have engaged fear on a deep and very real level. We have pushed through the perceptions of danger, realizing the reality of opportunity and creativity.

We have walked this week with people who live and dream from a courageous love, with people who believe that Juarez is not lost because they have engaged with real individuals, children, families and all that is beautiful about Juarez which can be so easily overlooked.

The border war is real and scary. Fear is a constant adversary, one that must be dealt with moment by moment in this anguished city. But we must not succumb to fear’s flickering lies; we are carriers of hope and life. We have what it takes to stand with our Mexican brothers and sisters and stare this fear down. We are different. We are more powerful than anything that fear could ever sling at us. We are rooted in a foundation that cannot be shaken by bullets and blood. We are ones that stand on a rock that is high, ones upon which the waves of the enemy crumble.

Who can ever say that Juarez is lost and dying, or that any city in the world cannot be recovered and restored? If not hope, then what is there? Why do we fight and strain and struggle?

Ciudad Juarez is not lost. There is a new dawn over the border, a new light emanating all possibility and life.  We are like a rainbow, a promise of God fulfilled to his children. We will not give up.

Thank you, RMCAD, you are a beautiful. You have marked this beloved city, a mark that cannot be erased.