Update from the OSP-IHM Border Mission

When you minister at the US-Mexico border, you begin to realize that everything happens in collaboration, not isolation. Every encounter you have holds the potential for creating a network of relationships that works in favor of and for the well-being of our migrant brothers and sisters.

We, IHM sisters living in McAllen, Texas, value the many relationships that we have made over the course of the past two years. We are first and foremost grateful for the opportunity to live intercongregationally and interculturally with IHM sisters from Monroe, Immaculata, and Scranton. It also has been a privilege to welcome sisters from each of the IHM congregations and to accompany them as they volunteered for a brief period of time at the border. On June 16, we joyfully received our first Oblate Sister of Providence volunteer, Sister Mary Pauline Tamakloe, OSP. We can only imagine the smiles on the faces of Mother Mary Lang and Mother Theresa Maxis as they saw their sisters come together to offer compassionate and loving care to the world’s vulnerable and marginalized.

Part of our ministry also is to welcome groups of students who come to the border to give service. In June, we connected with three different groups of students who spent one week at the ARISE summer camp for immigrant children in the Rio Grande Valley. The first group was Marywood University, who arrived during the first week of June. This was not Marywood’s first time at ARISE. Lea Dougherty has been bringing students to the Rio Grande Valley for several years. Marywood’s continued presence has made an impact on the children and youth at ARISE, especially on one young man whose name is Juan. Juan has a dream to study social work at Marywood University.

During the second week of June, students from the Academy of the Holy Names, Tampa, Florida, where Sister Lisa Perkowski (Scranton IHM) ministers, arrived to volunteer at one of the ARISE camp sites. This was the second time that AHN students came to McAllen, and they joined us one evening for dinner and conversation. The students were delightful, and they spoke with sincerity and depth about their experience volunteering at the border.

The Cristo Rey students from Detroit, Michigan, are the third group with whom we connected. Their chaperone, Kim Redigan, had spent two weeks volunteering with us in June 2023. During that time, she networked with ARISE personnel and investigated the possibility of bringing her students to work at an ARISE camp the following year. After a year of fundraising and preparation, Kim carried through with her plans this June. Many of the Cristo Rey students were Spanish-speaking, and all of them brought energy to their volunteer service.

Who knows where all these relationships that we have made might lead us? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, let us continue to value every encounter that comes our way!