August 2010

Juan and Lourdes, pictured here, are not your typical example of a newly married bride and groom. For one thing, they have 12 children together. Yes, 12! But they were just as happy as any married couple you would expect to see on their wedding day.


Lourdes and Juan live in a very poor area of Juarez. Juan works in construction and as a day laborer whenever and wherever he can find work, and the jobs tend to be few and far between. The family lives in a two bedroom house with a dirt floor and holes in the roof. But they are very happy together, in large part due to Lourdes faith and joyful attitude. “I’ve never heard her complain,” shared one of our volunteers who visits them regularly. “Whenever we go to their house I hear the kids singing praise songs to God as they play outside. I never see the kids fighting or arguing. Once we were there as one of the older sisters came home from school that day and from all the cheering and excitement of the younger siblings you would think she had been gone for months. It’s a beautiful sight to see all the love they have for one another.”

Having come to the Lord’s Food Bank for many years, Lourdes heard about a program we were sponsoring for those couples who wanted to get married in the Church. The parish priest in the area had asked us to help him with this program, and Lourdes and Juan joined the classes.

After many months of preparation, the big day arrived for the 6 couples who had successfully completed the course. The brides were adorned in wedding dresses that had been donated and each lady was given a ribbon bouquet. The relatives pitched in and helped with food and decorations for the reception held after the ceremony. There was so much joy that day as we celebrated with these couples. Towards the end of the festivities, prizes were awarded for various categories and everyone laughed and cheered when Lourdes and Juan won “for the couple with the most children.”

July 2010 - The Bible Not Burned

Sergio and Lucia Conde Varela have been leaders in our community for many years. If you read the book The Bible on the Border you may remember reading about them in it. Several months ago they shared the following amazing story with us.

At one of our centers in Mexico, which Sergio and Lucia are in charge of, there was a devastating fire in one of the buildings. It was caused by a wire that shorted and sparked. The sparks quickly became a huge fire that engulfed the whole house. A propane gas tank in a storage room exploded further igniting the blaze. A worker was alone in the building at the time but was able to get out before the tank blew, and thanks be to God no one was hurt.

The building burned to the ground and everything in it was destroyed – beds, chairs, tables, desks, bookshelves full of books – nothing escaped the ravaging flames. The fire was so intense that even the heavy duty commercial stove we had in the kitchen (like the kind used in restaurants) melted down as if it were butter on a hot day. Everything was lost – or so we thought.

“When we arrived at the site,” Sergio and Lucia shared, “we were dumbstruck by how complete the devastation was. In less than two hours, all that we had accumulated in the 20 years we had been using this building was gone just like that. But we both had a tremendous peace and tranquility as we gazed at the ruins. The neighbors were surprised at how calm we were. God had allowed this fire for some reason, and we submitted right away to His will. We only asked Him to show us what to do.”

Lucia continued, “Our neighbors wanted to help in some way, so a few days later a big work party came to shovel out the mounds of ashes which were 3 feet deep in places. We filled truckload after truckload with the burned debris. Suddenly we heard someone yell excitedly, ‘I found something!’

Everyone stopped working and rushed over to see what he had found. There on the ground buried in an ash pile was a book. When he picked it up and brushed it off, I recognized it at once. It was my bible! I had kept a bible on a wooden pedestal on the desk in the bedroom. This young man had been shoveling ashes in the place where it would have been. He handed it to me and I carefully examined it. The bible had some slight burn marks around the edges but when I opened it the pages were in good shape — and these are delicate onion skin pages! The desk was gone, the pedestal was gone, everything else in the bedroom was reduced to rubble — but the bible survived!”

Sergio added, “Right away the words of Matthew 24:35 came to mind: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away but my Words will never pass away.’ Praise God!”

June 2010 - New House

Alondra came to our Food Bank in Juarez, Mexico, about six months ago looking for help. She has six children and was carrying the baby in her arms. She was desperate. “One of my kids has epilepsy,” she told us. “Taking him to the doctors and seeking medical help used up all our resources. When I got pregnant with our sixth child, my husband threw up his hands and yelled, ‘I can’t handle it anymore. You stay with your kids – I’m leaving!’ And I haven’t seen him since.”


Alondra’s parents live close by, and they try to help her as best they can. Alondra’s dad makes his living selling candy, chips and soda from a small wooden cart. He used to have an old horse that he would hook the cart to, going from neighborhood to neighborhood walking miles a day selling his wares. But a few months ago the horse died, and the family can’t afford to replace it. Now the dad pulls the cart himself laden down with the snacks to sell – but he has no choice, with all the mouths he has to feed.

The first time we went to visit Alondra’s house to assess the situation, her children were picking up old, hard tortilla scraps off of the ground to eat because they were so hungry. The house is only one small room that serves as kitchen, bedroom and living space for Alondra and her six children. A hodgepodge of cardboard, wood scraps and pallets make up the walls, while white sheets of plastic are nailed all over the outside of this flimsy structure. One can barely see the dirt floor in the cramped quarters. For the toilet they use a hole dug outside in the dirt with some old pieces of plywood surrounding it for some privacy.

We immediately started bringing Alondra groceries each week which includes milk, chicken, beans and vegetables, so now her children are getting good meals every day. We have a waiting list for those needing us to build them a house, but after seeing the appalling conditions this family was living in, we bumped them up to the top of the list. Our crew is working hard to finish their previous projects so they can start building a good, sturdy house for Alondra and her children to live in.

“I’m so grateful for all the help,” Alondra smiled. “Where would we be without you?! God bless you all!”

May 2010 - Threatening Phone Call

As you have undoubtedly heard, the violence, kidnappings and murders in Juarez, Mexico, continue unabated. It has touched the lives of everyone who lives there, even in the very poor neighborhoods where we work. Extortion is on the rise with criminals calling up innocent people at home demanding a quota, a “payment for protection” – or else! If the family decides to pay the quota, it usually leads to endless demands for money until they have nothing left. If they don’t pay, the family members are often killed. These dreaded phone calls demanding quotas have terrorized the inhabitants of this city.


A few weeks ago one of our volunteers named Modesta, who helps at the Lord’s Food Bank in Juarez, received this type of threatening phone call. Modesta’s daughter answered the phone first – and immediately started crying. Her brother grabbed the phone from her and heard the man on the other end say, “We’re going to kill you all. Right now we have people on the corner of the street where you live ready to kill your whole family if you don’t give us the quota. And if you hang the phone up, we are going to kill you.” Modesta’s son started trembling with the phone frozen in his grip. Then Modesta’s son-in-law took the phone. The man threatened him with the same things.

Realizing what was going on, Modesta said, “Give the phone to me.” Before the caller had a chance to say how much money they were demanding or where to bring it, she started telling him, “You don’t have any power over me. You don’t have any power over my life. The only one who has power over me is God. You can’t do anything to me.”

“Oh yes, I do have power,” the man snarled back. “Let’s see if your God will defend you. I’m heading over there now to kill you.”

“My God will defend me,” Modesta boldly proclaimed. “And you, you need to repent. Jesus loves you. Quit this terrible life you are living. Repent and return to God!” Then she quoted from memory all of Psalm 91, “You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust…’” She spoke the words with confidence and faith.

The man tried to continue his threats but Modesta cut him off, insisting, “Look, you need to repent. Ask God to forgive you. I will pray for you. Don’t continue on this path.”

Then suddenly the man hung up. “He had warned us not to hang up the phone, but he was the one to hang up.”

Modesta’s family were all crying, scared out of their wits. She turned to them and said, “No. Why are you worried if God is with us? God is here.” Her kids wanted to call the police. “Why do you want to call the police? They aren’t going to do anything. But God is here! God is the one who is going to act. God will protect us.” Gradually they calmed down, but no one wanted to leave the house. “What? Of course we are going to leave the house. We are going to go and do what we need to do.” So they reluctantly followed their mom out the door.

“At first I felt a bit nervous,” Modesta admitted later. “But I kept talking to God, asking Him for strength. As we left the house, no one was there in the streets and no one was on the corner. We had no problems at all and haven’t been bothered since. Glory to God!”

April 2010 - A Marriage Saved

Sally and Joe* had a rocky marriage from the beginning. Early on Joe had been unfaithful, and he also had a drinking problem; but they worked things out and stayed together. Now 20 years later Joe had another affair, and along with his alcoholism, Sally decided enough was enough. Even though he begged her for forgiveness and was very remorseful, she could not forgive him. She made the decision to file for divorce.

But then a friend gave her a CD of a teaching Father Rick Thomas had given on forgiveness. Her friend asked her, “Before you go through with the divorce listen to the CD.” Sally reluctantly agreed. She heard it and prayed along with Father Thomas as he led people through an exercise of forgiving those who have hurt us in our lives. When the teaching was over, Sally still did not think she could forgive Joe. But she followed Father's recommendation to pray the prayer for several days and she faithfully did all the steps. In the end she made the decision to forgive her husband, and she called off the divorce.

That was over a year ago. Since then Joe has stopped drinking. He now goes to church and even goes with his wife to a prayer group each week. They are doing great. “I’m amazed at the power of forgiveness,” Sally shared. “I had no idea all these other things would happen when I made the decision to forgive my husband. I am so grateful to God. My husband and I are very happy together, and we have a beautiful marriage now. To think what I would have missed if I had gone through with the divorce.”

Not only that, Sally has shared copies of the forgiveness CD with several other people. Two couples who were thinking of getting a divorce have cancelled those plans, been reconciled and are enjoying happy marriages today.

Father Rick Thomas did a lot of marriage counseling when he was alive and always had a heart to help couples. We’re glad to know that his teachings are still helping to save marriages.

* Names have been changed to protect their privacy.

March 2010 - Cold Winter

Like many of you have also experienced, this has been a particularly cold winter for us. It is rare that we have snow in our area, but so far we have had four snowfalls this season. The weatherman said it’s been the coldest winter we’ve had in 12 years.

As you would imagine the cold is particularly hard on the poor, especially the elderly. Many of the people we serve live in cinderblock houses with no source of heat except perhaps a sheet-metal fireplace in which they burn wood scraps. Others have a gas heater but often don’t have the $10 - $20 needed to fill the propane tank.

Spending the day in Juarez recently to help deliver groceries to these homes, I was again struck by how many challenges these people deal with. Maria, an elderly blind lady, was sitting in her cement house which was frigidly cold since she had no means of buying gas for her heater. Her arthritic shoulder was causing her a lot of pain and she had no medicine or pain relievers. Her daughter was there who had deformed feet, walked with crutches, and had just gone through surgery on her trachea so was in a front-to-back cervical brace.

We also visited Rosa (pictured below) who is dying of cancer. When we walked in, she was by herself, shivering in bed with just a thin polyester bedspread pulled up under her chin. When we asked her how she was, she said through chattering teeth, “Cold!” We sent back to the Food Bank for more blankets for her.

One lady we visit was deserted by her husband, leaving her with their three children to raise. She would have been homeless except that a neighbor is letting her live in a broken down one-room shack. The windows are covered with dish towels since there are no glass panes, and when the temperatures dip down into the 20s you can imagine how cold it gets in there. When we first met her they only had a rickety table and a mattress on the floor with one blanket for the four of them to share.

Despite the tremendous hardships they face, the poor have so much faith in God. They depend on Him for everything and have deep trust that He will provide. “I have so much to be grateful for,” blind Maria told us. “I have a roof over my head, the food you bring us, and my children and grandchildren around me. I am so blessed. I can never thank God enough for all He has done for me.”

I felt pretty ashamed of myself for ever complaining.

During this Lenten season let us strive to thank God for our many blessings and to keep reaching out to those in need.

February 2010 - Fr. Jack Vessels, S.J.

We would like to introduce our new priest, Fr. Jack Vessels, S.J. He was assigned by his Jesuit provincial to be our chaplain last year, and we feel very blessed to have him working with us.

Fr. Vessels is a native of Oklahoma who was raised in McAllen, Texas. He entered the Jesuit order in 1944, a year ahead of Fr. Rick Thomas, so they spent several years together in seminary (and Fr. Jack often jokingly says, “I taught Rick Thomas everything he knew.) Fr. Jack is no stranger to El Paso, coming here in 1959 to be the founding principal of Jesuit High School. Fr. Thomas was assigned to Our Lady’s Youth Center in1964 so they spent a couple of years here together until 1966, when Fr. Vessels was sent to Brazil to be a missionary priest in Sao Paulo. Fr. Jack has many great stories he shares of his adventures ministering to the people of Brazil for 20 years.

After his time in Brazil he went to Rome to become the international leader of the Apostleship of Prayer, whose mission it is to encourage people to pray daily for the Church and for the pope’s intentions. He headed that up for ten years then was involved in retreat ministry in the U.S. for 12 years before joining us.

Fr. Jack is 83 years young and full of vim and vigor. He says Mass for us every day, sometimes at our Food Banks in Juarez, Mexico, sometimes in our main center in El Paso, and three days a week at the Lord’s Ranch in New Mexico. He hears confessions for many hours each week and goes with us to the homes of the sick and elderly to give them the sacrament of the sick.

Fr. Jack has a great sense of humor and his joy is contagious. “I’m so happy to be here and love the work I get to do,” he says.

And we’re so happy he is here, too!