In Mexicali, Mexico, east of San Diego, Calif., on the Mexico-California border, 9,000 Mexican farm workers begin their day at 3:00 a.m. They cross the border in the dark and board buses in Calexico, Calif., to travel miles to work in the fields of Arizona’s Imperial Valley. These workers, along with their U.S. counterparts, totaling 26,000, harvest the valley’s rich agricultural output of such crops as watermelons, sugar beats, onions and hay, which are shipped to U.S. markets.

In the midst of this rich farmland, poverty is rampant.

Calexico has a constant unemployment rate of 23 percent, and 50 percent of the children live in poverty. The situation is worse in Mexicali, which has a population of 800,000. An average of 70,000 people cross the border daily looking for jobs -- any jobs.

Life along the Mexico-U.S. border is characterized by poverty, low-wage jobs, large numbers of new immigrants and low levels of education. Calexico Neighborhood House in Calexico, Calif., is at the heart of United Methodist mission outreach with the families and children in the region. It is a continuation of the neighborhood house’s ministry that was established in 1937 by Methodist Deaconesses Ruth Fergerson and Mary Smith to provide services to women and children in an area with high unemployment, low education levels and a large immigrant population. United Methodist Women supports Calexico Neighborhood House through undesignated giving.

A regional approach

The United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries initiated a regional approach to addressing border issues in the 1980s.

"The late Lula Garrett of the General Board of Global Ministries spearheaded the Binational Border Consultation in 1982," said Ricardo Ortega, executive director of Calexico Neighborhood House. "The board saw the need for trying to get representatives from both sides of the border to come together. The whole emphasis was that people need to meet each other so that local needs and concerns are dealt with on the local level."

The consultation brought leaders of United Methodist churches and mission institutions and others serving people living and working along the 2,000-mile Mexico-U.S. border to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The meeting resulted in the border being clustered into service areas: El Paso, Texas, area; New Mexico/Arizona area; and Calexico area. Leaders in each area continued to meet for the next four years.

Those meetings in the Calexico area birthed Iglesia Sin Fronteras -- Church Without Borders -- an organization comprised of Calexico Neighborhood House, a Methodist church in Mexicali, and United Methodist churches in the Imperial Valley and San Diego.

Challenges to mission

Iglesia Sin Fronteras supports three programs:

El Jardin de Ninos del Ejido Cuernavaca (Children's Garden of Cuernavaca): a preschool in Mexicali;

The preschool provides day-care for children of workers in Mexicali, ensuring they are have safe place to stay during their parents’ long hours of work. The project for street children also addresses the impoverishment of so many of Mexicali’s children.

"The children are on the streets because of poverty," Mr. Ortega said. Most of them sell things or shine shoes. "In Mexicali, the average wage is $3 for the whole day -- and that’s what their parents make. We wanted to to establish a drop-in center so the kids could have something to eat and a safe haven."

Iglesia Sin Fronteras secured a Brighter Future for Children and Youth grant from the Women’s Division for the drop-in center, but ran into problems with Mexican government regulations on churches providing social services.

"Mostly the role of the church is seen as to spread the Gospel, anything to do with Bible study," Mr. Ortega said. "Since we were going to be reaching out to children, they saw that as a social service. They saw us as getting into an area of government control."

The group had to become certified as a private non-profit agency in Mexico and get permission to operate the center from that country’s department of infant care, which regulates services for children. In the interim, the group continued to invite street youth in for Bibles studies, Sunday school and youth-group meetings, and fed those who came to these programs.

"They came in, but we also wanted to go out," Mr. Ortega said.

In November 2001, Iglesia Sin Fronteras formed a private non-profit organization in Mexico to facilitate the social ministries in Mexicali, Mexico. The non-profit agency was registered as private non-profit in January under the name Centro de Servicios Wesley -- Wesley Service Center.

"We could not use the word iglesia (church) in the name, but we knew all Methodists would know the name Wesley and so would know who we are," Mr. Ortega said.

Iglesia Sin Fronteras also had problems getting food, clothing and other needed supplies from Calexico Neighborhood House and U.S. churches across the border to the center in Mexicali. Individuals on both sides of the border have worked together to find ways to carry supplies and Christmas gifts for children in Mexicali between the towns.

El Centro de Apoyo al Migrante, the shelter for men stranded on the northern Mexican border, existed before Iglesia Sin Fronteras formed. Seeing the value of the shelter, the church group agreed to provide support to it. The shelter houses men who come to Mexicali from rural interior areas of Mexico in search of work in maquiladoras -- industrial assembly plants. Many more people come to the area for work than there are jobs to fill. The shelter is for men who come, do not find work and, without money to return home, are stranded in the town.

It’s not just Mexicali that benefits from Iglesia Sin Fronteras’ binational ministries, Mr. Ortega said.

"When we started, we wanted both sides helping each other," he said. "Mexicali has so much more need than Calexico in terms of housing and food and shelter, it pops up in you face. We also wanted to have the Mexicali church members help out on this side. They are very evangelical, very spiritual. We wanted them to come over and strengthen our community in that area."

Mary Rengel-Ortega is an administrator for the Imperial County Office of Education in Calexico, Calif. . Yvette Moore is managing editor of Response.