desperate choices

Pulitzer Prize author and speaker Sonia Nazario (author of Enrique's Journey) spoke at the University of Northern Iowa last night.  She shared stories of the plight of migrants, the cause and effect of many problems that play into the immigration realities across Central America, Mexico, and the United States, and she shared many of her own experiences as she traveled on the tops of 7 freight trains to make her way from Honduras to the United States, retracing Enrique's journey north.  

I have been wrecked by the book and her sharing.  The desperate, agonizing choices of people.  The 11 year old 6th grader whose elementary school is run by the Narcos gang.  The gang approached three of his classmates and asked them to start taking cocaine,  When they refused, all three were found murdered.  When this 11 year old is asked, he has the choice of getting hooked on cocaine, being murdered, or fleeing by himself north through treacherous conditions in an effort to escape.  This is only one story of thousands regarding minors, some as young as seven years old, trying to cross 2,000 miles to either escape terror in their homeland and to reunite with relatives who have come to the United States before them.  As they travel, they face bandits, rapists, starvation, extreme heat, extreme cold, being thrown from the trains, being caught up in the wheels of the trains, drowning in rivers, being beaten, being killed.  Many are deported along the way north, and after experiencing the dangers, many make repeated attempts because they long to reunite with mothers or fathers who've gone ahead, or because they face almost certain death by staying in their crime ridden, drug and gang controlled, and poverty stricken situations.  

The brokenness is so prevalent...fueled by the fact that the United States is the number one consumer of illegal drugs...which then feeds into the drug cartels and the corruption present. There's no quick nor easy solution...but the bright spots throughout the book were found in the people of God who, poor themselves, would come out along the train route and throw food up to the migrants.  Or would share one bed with their whole family so that they might offer their other bed to a few migrants for a night's rest on a bed.  Or would stand by the tracks and pray as each train passed by with migrants. One elderly woman said, "If I have one tortilla, I give half.  I know God will give me more."  The Christian community was seen throughout the book giving from their little to help their neighbor. One woman, Olga, runs a shelter for children who have been mutilated by the wheels of the train.  Children have lost legs, feet, hands as they've tried to hop on and off the trains because they can't get on a train at the station....they have to hop them while they are moving.   

The two strongest impressions for me from this book were

1) The grit, resiliency, strength, and determination of the migrants through the hardest of hardships moved and inspired and convicted me deeply.  

2)  The simple yet sacrificial service of the Christian community as they cared and shared for people, doing what they knew Jesus would do if he was in their place.  They did not debate it, analyze it, try to justify other actions...they simply followed his words about seeing someone hungry and feeding them....someone naked and clothing them.  They, too, had a grit, resiliency, strength, and faith in such difficult circumstances that moved, inspired, and convicted me deeply.  

This won't be a book that leaves my thoughts quickly.  Pray with me today for the plight of our neighbors to the south.