Trench Warfare

"One day we showed up and the trench was filled in," JJ explained as we walked across the stone filled remnants of the trench dug by a work group the previous summer. It was designed to catch the winter rains and funnel the water to a holding area, to alleviate the need for the women and children of Casa Esperanza to purchase additional water for bathing, cooking and laundry. "But that's what happens here. Depending on who's in charge, you never know what to expect," he continued.

The trench is symbolic of a bigger problem for the Lantern Hill team, as they strive to build relationships with a variety of communities in need in this argriculturally rich, but economically impoverished region of Mexico. In almost all of the "campos" where they have begun to form relationships, there are already Christian missionaries serving on behalf of primarily large evangelical fundamentalist congregations.

Initially, the thought of having additional Christian partners to alleviate some of the workload, assist with the growing needs of the community, or offset some of the financial burden is alluring, until they realize our theology doesn't align with their own. In some cases doors close altogether, while in others our role is limited so as not to "negatively" influence the people with our Lutheran Christian theology.

Some of the local migrant farm workers, who have been exposed to what they know only as the "Christian" church, which is different in these parts than the "la iglesia catholica" (Catholic church), have come to call the missionary approach as "Jesus for food." It is their way of describing the evangelical fundamental approach of bringing a large pot of rice and beans to an agricultural squatters community, sitting down and handing out bowls to the people in exchange for listening to their testimony about Jesus, for example.

For the most part Lutheran Christians have been absent from this region of the Baja, until Lantern Hill arrived. Our approach has been different. We enter a community, establish relationships with the people while helping with their needs when we are able. In many cases that means going to other local people, vendors, and shopowners to help supply basic items or services for survival. We strive always to witness the love of Christ, and to allow the Holy Spirit to act through us in serving and accompanying the people.

The communities where we serve have come to know us as "gringos" who do not ask for anything in return for helping to fulfill the basic needs and wants of the people, but instead as brothers and sisters in Christ, who seem to do what we say we will do, and who seem to want genuine relationship with the migrant workers and their families.

While the missionary leaders of some communities simply do not want the "Lutherans" involved, others have been receptive, albeit a times extremely catious. So we continue to try to build bridges in an effort to assist our partners in Christian service and ministry, and ultimately the migrant workers, their families, and the Mexican people with whome we serve. At times while that means having a few trenches filled in, and having a few doors close, if it means assisting with the needs of the people while witnessing Christ's love and God's Grace in a new and more freeing manner, it's worth it.