Dr. Tom Gelhaus shares thoughts from his recent mission trip to Mexico
Feb 13, 2025 Well, I guess I need to pen some notes….Yesterday was our first day back from Mexico. Mary and I left Dec 27 for what was supposed to be about two and a half months. My heart attack of Nov 25 slowed us down a bit but we still arrived at Nogales by Jan. 1. Eventually recurring bouts with respiratory viruses had us returning a couple weeks early.
We had been planning this mission to Kino Border Initiative in Mexico since last spring after returning from Guatemala. Kino is named after the Spanish Jesuit missionary Eusebio Kino. It is run by the Jesuit order and several groups of nuns and lay people.
Kino provides between 200-600 meals every day. It is located a short walk from the border so many folks that are deported and have no place to go arrive at the doors daily. There are also many coming from the south seeking asylum.
There is a full-time medical doctor, social workers, lawyers etc. to help but they had no dental care available so that’s where we came in. Mary also worked many hours in the kitchen and ‘roperia’ giving out clothes. Many only had the clothes on their backs after being dropped off, sometimes in the middle of the night with no shoes. One day two people came in saying they had not eaten in 5 days.
Women and children are allowed to stay in the dorms temporarily up to 10 days but they make exceptions.
It is, of course, a 7-day-a-week operation and Sunday afternoon an older Mexican priest said Mass. That’s why I’m writing this. A couple weeks ago after Mass I was thanking the priest for being there. He in turn thanked us for providing dental care. He said that it was an important service but then repeated twice that my ‘testimony’ upon returning home was even more important. (Almost like the old Catholic guilt trip) So, here’s a ‘testimony’ of sorts… I think I will try to keep this simple. 1) Who are these people? 2) Why are they here? We’ve seen hundreds of folks, maybe thousands because both Mary and I helped with serving meals besides working in the dental clinic. However, none have been the terrorists, criminals, drug smugglers etc. that the government and media speak of. I will attach photos of some kids and Moms. The deported people are Mexican. The people seeking asylum are from many countries, mostly Central and South America.
Why are they here? Well, those seeking asylum are suffering from injustice. Over the past 33 years I’ve worked on Bolivians, Peruvians, Hondurans, Nicaraguans and mostly Guatemalans. In all those countries the U.S. has much influence and not in a positive way. We take over their governments and natural resources, and U.S. companies pay wages as low as $3 a day to pick coffee beans and fruit, and sew our clothes. Hundreds of thousands have died just so we can eat cheap bananas.
Think of the Hondurans on the Baltimore bridge collapse working here and sending their pay checks home to families. People are forced to make difficult changes in their lives so children they may not ever see again will have food.
It is much the same in Mexico. I think a good way to explain this is by quoting one of the many books I’ve read about migrants….’The Land of Open Graves’ by Jason De Leon.
“after the passage of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 the United States promised economic prosperity for its southern neighbor if it would only open up it’s ports of entry and take shipment of cheap goodies. Soon after Mexico signed on the dotted line, it found itself drowning in a ‘pinche monton’ of subsidized gringo corn that crashed their economy and put millions of peasant farmers out of work…this impoverished population started making their way north by the hundreds of thousands.
This NAFTA-induced human flood now meant there were hordes of fence hoppers….between 2000 and 2013 approximately 11.7 million people were apprehended.”
“Willful ignorance”……something most of us suffer from.
I learned this term a couple weeks into our mission, as I see it recorded in our journal. One of my new friends, Bob, introduced it to me. Bob is a couple years older than me and spends his retirement years volunteering places including a couple days/week at Kino. He drives for an hour and 20 minutes one way from Tucson most days. He also works with a group called Samaritans on the border. (No collecting sea shells or playing golf for Bob!)
Bob took me along on one of his Sunday Samaritan days in their water/food/clothing delivery truck. The truck would put most Wisconsin 4x4’s to shame. It was a necessity though for traveling the desert mountains. It took all day to check a half dozen ‘drop’ areas. The altitude, heat and terrain made it extremely difficult to even bring supplies a hundred yards down paths known by Bob. Migrants crossing travel miles for days. Many have not survived. Bob has come across human remains…but not this day. Today we crossed paths with a group that we shared water and food with. Very grateful. Very friendly. Less than 10 people including a young woman. I doubt any were terrorists, criminals, or drug smugglers. I could write a short story about that Sunday but I’ll just say some of my ‘willful ignorance’ was abated.
It's always been easy for me to point out the splinter in my neighbor’s eye and not see the plank in my own. I can’t count how many times I’ve ‘confessed’ this. That’s the case here as well. I can point to other countries, corrupt governments, greedy corporations from Asia, Europe, Canada etc….’They’ should control their gangs, cartels, and drug trade we say. But that’s only the ‘splinters’…. .willful ignorance. By avoiding reality, we avoid responsibility.
I’ll end with ‘it’s not all doom and gloom’ Everyone is smiling in most of our pictures. I love helping children. I love meeting and working with other volunteers. The nuns, so fun and young at heart. The cooks, wonderful and how do they manage to provide so many meals each day, much with having to figure out how to use what food that has just been donated before it rots. The long-term volunteers, especially the recent college grads staying for 6 months to a year. The Jesuit Volunteer Corps from the U.S., Mexico, and Latin America — faithfilled kids! Dr. Elizabeth, social workers and all the staff…so committed. The short-term volunteers, retired folks helping for a week or weekend, kids from colleges or high schools. Those local people, coming every Wednesday, Thursday or whatever, to help in the kitchen or every Saturday to sort clothes or every Sunday to sing at Mass and especially the Jesuits! I could write up-lifting articles on all. These yearly trips help with my willful ignorance. Some uncomfortable knowledge for sure but I meet such great people! And it gives me hope.
