McALLEN, Texas — The Rev.JohnSchwartzlosedid not want to go to the southern border. He was afraid it would break his heart.
It took two days of contemplation before Father John, a priest in the Louisville Archdiocese,accepted the invitation to attend an immersion trip this week to visit migrant shelters along the Rio Grandein Texas and Mexico.
Despite his apprehension, he joined 18 other priests from parishes across the United States on a three-day journey coordinated by the Chicago-based nonprofit Catholic Extension, which helps support some of the poorest Catholic churches.
Father John worea green plaid buttoned shirt, khakis, practical black shoes and round-framed glasseswith a metal wirethat curved around his ears. And he boarded the plane to McAllen, Texas, just after sunrise Monday because "when God calls you to a place, you listen."
What he witnessedin two days of travel toshelters, chapels and clinics changed him.At each stop, he confronted the effects of U.S. immigration policies that have separated children from their parents, held migrants indetention centers for weeks and crowded asylum-seekers into camps just beyond what may soon be a 50-foot border wall.
He went to the border in the hope of answering a question: What can we even do?
"What is our call, as Christians? We have tobe in the places where the people are who need Jesus Christ," he said. "And that's in the West End, in the South End and in the East End of Louisville. It’s in Mexico and at the border. Wemustbe there. The holy father says you need to be engaged in that place, have the smell of sheep among you.”
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‘Seeing is believing’
At the end of a long gravel road in San Benito, Texas, the priests arrived Monday at an emergency shelter for migrants and asylum seekers.
La Posada Providencia resemblesa summer camp;a cluster ofunsuspecting buildingsis surrounded by palm trees and fields of tall grass. There is avolleyball net and a small playground, several dogs chasing each other's tails.
Thecenterhas welcomed and supported 10,000 people from 86 countries over three decades.People stay at the emergency shelter for as little as one day or as long as several months, awaiting an immigration court date.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, Immigration and Customs Enforcement brings people to La Posada, often teenagers from one of the three nearby youth detention centers who have just turned 18.
Father John joined the other priestsina small screened-in gazebo, a relief from the muggy afternoon. There, Sister Zita Telkamp, an elderly nun with curly white hair, hoisteda largejug of sweet tea from a fridge and offeredthe group bottles of water and coffee.
The priests sat around tables with plates of fresh cookies, as migrants from around the world lined up in the front of the gazebo.
Father John stood up. He felt he was on holy ground, he said.
He looked each of them in the eyes as they recounted their journeys to La Posada.
A man from Angola recently was reunited with his 7-year-old son after spending 14 months in a detention center.
Esmeralda, a woman from Mexico, stood with her two children and clutched her eight-months-pregnant belly.
Andreas, a pregnant 18-year-old girl from Guatemala, was dropped off at La Posada by Homeland Security.
A 21-year-old named KelvinEsoroCerstanebawalked through Guatemala and Mexico to escapeHonduras,where his father was murdered. He has no family in the U.S.
Before coming to La Posada, he spent four months in a detention center.
A Cuban man named Julioleft his country after beingtargetedfor his political beliefs. Julio traveled to Panama and all the way through Central America to ask for asylum at the Mexico-U.S. border.
He turned himself in to law enforcement and was placed indetention in California. Hewears an ankle monitor that makes him feel like a criminal.
Then there’s Deli, a woman from Zimbabwe. She left the country after being beaten and raped in front of her two children.
When she arrived in the U.S., she learned that she was pregnant. From a detention center in California, Deli wrote six letters to different shelters, asking for help and refuge.
One was La Posada, where she has been staying sinceMarch2018. She gave birth to her son a year ago.
She named him Emmanuel — God is with us.
Deli now works for La Posada, is studying for her GED and learning to drive. She wants to become a nurse.
Father John did not break his gaze as Deli shared her story.
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“I was afraid of having my heart broken because I couldn’t count on hearing a story like Deli’s," he said. "… Threatened, beaten, raped — anyonewould have quit. How many harassments did she go through? And she still names a child of rape 'God is with us.' Because she felt God got her through that for a purpose.
"I know people who lose a job in the corporate world and think everything is caving in on us.I am filled with more hope today than I thought that I could possibly have because there is a greater thing here."
The migrants clutched flags and sang God Bless America for the visitors.
A priest from Chicago wanted to know how they felt singing such a patriotic song in a country that had in many ways has been so unwelcoming.
"I understand I amcoming to a new country as an immigrant, but I feelgood because it is the beginning of a new life," said Julio, the Cuban asylum-seeker.
Sister Therese said a young man at La Posada once waved the flag and yelled, "This is my country now!" Another man kissed the flag when they brought it down from the flagpole one evening. It brought the nun to tears.
After a long, hot day atLa Posada, Father John got back to his hotel room and turned the air conditioning up to make it as cool as possible. The priests had walked back from dinner in the Texas humidity.
All he could think was, “Can you imagine walking through that for hundreds or thousands of miles?"
Father John is already versed in American geopolitics and immigration issues. But this first day had him thinking even more about wealth and the American dream — two cars in the garage and a white picket fence.
He said people still believe that the U.S. is a place to find that life.
"Nobody is coming here andsaying, ‘My house in Tijuana wasn’t big enough so I came here,'" he said. "Most people, given the chance, want to stay home. They don’t want to pack up six kids with no food, no clothes, no money and walk 4,000 miles to a place they’re not sure they can get into."
'God is bigger than all of this'
Day two of Father John's experiencebegan before sunrise with Mass at a small white adobe chapel on the banks of the Rio Grande.
La Lomita, "the little hill," wasbuilt in 1899 and is nowatthe center of the diocese’s religious freedom lawsuit against the federal government. Belowa high road where a border patrol car is parked, the chapelsits in the path of President Donald Trump's proposed border wall.
Inside the chapel, Father John joinedthe priests in eight wooden pews that seat two people each. Plaster is peeling off the walls, and the chapel is lit with a single kerosene lamp.
Mass began with the Rev. Roy Snipes pressing play on a recording of Roy Rogers' "Blue Shadows on the Trail."
In a white clergy robe anda cowboy hat, Snipes told the tiny congregation: "No matter the politics of the world, this is a sacred place. There can be no division here. Who can separate us?"
Border patrolhelicopters buzzed in the sky overhead as Father Snipes gave the morning homily.
"There is an arrogant, cruel spirit among us," he said. "And there’s good reason to be afraid of the future.But John Waynesaid, 'Courage is beingscaredto death … andsaddling upanyway.'"
After atacobreakfastserved by members of the Brownsville archdiocese, the priests were invited onto Snipe's boat for a ride on the Rio Grande.
One side of the river is Mexico, and one side is the U.S. But the river is not wide, maybe 50 feet, Father John noticed.
Beyond the dock, though, the water quickly drops to 20 feet deep. On the boat, Father John pointedto the governmentdrone following overhead.
"God is bigger than all of this," Father John later reflected. "Anything built by man can be overcome. The wall is a waste, a fallacy."
On the boat ride, Father John thought: "This could be (Lake) Barkley (along the Cumberland River in Kentucky). This could be Rough River (in Hardin County)."
"God made all of this," he said. "We’re the ones who imposed boundaries. Because, in a normal place, you and I could haveswamor rafted across. But that becomes an international incident if we do."
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From La Lomita, the priests traveled to the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.
The center is run by Sister Norma Pimentel, who has been nicknamed "Pope Francis' Favorite Nun," as she has become the church’s leading moral voice on border issues and migration.
Since the center began in a parish hall in 2014, it has assisted more than 100,000 migrants. Just a few months ago, the respite center helped 1,000 people a day.
On Tuesday, it was empty.
Since the Trump administration enacted its "Remain in Mexico" policy, the thousands of migrants who were legally seeking asylum in the U.S. now must wait in Mexico for their court dates.
The Trump administration has insisted the policy is necessary to combat the wave of migrants that threaten to undermine border security. The administration contends that many migrants trying to enter the country don't qualify for asylum.
Many are sleeping in single-person tents across a bridge in Metamoros, Mexico, where there is no food and no proper sanitation as people wait months to ultimately likely be denied asylum.
Michelle Nuñoz, a young, second-generation Mexican woman who worksat the respite center, welcomed the priests into what was a former nightclub. Two barsnow serve as check-ins and hygiene stations, and what was aDJ boothis now used for security.
Many stay for one night as the nuns and volunteers help coordinate their travel tofamily somewhere in the U.S.
Father John winced asNuñoz explained that families are often fed soup as their first meal because many get sick if they eat solid food after days without.
After the zero-tolerance policy, the Respite Center was one of the first shelters to receive families who had been separated. On Tuesday, ICE told the centerthat17 people would be dropped off sometime that day, but did not say what time.
RobertKrueger, a priest from theChicago Archdioceseasked Nuñoz:
“How would you speak to a person that says that the emptiness of this center today is a sign of this administration’s success in deterringimmigration at the border?
How should we respond to a person in our pews who may feel thisway?"
Nunoz called it an opportunity to remind Americans why migrant families are coming.
"The policies are basically sending these people to theirdeath, whether it'spoverty, violence, gangs," she said. "The problem is not beingfixed. You’re just sending them back into it."
Father John couldn't help but think of Louisville and its removal of homeless camps every year.
"These policies are not eliminatingthe poverty or nativism or economic hardship or drug trafficking or terrorism the people are experiencing," he said later."It just took it out of your view."
Father John's next stop on the day's journey was Fundacion Misericordia de Reynosa, a clinic in Reynosa, Mexico, run by two doctors who are husband and wife. They care for nearly 4,000 patients a year forfree.
Many of their patients have ridden "la bestia" (the beast) — the train that travels norththrough Mexico with dozens of people hanging on.
He noticed that Reynosa was a ghost town, like the respite center. Businesses left Reynosa after recent spikesinviolence, and many people have abandoned their homes.
At Casa del Migrante, a shelter in Reynosa,Father John met with a Honduran man who was traveling through. On his way north, the man and his son were kidnapped and held in two houses over 10 days. They escaped while their kidnappers slept.
Their last stop, Wednesday morning before heading to the airport, was Proyecto Desarrollo Humanoin Penitas, Texas. As many as 10,000 people in transition between the border have lived in these800 acres for more than 15 years.
"There are stories there that at first glanceare so heartbreaking," Father John said. "But you can’t help but see hope, resolution, faith."
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'The experience was two things at once'
After a shortflight from Dallas, Father John stood in the jetway at Louisville International Airportwaiting for hisbag Wednesday evening. Afterthreedays at the border, he looked down at his shoes.
They were covered indust from the shelters andfrom the roads along the Rio Grande.
Normally, he would wash the dust off. He decided against it.
"I need to leave it on there for a couple days to remind myself and other peoplethat we all eventually walk on the same dust, the same Earth," Father John said. "But the trip for the Christian and forthe Catholic is to make sure I’mnot taking more dust than I need."
He said the dust will be a catalyst to process what he saw, tounpack his memories of God's presence, to try to understand what his responsibility is now, having witnessed hope and humanity at the border.
When he arrived back at the rectory, Father John ate aleftover sandwich from the airport and a crushed bag of BBQchips fordinner. He texted his sister who'd asked how he felt after the trip.
"I told her the experience was two things at once," he said. "It makes my heart break and swell in the same breath to think of it again."
He began to cry, reading the text from his iPhone.
"I thought about how many people don’t get that text tosay'I am so glad you’re home, and I love you.'"
He remembered the day he realized it was his calling to be a priest. He was in undergrad at University of Louisville studying political science, on track to become a professor or lawyer, when his mother died suddenly of cancer.
He and his sister, who had grown up Catholic,went toWorld Youth Day in 1993, in Denver, Colorado, where Pope John Paul IItoldthousands: "Do not be afraid."
"Going to the border challenged my comfort, not so much to indict me, but to incite me to think about someone else’s condition and place in this world.I’m not going to create a martyr of myself after spending two days at the border."
He won't get in the way of the story of the lives he was allowed to be part of for a couple of days.
"I'm neither the victim nor the savior," he said.
Father John is being changed, he explained. He just doesn't know what that looks like yet.
Reach Culture & Diversity reporter Savannah Eadens at seadens@courierjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at @savannaheadens.
