Stanley Leary, a participant on a previous border-to-border trip, produced this wonderful video as an introduction to Café Justo and the Fair Trade PLUS model.
Interested in learning more about Café Justo? Check out their website at justcoffee.org.
The Migrant Resource Center is Busy!
While the past year has been fairly slow for the Migrant Resource Center, things are changing very rapidly. We've gone from receiving 699 people all year 2011 to (as of April 2012) getting 50-100 people a day. Our volunteers have risen to the occasion admirably - even when 60 people come at once, we do everything we can to make sure that each person receives a sandwich or a burrito, a cup of coffee, and a phone call home. These are all very important services. Many migrants are underfed in detention and the desert. Phone calls home are also vital because migrants' families are often extorted. It's easy to avoid that if you can call home and say, "I'm okay."
However, this new reality has put a hard strain on our resources. We are in need of donations for just about everything we use. Below is a list of helpful items, categorized by priority. Monetary donations can help us buy these things ourselves, and can be targeted for a specific item. Just press the "Donate Now" button in the upper-right of this website and write "MRC" in the memo line.
We also would love to welcome new volunteers to our family. Volunteers can either sign up for a weekly shift or make themselves available on an "on-call" basis. Because of our relationship with the Mexican consulate in Douglas, we often receive advance notice of buses coming from Tucson. Sometimes these buses come in at midnight or 3am!
To all the individuals and organizations whose continued support has allowed us to be here in a moment of intense need, we are intensely grateful. We hope that continued generosity can allow us to respond to this new reality. (Click "read more..." for our needs.)
Letter from Jeni: The Future of Frontera de Cristo
Brothers and Sisters in Christ
On behalf of Frontera de Cristo I wish you joyous Christ-mas as we celebrate the birth of our Savior. In these challenging times for Frontera de Cristo we recognize through prayer that our work on the border fills a critical space that would leave a void if we ceased it. As the bi-national board of Frontera de Cristo stated this past September: "Frontera de Cristo sees the Hand of God working in the ministry on the Sonoran Desert borderlands, and as a board we feel the call to continue working together in this important ministry."
The past few months we at Frontera de Cristo have been working to create a vision for our future. Frontera's board members, interns, and other staff, as well as the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico (INPM), Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), Presbytery de Cristo, and Presbytery de Chihuahua have been in prayer and working together in the Spirit of Christ to see our future.
Presbytery of Chihuahua Supports Frontera de Cristo
It is with great joy that mission workers of Frontera de Cristo heard that the Presbytery of Chihuahua will join the Presbytery de Cristo in continuing to support this important ministry. The Presbytery of Chihuahua, a presbytery of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico (INPM) met in late October 2011 at the Lilly of the Valley Church in Agua Prieta. In the absense of official relationships between the national churches, the INPM and the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Presbytery was faced with the decision of whether or not to support Frontera de Cristo. Exective board members were on hand for the discission, and Vice-President Rodolfo Navarette gave a presentation explaning Frontera's six areas of ministry, and calling on fellow delegates to continue working together with the binational ministry. As a binational ministry, Frontera de Cristo cultivates relationships with many organizations on both sides of the US-Mexico border. We are blessed that the Presbytery of Chihuahua feels called to join us in mission.
See our photo gallery for more pictures, and click "read more" to hear more about the future of Frontera de Cristo.
support this important ministry. The Presbytery of Chihuahua, a presbytery of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico (INPM) met in late October 2011 at the Lilly of the Valley Church in Agua Prieta. In the 
