The Monroe IHM community shares a common origin with three other religious communities: the Pennsylvania-based Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Scranton; Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Immaculata; and the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore. Sisters from our shared communities have established a community in McAllen, Texas. Sisters Mary Elaine Anderson (Scranton), Elvia Mata Ortega (Scranton), Carmen Armenta Lara (Monroe) and Rose Patrice Kuhn (Immaculata) are the core group of sisters who live and minister in McAllen. With this creation of an inter-congregational community, our sisters can directly serve asylum seekers who need temporary respite and help to contact their sponsors in the U.S. Below are monthly updates.
December 2024
“We are making the body of Christ with our presence with the migrants.”by Lisandra Pedraza Burgos, IHM and Ann Oestreich, IHM(Members of Monroe IHM Leadership Team)
Sisters Rose Patrice Kuhn, Lisandra Burgos, Carmen Armenta Lara, Ann Oestreich, and Mary Elaine Anderson at the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, TX.
“I am joyful and grateful. At McAllen, I found what God wanted from me. We are making the body of Christ with our presence with the migrants.” With these words, Carmen Armenta Lara, IHM, one of our sisters at this OSP – IHM Ministry at the Border, described her profound experience. Before this ministry, she wondered if God had exploded and dissipated into millions of particles that impeded her finding Him/Her. It was in the context of encounters with the migrants that Carmen realized that all the particles interrelate, interconnect, and become one. It was in the faces of the migrants that she recognized the face of God, of the God of Love that called her to serve.
After briefly sharing the life and ministry of this community, we understand, somehow, the deep meaning of Carmen’s metaphor. The encounter with the families from Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Cuba offers opportunities to see with new eyes, feel with a new heart, and demystify the other that has been constructed. Constructing “the other” is an ancient, powerful strategy to categorize people, induce fear by demonizing them, undermine their credibility and access to basic human rights, and share power in society. Our hearts are transformed when we look into their eyes, affirm their humanity, and listen to their silences, stories, hopes, and dreams.
By opening ourselves to heart encounters and relationships, we see each person who comes to the USA as a sister or a brother, created and loved by God. We see their suffering and understand that the decision to leave their home countries is influenced by complex circumstances that force them to take incredibly high risks that jeopardize their safety and lives in the hope of a more fulfilling life.
To be part of the OSP – IHM Ministry at the Border and volunteering at the Catholic Charities RGV Humanitarian Respite Center and at the Casa del Migrante in Reynosa, Mexico, has been a blessing. Like Carmen, we recognized the faces of God in the people who came there. The experience of encounters with these women, men, and children will live in our hearts forever. We are mindful that although their journeys include great danger, uncertainties, and fears, they cling to their deep faith in God and the kindness of others.
We continue to value our prophetic presence of our OSP/IHM community with the most marginalized and excluded, and to reflect on its impact on the present and future of religious life. We experienced the power of hope over despair, love over hate, and peace over all types of violence. Thank you, McAllen community, for your gifts and for being an inspiration for the thousands of migrants you have touched, as well as for our congregations and the global community. May you, and all of us in religious life, continue walking with God’s people and loving them as God loves them. After all, this is the essence of our call: to let the World know that each and all are loved unconditionally.
October 2024
What do these migrants have in common? Of the 200 migrants at this shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, 78% have been kidnapped.
“The Church is a Field Hospital” is a recurring theme of Pope Francis. Here at the US/Mexico border, these words invoke images of our migrants fleeing from one war zone of poverty and violence in their country of origin into another war zone at our border. We hear each day of kidnappings by the cartel in Reynosa, Mexico, where we minister at two shelters. We hear personal stories of physical, mental and sexual cruelty during days and months of being held ransom. The violence and inhumanity are too horrible to describe in detail!
“The Church is a Field Hospital.” How do we minister to children who share: “I was kidnapped two times.” “They took everything; I have only these clothes.” “I have no life.” “I am scared.” “I have nothing.” “Am I safe?” “The Church is a Field Hospital.” We talk among ourselves and others who serve at the border about how we can change the situation in Reynosa, but we have no answers. We don’t know how to end this war. What we can do is accompany the migrants in the Field Hospital shelters to try and help heal the wounds of the heart. We do what we can to release stress, anxiety and fear by praying with our migrants, listening to them, walking with them and letting them know how precious they are.
Thank you for your continued prayerful support. We are blessed!
September 2024
A Small Project with Big Benefitsby Sister Candyce Rekart, IHM
Sister Candy Rekart speaks to a migrant couple at the Humanitarian Respite Center.
My time in McAllen, Texas, with the IHM inter-congregational community and the mission to migrants on the border, was marked by many noteworthy events. Sisters Mary Elaine Anderson, IHM Scranton, Rose Patrice Kuhn, IHM Immaculata, and Carmen Armenta Lara, IHM Monroe, open their home and offer an opportunity to join them in their ministry with migrants on the border between McAllen, TX, and Reynosa, MX. One of the outstanding, practical, concrete images I have is of their project with the people waiting in the shelter in Reynosa, Mexico.
Imagine the long hours of waiting for paperwork, appointments, and connections, which sometimes take months. Imagine long hours in the heat. When I was there, it was 104 degrees Fahrenheit. There is little to do for children, expectant mothers, anxious fathers, and teens, but wait. Time on their hands is just another of the challenges of their long journey, a journey that has been hard, sometimes precarious, and often traumatic.
Father Flavio Bravo, SSJ, blesses the hands and hand-crafted articles of migrants during Mass.
So, among the other activities they do in the shelter, these IHM Sisters created a project, seemingly small but with big benefits. This project entails using various colors of yarn, a needle, and plastic shapes. I saw migrants working enthusiastically. Adults and young people engaged in a project not only for their hands but also to engage their minds and energy. They productively channel tension and frustration, inspiring creativity and focusing on their abilities to create something beautiful, as well as promoting socialization as they share their designs and chat. Crafters placed handcrafts on the altar at a Mass we attended in the shelter. The blessing of hands followed. What a beautiful moment to see the joy on their faces and celebrate these accomplishments!
What a project! What a sense of empowerment!
Gracias, McAllen IHM Community, for your commitment to the border and making this project possible, among the many other things you do to benefit migrant families and those invited to work with you.
August 2024
Sister Carmen teaches migrants to create items with plastic canvas.
In May, the OSP-IHM Collaborative Border Mission received a grant from the National Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and its partner, the Asociación de Hermanas Latinas Misioneras en America (AHLMA). The funded project addresses the mental health issues of migrant women and their families living in the Casa de Migrantes in Reynosa, Mexico, and waiting to receive their interviews with Immigration.
In June, the first phase of the project was initiated. Volunteers began to provide weekly arts & crafts, needlework and baking classes for women and their children. The classes have been received with great enthusiasm, and there are already a few success stories. This year, instead of buying cakes to celebrate Father’s Day, the baking class made about two hundred cupcakes, put them together to form two rectangular cakes, and decorated them. Sister Carmen Armenta Lara (Monroe IHM) has also successfully gathered a group of women and teens to teach them how to make articles (ornaments, mug rugs, etc.) from plastic canvas. When we arrive each Thursday, it is exciting to see small groups of Carmen’s students sitting together, talking, laughing, helping one another, and creating their own designs with the plastic canvas.
The project’s second phase was implemented by the first week of July. Using money from donors who already support our ministry at the border, we began to buy the handmade items created by the migrant women and teens. Each person took great pride in their work. We believe that the stipend they received for their time and labor is one small step in restoring their sense of dignity and agency.
When we wrote the grant, we hoped to send the handmade crafts, explaining the project, to the retirement/nursing homes of the OSP and IHM congregations to be displayed in their gift shops. That hope has become a reality! Sisters Carmen Armenta Lara, Rose Patrice Kuhn, and I have delivered the items in person to the three IHM Congregations. May each hand-crafted article be a reminder of the plight and the potential of migrant women and teens and an invitation to strengthen your prayerful support of them!
July 2024
Sisters Cathy Nally (Immaculata IHM), Mary Pauline Tamakloe (OSP), and Paula Jameson (Immaculata IHM) make bracelets with migrant children.
When you minister at the U.S.-Mexico border, you realize that everything happens in collaboration, not isolation. Every encounter you have holds the potential to create a network of relationships that works in favor of and for the well-being of our migrant brothers and sisters.
We, IHM Sisters living in McAllen, Texas, value the many relationships we have made over the past two years. First and foremost, we are grateful for the opportunity to live intercongregationally and interculturally with IHM Sisters from Monroe, Immaculata and Scranton. It also has been a privilege to welcome sisters from each of the IHM congregations and to accompany them as they volunteered briefly at the border. On June 16, we joyfully received our first Oblate Sister of Providence volunteer, Sister Mary Pauline Tamakloe, OSP. We can only imagine the smiles of Mother Mary Lang and Mother Theresa Maxis as they saw their sisters come together to offer compassionate and loving care to the world’s vulnerable and marginalized.
Sisters Rose Patrice Kuhn, Mary Elaine Anderson and Carmen Armenta Lara with students and adults from the Academy of the Holy Names
Part of our ministry also is to welcome groups of students who come to the border to give service. In June, we connected with three different groups of students who spent one week at the ARISE summer camp for immigrant children in the Rio Grande Valley. The first group was Marywood University, who arrived during the first week of June. This was not Marywood’s first time at ARISE. Lea Dougherty has brought students to the Rio Grande Valley for several years. Marywood’s continued presence has impacted the children and youth at ARISE, especially one young man named Juan. Juan has a dream to study social work at Marywood University.
During the second week of June, students from the Academy of the Holy Names, Tampa, Florida, where Sister Lisa Perkowski (Scranton IHM) ministers, arrived to volunteer at one of the ARISE campsites. This was the second time AHN students came to McAllen, and they joined us one evening for dinner and conversation. The students were delightful and spoke with sincerity and depth about their experience volunteering at the border.
Sister Carmen Armenta Lara with Kim Redigan and her students from Detroit Cristo Rey.
The Cristo Rey students from Detroit, Michigan, are the third group with whom we connected. Their chaperone, Kim Redigan, volunteered with us for two weeks in June 2023. During that time, she networked with ARISE personnel and investigated the possibility of bringing her students to work at an ARISE camp the following year. After a year of fundraising and preparation, Kim carried through with her plans this June. Many of the Cristo Rey students were Spanish-speaking, and all of them brought energy to their volunteer service.
Who knows where all these relationships we have made might lead? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, let us continue to value every encounter that comes our way!
May 2024
Too much to bearBy Sister Joyce C. Bell, IHMSocial Justice Coordinator, Immaculata
Sisters Joyce Bell, Lauretta Linsalata, and Rose Patrice Kuhn among migrant tents in Senda 2
Social Justice is Gospel living through actions that embody Catholic Social Teaching principles. As I crossed the border from Reynosa, Mexico, to McAllen, Texas, I was struck by the number of migrant families camped along the bridge that crosses the Rio Grande, a thin strand of humanity clinging to the hope that they will be received as asylees into our country. Who were they? Why were they there? How long had they been there? The weather every day in McAllen in late April was overcast and humid, and it was in the 90s. It was not the weather you wanted to be standing or sitting in for long. Mothers and fathers, small children and infants were all there. Even the Sisters who serve in McAllen had no explanation, only conjectures, as to why these people had gathered and were waiting for who knows how long. Meanwhile, the queue of people crossing the border stopped and started but eventually reached the American side. Sister Lauretta Linsalata and I were volunteering at our collaborative ministry, Mary Comfort of Migrants, in McAllen. In our eleven-day ministry here, we met hundreds of people waiting, hoping. They were gracious and cared for, but the burning question in my mind was, “How did we ever come to this?”
In 1980, the United States Congress created the Refugee Act. It has formed the basis for asylum in our country. Asylum seekers must be in the U.S. or at a port of entry to request the opportunity to apply for asylum. Since 2016, the U.S. Government has severely restricted access to asylum at the border. The “Remain in Mexico Policy” impacted more than 75,00 asylum seekers. Title 42 sent nearly 3 million migrants back to Mexico. At the end of Title 42, May 11, 2023, President Biden implemented the “Asylum Ban” on May 12, 2023. This ban requires migrants to seek asylum in whatever country they pass through to the southern U.S. border. If they are denied, they may request it here. How would the migrants trekking through the jungles and the Darien Gap even know about this policy? If they make it to the border, they have to secure a limited appointment time through an App on a smartphone called CBP One. This policy turns asylum protection into a lottery system, leaving the protection of vulnerable people to chance while many remain in dangerous conditions. *
Sister Lauretta Linsalata (Immaculata IHM) waits on the bridge to cross into the U.S.
As a Catholic, it becomes difficult to justify everything I see when my faith believes in the dignity of the human person, the importance and protection of family life, the right to live in a society that promotes the common good and the well-being of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. One answer is to support the religious nonprofits that are providing the basic necessities to the migrants while they wait for a more just and humane policy. A second answer is to become a voice for the voiceless, to advocate for changes in immigration policies that align more consistently with the best of who we are as Americans and with our beliefs as Catholics.
*The International Rescue Committee is the source of all factual information.
April 2024
Sisters Mary Elaine Anderson and Rose Patrice Kuhn join migrant women who are learning to crochet and knit.
The OSP-IHM Border Mission “Mary, Comfort of Migrants” would like to express its gratitude to the National Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and its partner, the Asociación de Hermanas Latinas Misioneras en America (AHLMA) for their recent grant of $3,350. The awarded money is part of the LCWR Solidarity Collection, which was implemented to address the needs of LCWR Region 12 (Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and Arizona).
The grant addresses the mental health issues of migrant women living in the Casa de Migrantes in Reynosa, Mexico. The Daughters of Charity sponsor the shelter, which provides lodging and food for about 200 migrants, many of whom are women and children. While volunteer healthcare workers attend to the medical needs of the migrants and Jesuit and Redemptorist brothers and priests nurture their spiritual lives, mental health is an area that has not been directly addressed.
Migrants usually spend 2-6 months in the shelter while they apply and wait for their interview with U.S. Immigration. The extended period of waiting, unoccupied hours and lack of daily purpose have exacerbated the mental health issues of women who suffer from PTSD, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem.
The proposed project integrates body-centered activities with creating handmade crafts and homemade baked goods. Lay and Sister volunteers give weekly arts & crafts, needlework, or baking classes to the women. At the beginning of each class, body-centered and movement activities are incorporated to help the women center and ground themselves and manage their anxiety and depression. During the class, women learn a skill they can adapt for future use. They are given materials to continue practicing the learned skill during the week. Each class ends with a self-care activity that soothes and calms the women.
The project’s second phase involves using money from donors who already support our ministry at the border to buy handmade items created by migrant women. This potentially would give the women a sense of agency and purpose, increase their self-esteem, and provide them with money to use for their personal and family needs. We hope to send the handmade crafts, with an explanation of the project, to the retirement/nursing homes of the OSP and IHM congregations to be sold in their gift shops to raise awareness of the plight and the potential of the migrant women and strengthen the prayerful support of our aging sisters.
March 2024
Celebrating Holy Week with our migrant brothers and sisters
What a profound experience and blessing to walk with migrants during Holy Week! Our migrant brothers and sisters truly incarnate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus in our present-day world. This year, we (Carmen, Elvia, Rose, and Mary Elaine) accompanied Brian Strassburger, SJ, to Senda de Vida 2, a migrant encampment on the outskirts of Reynosa, Mexico, for the celebration of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil.
Last year we celebrated Holy Week in Casa de Migrantes, a shelter run by the Daughters of Charity in Reynosa, Mexico. There we met Jesuit priest Alejandro Olaya-Mendez who is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Boston College. Alejandro was so touched by his experience of Holy Week last year that he returned to celebrate with the migrants this year. We invite you to listen to the podcast in which Alejandro reflects on his experience and the meaning of the Holy Week celebrations in the migrant context. Click here to access the podcast.
Our migrant brothers and sisters truly incarnate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus in our present-day world.
Sister Mary Elaine Anderson
Celebrating Holy Thursday in the migrant camp
Way of the Cross in the migrant encampment
Young disciples of Jesus in the river migrant camp
January 2024
Sister Rose Patrice Kuhn and children make Christmas cards from used cards donated by our sisters last year.
Recent news reports about the U.S.-Mexico border and the increase of migrants crossing the border may have some of you wondering about our commitment to welcoming asylum seekers to the U.S. A few might be asking if our ministry at the border is legal and if we are serving “illegal” immigrants. Carmen, Elvia, Rose, and I would like to reassure you that our ministry is not only legal but a necessary and loving humanitarian response to the plight of migrants fleeing violence, oppression, unemployment, and hunger in their countries of origin.
You also probably have read or heard that US border towns are overrun with migrants wandering the streets. In McAllen, Texas, that is not true, primarily due to the work of staff and volunteers at the Humanitarian Respite Center (HRC), which Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Brownsville sponsors. Migrants at HRC, where we volunteer four or more days a week, have either crossed the border with the CBP One app, which allows them to request an interview with immigration at a port of entry and start the asylum process, or they have handed themselves over to Immigration on the bridge or U.S. soil to request asylum. All migrants at HRC have documents from Immigration and a date to attend immigration court in a city near where their sponsors live.
Sister Mary Elaine Anderson and a child from Haiti create a picture of the three kings.
In Reynosa, Mexico, we join Franciscan and Mercy sisters and Jesuit priests to minister to migrant families living in the Casa del Migrante, a shelter sponsored by the Daughters of Charity. We encourage the migrants waiting to cross the border to use the CBP One app, even though it may take months to get an interview with Immigration at the Hidalgo Bridge. The families at the Casa del Migrante have food, shelter, and access to physical and mental health care. Although about 80% of them were assaulted and/or kidnapped in Reynosa or during their journey to the border, they are safe within the walls of the Casa del Migrante. A more extended stay at the Casa del Migrante means there is time to create community among migrant families, give spiritual and emotional support to adults, and teach children through art and games basic skills that they will need when they finally can attend school.
In contrast, Senda de Vida 2 is an encampment that, at times, has held almost 3,000 migrants. There is not enough food to feed everyone there, so we have used some of our donations to help address the food scarcity. When we visit migrants in Senda 2, we bring a listening ear and a loving heart. Many migrants in Senda 2, as well as those living on the streets of Reynosa, lose hope that they will ever receive an appointment with Immigration using the CBP One app. The fear of being kidnapped, robbed, or physically harmed while waiting compels them to hand themselves over to Immigration.
So … what is happening regarding the number of migrants crossing the border? We can only share with you what we have seen. Like many of you, we too wonder what is behind the increase or decrease of migrants crossing the border at any given time of the year. We have been here long enough to know that the population of migrants fluctuates, not unlike that of global migration.
A migrant child’s artistic interpretation of the three kings
Throughout November and December, there was a surge of migrants crossing the southern border. Since about January 8, that number has decreased, and fewer migrants are arriving daily at the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen. When we asked HRC personnel and others who are knowledgeable of immigration policies why a decrease followed an increase in migrants crossing the border, we were given these possible reasons:
- There was an increase in migrants crossing at the end of 2023 because of a concern about possible US policy changes in the new year.
- Cold weather impacts migration, and fewer people cross the border.
- After US and Mexican officials met on December 27 to discuss the large number of migrants crossing into the U.S., Mexico has placed more restrictions on migrants who can cross the bridge and hand themselves into U.S. Immigration.
The fluctuation in numbers has not affected our commitment to asylum seekers. In the name of all IHMs and Oblate Sisters of Providence, we continue to accompany our brothers and sisters waiting in Reynosa and welcome migrants who arrive in McAllen. It was precisely because we desired to serve migrants on both sides of the border that our congregations chose to establish a mission in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. We thank you for your prayerful and loving support. You inspire us to be a presence of God’s unconditional love at the border.
For the past several years, these four communities have made a commitment to reconnect and envision a common future. Read more about their shared ministries.