“Juárez isn’t much heaven these days,” I reply, thinking my answer was a gateway to communication, showing her I knew the scene in in J town, I knew what was going on, I’m hip.
She smiled. Kind, but like a profesora who has set you up for a punchline.
“Sure it is. We’re still alive. We’re getting through. There’s just a little bit of hell that’s come our way. For now…”

Words and photo by Bruce Berman of the Border-Blog

Hopeless.

This is the most common word I hear concerning Juárez, and ironically, it is usually from people who have never been there. As much as I am disillusioned with American media and news, I can understand why they are so popular among us, why mega-news networks have such presence and authority in the average U.S. home, why the opinions of pundits command more attention than the Gospel. Fear sells. Scandal sells. Death sells. And all of us are gobbling it up like manna from Heaven.

Hope.

This is the most common word used by people who have walked the streets of Juárez with us, who have crossed over that great-wall of fear and shared life with our neighbors. Together we transcend the madness, we take in Juárez through all of our senses and experience what it is like to rub shoulders with true heretics. This is usually when the one-sided, twisted perspective of a devastated city drifts away into the desert like a fading mirage and our minds are renewed.

What is the hope of Mexico?  Is it the United States of America? I wouldn’t say so given our current approach.

I am convinced that the greatest hope of Mexico is already among them. It is people like Juan and Carmen who have selflessly laid their lives down because of the hope they carry. Their example has been carved into Mexico’s story like a love-note etched into the bark of a tree. For over ten years they have been caring for the most important people, the ones who will forge Mexico’s future, for better or worse, and they continue to do it every school day by feeding close to 400 children twice a day. Their generosity is a lighthouse, a beacon to Juarez. How proud I am to know them, how proud I am to partner with them. I am truly walking among giants.

Silence, like protest, is the drug of our time, the way we do something by doing nothing. We march, we wave placards, and we go mum, and all avoid touching the levers of power and all avoid stepping on the third rail of truth.

Charles Bowden, Murder City

Photo by Bruce Berman of Border – Blog

Our thanks again to the valiant men from Greenwood for putting action behind their faith.

October 8th through 10th we hosted five men from Denver’s Greenwood Community Church in Juárez. These brave men crossed the border despite the urges not to come. This week we will be posting video interviews of their perspectives – being on the ground in Ciudad Juárez.

“We don’t play at the cantinas anymore because it is too dangerous. We do two funerals a day instead,” said musician Jose del Villar at the San Rafael cemetery after serenading a grieving widow, a black accordion strapped to his chest.

But residents have little hope. The only thing that the military presence has provoked here in Ciudad Juarez is more death.

- Reuters

There is a breathless moment in the early mornings in Ciudad Juarez when the the pink flush of dawn begins to glow on the horizon, bathing the streets in front of our house and the jagged desert mountains to the west in a calm serenity. The broken buildings look warm and uniquely Mexico. The moment is staggering and you have to be there precisely when it happens. Its like surfers describing that green flash of light the instant the sun sets on the ocean’s horizon: you have to be looking for it, you have to go out and meet it. The moment is a connection with purity and goodness, a clarifying burst of beauty in its undiluted form; it is hope taking the stage, like God’s face being unveiled before us for a millisecond. And for that millisecond, the atmosphere shifts, the air smells different and that flare from another world reminds me that I can go on.

These brushes with the deeper truth are always there, it is just more difficult to experience them within the rush and rumble of my day. I love catching these moments, quiet and alone in the patio, where I am infused with energy and the mountains of my day don’t seem quite so big. I have learned the hard way about being intentional in searching for these glimpses, the galvanizing connections, the intimate glances with God, especially living in a war zone. As I mentioned in Mornings in Juarez, the storm of death, violence and war can be an overwhelming cesspool of filth and residue that clings to my soul if I do not approach it from a centered perspective, God’s perspective. Otherwise I get trapped in the enormity of the statistics and the hopelessness, and spend the rest of my day buried under a pile of garbage, burdened and weary.

“Lost in the rain in Juarez…” Over 14,000 people have died in the last 3 years since Vicente Calderon stepped in as President of Mexico. 14,000 people. That’s over twice as many coalition soldiers that have died in the nearly 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The problems of Mexico and Ciudad Juarez are insurmountable if we go at them alone. We must approach them together, as family. Unfortunately, staring intentionally into the face of misery cannot be done casually, and sometimes it will spit right back in your face. It requires commitment, endurance and community. The deprivations of the earth are far too great for any one man to conquer.

Like most new and unfamiliar challenges, I had no bearing, no paradigm for what I was getting into by moving to Juarez. I remember my good friend Mike explaining that this was going to be the hardest thing that Misty and I had ever done in our lives. “Yeah, I know.” I told Mike. I had no idea what the (censored) I was talking about. I had no idea that just a few weeks after we moved to Juarez the tide of violence would surge up the sun-baked desert sand and pool in my new city. Nor did I anticipate that my entire being would meld to this city, in the midst of this wildfire, and that an outcast border town, with its trash and blood, would win my heart. The desert has changed how I live, how I respond to the needs around me. Ciudad Juarez is no longer a mysterious dusty smudge on a map or a blurb from a news story, it’s my city.

My spirit craves relief. The desert cries out for liberation. This afternoon is dragging on and the pain in my neck has moved closer to my brain, tender lightning storms brilliant in my skull. I just read about some more people being shot up and down. Another drug rehab place. 18 dead. It’s the 4th Drug rehab center to be attacked this year. Nobody in the business is impervious. There is no escape. No resignation to be placed on the boss’s desk. Ciudad Juarez and her lonely sons and daughters stare into the trash filled streets, the broken down buildings and tyrannizing military convoys. Over 1800 sons and daughters murdered, their blood staining the asphalt and the sidewalks that we walk over. Little girls watching their brothers spill blood out of their skulls, twitching bodies in the gutter. Little boys being shaped by whizzing bullets and the barbaric show that opens each new day in this unbidden drama… (My journal September ’09)

From the west, Interstate 10 bends around El Paso’s Asarco, an old decaying smelter, and runs teetering over the Rio Grande nearly spilling into Juarez. It might be the most outlandish stretch of highway in the country as it flaunts its flashy curves over one of the poorest neighborhoods in our hemisphere, Anapra, Ciudad Juarez. The air over Juarez is often tainted brown with smoke rising from piles of burning garbage scattered across the city. The decorated mountainside rises in the Southwest with Benito Juarez’s whitewashed face painted on the rocky slopes. He smiles down upon the blighted city. My friends from Juarez say that it is a painting of Homer Simpson. My colonia is holed up directly under his worn out grin.

The distance between El Paso and Juarez is the width of a fence; houses face each other across chasms of self efficacy and the swollen rivers of pride and personal advancement. From above the Borderland is a sea of physical and spiritual poverty; over 2400 people were murdered on the dispirited streets of our city in 2009. El Paso urgently clings to the title of the 2nd safest city in the U.S., while Ciudad Juarez is being drenched in blood. The answers for this madness do not come easily, if at all, as Mexico is one of the most treacherous countries in which to be a journalist. Report the facts that are released by official sources, anything else is a death sentence. “In Mexico it is dangerous to speak the truth. It is even dangerous to know the truth.” (Atlantic December 09)

Sometimes I read through these articles, drifting through the words, the numbers and statistics like they were a grocery list: 2007 there was a record 300+ deaths. In 2008, that record was shattered with over 1600 murders. 2009 stands alone. But the problem with statistics is that they are ambiguous and nearly impossible for my mind to wrap around, and it frightens me that I can so easily ignore it all. So many miserable places in the world, yet most of the time I live spoiled nearly rotten, submerged in my comforts and my catered religion. It is only until I remember that within these statistics there are faces, names, voices; these are real people that have been murdered, flesh and blood, my brothers. “Statistics are human beings with the tears dried off…”

After living for over a year in Juarez I have had some face-offs with theses statistics and numbers, and I have had to make choices about how I am going to respond to them: from fear or from hope. And that is where the crux of living in a culture of despair and resign has been for me. Some days are submerged under the whitewater of a tenacious adversary, but most days the dream I carry for our fledgeling city burns like a hot coal on my tongue, hope coursing through my veins, and it’s hard not to scream out. We see the mess, it’s all around us, but we fight from victory. Darkness will not win. A brighter day is coming…

And now, God, do it again— bring rains to our drought-stricken lives so those who planted their crops in despair will shout hurrahs at the harvest, so those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing with armloads of blessing. – Psalm 126

Living on the border of the U.S. and Mexico is like living in a constant state of flux. Leaving Mexico requires a Mexican military checkpoint, then usually after an incredibly long wait, a U.S. checkpoint. Driving into Mexico these days means that you will first be checked by the U.S. Border Patrol, then Mexican Fed/Border Patrol, then the Mexican military. After that, you might be stopped at any number of random checkpoints throughout the city. Last Sunday we were headed to go climbing at Hueco Tanks, just across the border in TX, and we were stopped 5 minutes after leaving our house in Juarez. The military had set up a huge checkpoint on a main road and were stopping every single vehicle. What are they looking for? Drugs? Guns? Large amounts of cash? Food? I don’t exactly know.

We are very proud to stand and live within this quivering city with our Mexican brothers and sisters, and we are very proud of people like Bruce Berman of the Border-Blog. Bruce’s latest post and photo speak incredibly well to the loathsome changes in the borderland. It is easy to presume our own conclusions as outsiders, but we strongly recommend that you stop by Bruce’s Blog and read his latest post. It is powerful, important, to-the-point and garnished with yet another riveting photo of our beloved Borderland.

Bruce Berman, editor and photographer of the Border-Blog, an absorbing look at life through photography and essays which concern our border with Mexico, posted this photo of Juarez. The photo is a reflection of the pain in my heart for this city, like the erie aftermath of falling bombs, or a used-up and discarded city in sorrowful ruins.

For the last several months we have been considering a home-garden/greenhouse project with the hopes of bringing life and color to our neighborhood. As I wrote in What Color is Hope, Juarez is devoid of color. Dust, concrete, and trash are the overbearing color-sapping sponges that have infected so much of this world. We want to help reverse that effect. Some simple ideas we have are: small raised-bed flower/veg gardens; building/buying planters, pots, etc for our neighbors; thinking of ways to use the trash to our advantage, i.e. using buckets, tires, & other items to turn into planters; painting homes; painting mural-like “street art” on graffiti-burdened walls. We are in the beginning stages of organizing some sort of Greening the Ghetto project for Ciudad Juarez, starting here in Colonia Palo Chino. This past fall I started this in our own yard by planting a small bunch of  Zenias; this winter I have extruded thousands of rocks from a 10′x 10′ patch of dirt in our patio, I have begun to amend the soil, and I started a compost bin.

To us and our friends Juan and Carmen, Greening the Ghetto is much more about spreading love to this community through color and life, and we believe that these are reflections of the true heart of God. Simple acts like these can create inroads for sharing life, like getting to know our neighbors better and helping transform this community. To El Paso, Juarez is the elephant in the room that few people are acknowledging; these worlds that are separated by an imaginary line are painfully detached from each other. We have been thankful for people like the Border Explorer and Border-Blog, who are speaking out for our Mexican brothers and sisters, but with so many people from El Paso afraid of crossing the border, we are asking how we can connect the two very different worlds of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, the 3rd safest city in America and the murder-capital of Mexico, with bonds of solidarity, love, and the outrageous beauty of shared life. We want to flip fear upside down.

Our friend Betsy gave us a copy of a talk from TED.com, a super intriguing site where, “the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers… are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).” The talk she gave us is called, Greening the Ghetto. This talk speaks directly to the changes that we would like to see within this community, with hopes that it will swell across the city. We encourage all that would be interested in this project to take 18 minutes and check out the talk and consider joining us in bring life and color to the desert. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks to Bruce for the use of this stellar photo. Please visit his site to see other excellent photos of our border.

What good is a man
Who won’t take a stand
What good is a cynic
With no better plan

Reality is sharp
It cuts at me like a knife
Everyone i know
Is in the fight of their life

I believe in a better way

- Ben Harper

Since our move to the desert, on the few trips we have made back home I was captured by color. Flower gardens, green lawns, literal towering mountains loaded with color and life. The day before we came back to Juarez from our last trip, we hiked around Elk Park Trail on Pike’s Peak with our dear friends Chad & Mary. The bold fall colors clung to the aspen, consuming each small grove like golden wildfire. We walked through the forest, touching Pike’s Peak granite, and we marveled at the wild beauty of nature. That kind of unrestrained splendor rakes the hardest of hearts, exposing the fertile and innocent soil of life.

I managed to grow some Zenias this summer. They are fresh little bursts of color in an otherwise dusty and gray environment. I have been preparing the small patch of dirt that is carved out in our patio for planting. While we were in Colorado this past September I collected several zip-lock bags of seeds from various hearty plants. I hope to construct a greenhouse this winter so that in springtime we can spread color around the neighborhood. It seems that the desert, though alluring with its raw harsh beauty, can quickly sap the piquancy out of life. Imagine your home without plants, without grass or gardens, having only one type of tree, no squirrels, just dust, weeds, cinder blocks, and sandy soil.

Color, life, green: they are glinting vestiges of hope. There are days that the desert gets the best of me. Sometimes my heart is wrenched dry and my body aches. Sometimes the lonely stares and the overwhelming needs in front of my face feel like kidney punches. Lack of color in this city is not the root of these feelings, but it certainly is a symptom of a larger, more poignant issue. When young kids come up to our gate to chat, to get a sandwich, to ask why we are doing pull-ups on our hang board, where we have been when we’re away, and when the gringos are coming back again, there is something in their eyes that gnaws at our hearts. Several of the men in our neighborhood have spoken to me about the difficulty in finding a job here. There is a lot of hopelessness in their voices, and in their eyes I can see clearly how it is draining their pride. Many people cannot find work right now. A lot of factories have shut down because of the so-called-crisis in the States. But a few miles away, across the river, is a church that has almost completed its 16 million dollar building project. Sitting in a service one day we heard the pastor talking about the glorious structure. He said, “When people ask me what I do with all the money that comes into our church, I say ‘Look around! This is where the money has gone!’” One child was quoted as saying that the children’s center was “better than Universal Studios”. This was said during the 12 minute talk he gave about ‘giving’ in which he skipped over the heart of the passage concerning the poor. They only have 4 million more dollars to raise: Starbucks coffee shop, a game-room that rivals any Dave & Buster’s, three giant screens, 4 television cameras, a concert quality light show, a women’s fashion-show next month; I could go on, maybe I should, but I do not want to puke. Money is not bad, nor is being rich, but I don’t know what to think about rich-Christians who ignore poverty, and their disenfranchised neighbors who are thirsty for hope and bereft of color.

The desert has cooled down considerably and I know that the Zenias will not bloom too much longer. The mornings are almost cold now; I love the chill in the air. In the mornings I like to sweep the concrete patio of the fallen leaves that drifted down the night before from the tree that gives us so much shade. I look up and can see that fall is here. I can smell it. Each day there are less leaves and our shade tree becomes a bit more boney. The evenings are chilly but the days are still warm. Such is the desert. The desert has opened my mind, given me a different perspective on life and faith. And hope, like color, is growing in our hearts for this neighborhood. We choose to not give in to despair and when we feel like our hands are tied, we look at the Zenias.