The Cuirim House recently hosted a group of high school students from New Covenant School in Lynchburg, Virginia. The group was led by Chaplain Bart Martin, Coach Andy Ashcroft, and Marion Patterson, the principal of the lower school. This was the first time a group from the school has visited Nogales. The project for the week was to repair the soccer field that we built last year. The repairs were needed because thieves have systematically stolen over half of the fence since Christmas.
Repairing the soccer field was the perfect job for the group from New Covenant School. The coach mentioned to me that all but one of the students played soccer for the school. Thus, the plan was to secure the existing fence, replace the missing fence and have a soccer game with the neighborhood kids to celebrate the work.
The group arrived Friday afternoon and immediately set to work. All of the students pitched in and did great work. Carlos, our construction chief, hatched a plan to secure the existing fence in about 5 inches of concrete at its base and to secure it to the posts with LOTS of wire. To make cement here, we take equal parts of gravel and sand and mix that with a 100 lb. bag of cement and add water. All of the mixing is done by hand with shovels. The mixing of cement can be back-breaking and the students worked with gusto. By evening on the first day, the existing fence was almost completely secured with cement. The next day, the students replaced the missing fence.
As the day’s work finished, the students cleaned up and played soccer with kids from the neighborhood. Coach Ashcroft was the star of the game, getting attention more for his outbursts in Italian than for his playing.
The next day the students made about 150 ham and cheese quesadillas to take to Grupo Beta, a government office established to help Mexican nationals who have been deported and are far from home. The deportees are taken by U.S. Customs agents to whatever border crossing is closest to where they were caught. Very, very often, the deportees are hundreds or thousands of miles from their families in southern Mexico and have no money to get back. Grupo Beta has a very limited budget and is unable to help feed the deportees much of anything. We took the quesadillas with us and spent time with some of the men sitting in front of the Grupo Beta.
The men were very appreciative and I was able to have a couple of great conversations in Spanish. By ministering to the down trodden, New Covenant School put Jesus’ command into practice and the students were able to see that the immigration issue in flesh and blood, rather than in news reports. We had lunch at Burrito Jaas, my favorite restaurant in Nogales and then attended the Sunday service at Iglesia Vida Nueva, the church with which Cuirim Outreach works closely.
On Monday morning, the group helped at the Kid’s Café. Some students served food to the children while others washed dishes. After the meal, we played a pick-up game of soccer with some of the children and teenagers in the street in front of the café.
We then finished the work at the soccer field, the remaining work being securing the new fence in cement. The afternoon of their last full day in Nogales was spent at the tourist market. We ended the day with a tour of different areas in Nogales that reflect both the extreme poverty and the influence on Nogales of foreign manufacturing companies.
While visiting, the group engaged in the Celtic pattern of work, study and prayer. The three times a day chapel helped to get us focused and then re-focused on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The students examined the immigration issue first hand and they worked with their hands and hearts in repairing the soccer field. We thank God for their work and for the gift of working among the poor in Nogales.
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