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Congregational Vitality: Stories and Learning

Communing with Christ in the strawberry field

 

The faith community of Iglesia Luterana Santa Cruz communes with Christ in a strawberry field of Santa Maria, Calif. It’s but one expression of a ministry of hospitality and hope with working-poor immigrants.

Founded in 2002, this new-start community has grown and expanded its reach over the years to the larger community of working-poor immigrants who face many obstacles daily in simply living their lives. This includes coordinating the weekly lunch program with Latinx workers in the field.

The average week for the husband-and-wife team of Pastor Esteban and Angie Salazar includes leading worship with a growing community, buying fresh ingredients to make homemade tortas, managing volunteers to coordinate Santa Cruz’s food pantry and so much more.

Working-Poor Latinx Immigrants in communion with Christ

Immigrant farmworkers join in prayer with Pastor Esteban and Angie Salazar in a strawberry field.

Immigrant farmworker ministry

In 2017, Esteban and Angie felt a strong call to help their congregation’s immigrant farmworkers who labor in a nearby strawberry field. After communicating with the warden of the field, who thought Esteban and Angie were pulling a prank, they drove to the field and were greeted with a “really, you’re here?” surprised response from the warden. Now they make weekly visits, as supplies and resources are available.

On a typical Thursday morning they will shop for fresh-baked bread and other ingredients to prepare tortas. Depending on the day, they will make anywhere from 60 to 200 tortas to serve to the strawberry-field workers. Additionally, they will spend time reading scripture, singing and praying with the workers. Esteban’s belief is, “You have the ‘gospel’ and you have ‘feed my people’…you have to do both.” Creating the space to share a meal and worship right there in the field gives “loving your neighbor” a renewed outlook.

Building the church community

The immigration crisis in the United States has a direct impact on this church community. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has come in and separated multiple families in the congregation; many cannot seek medical assistance because of the high cost; and single-parent homes fight the battle between work and family care. These tough conditions can make hope for a miracle seem absent. Angie has strong feelings about these tough circumstances: “We have a responsibility to do what Jesus would do and Jesus wouldn’t leave them there with nothing.”

The community at Iglesia Luterana Santa Cruz comes together in several activities to help congregants and the larger community. One ministry initiative at Christmas is the Angel Tree Project, a gift-giving program that provides presents for local children. In 2016, a total of 75 students received gifts through the Angel Tree. Last Christmas, the number rose to 400. Additionally, sister churches have begun providing food-pantry items, clothing and monetary help to specific individuals.

The congregation needs more help to care for its immigrant community, including a shed to be built for the influx of pantry items and additional medical support for families. However, Santa Cruz continues to live out a passion for Jesus and reliance on the Holy Spirit.

 

by Blake Thomas, Congregational Vitality Team

edited by Kris A. Mainellis, Program Director for Communication and Events, Congregational Vitality

Irma Banales: A journey of faith

 

Irma Banales portraitIrma Banales has walked an interesting path to become a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She currently serves as director for evangelical mission for the Northern Texas – Northern Louisiana Synod. But her journey began in Mexico.

Banales was born in Durango, in north central Mexico, the eighth of ten children. Her father was a bracero, a seasonal agricultural worker permitted into the United States for temporary work. When Banales was about 5 years old, her family moved to north Mexico to Ciudad Juarez, south of the border and across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Her father was working in the Dallas area.

Banales was raised with certain Catholic traditions: “Every evening before we went out to play with friends, we were expected to pray the Rosary. Doing so ensured that we could have a merienda [snack] when we came back home: coffee, atole [corn meal mush] and homemade tortillas de harina [flour tortillas]. So we hurried up and prayed!”

Nine years later, the family moved to Dallas to live with her father. It was challenging for Banales to adjust to life in a US school, not knowing the language or culture. “I remember the first day at school, I was totally lost; I didn’t know English. They just sent me to classes. We were not allowed to speak Spanish or any other language than English.”

A direction unfolds

Banales is the only pastor in her family. She was ordained in 2014 through the TEEM (Theological Education for Emerging Ministries) program of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif.

Her introduction to the Lutheran church came as an adult. In 1998, she was married and raising her second child when an acquaintance invited her to attend a Bible study. Banales didn’t know it was a Lutheran Bible study until it was nearly over. She was intrigued. So she visited the church, St. John/San Juan Lutheran, for worship. “I liked the liturgy, the sermon and the way they welcomed me and my children, and the fact that all could be part of the communion and serve during the service.”

Experiencing Lutheran Bible study and worship were the first steps to becoming an ELCA pastor. Working for the synod helped to seal the deal. In March 1999, Pastor Susan Rodriguez at St. John/San Juan suggested that Banales apply for a position as receptionist at the Northern Texas – Northern Louisiana Synod office. She had no idea what a synod or a bishop were, and had many other questions. She was very nervous after she got the job. “I thought they were going to let me go in a week, because my English was terrible.”

She did not lose her job. Instead, a year later, Banales moved from half-time receptionist to full-time assistant to the mission director. In the meantime, she began taking classes. “I wanted to learn as much as I could about God and the Lutheran church.” She remains thankful for the continual encouragement of Tyna Oslie, synod administrator, throughout her educational pursuits.

Five years later, Banales became the synod’s Hispanic coordinator, working in that capacity for another five years. At the same time, she served as volunteer youth director at her home church, took TEEM program courses through both PLTS and LSPS (Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest, in Austin, Texas, a program of Wartburg Theological Seminary [Dubuque, Iowa] and Lutheran School of Theology [Chicago]), and continued raising her two children. She graduated from PLTS in May 2014.

Rev Irma Banales

A Lutheran love story emerges

At some point along the way, “I fell in love with the ELCA,” Banales said. After attending so many classes and serving as synod Hispanic coordinator, people started asking why she was not enrolled in seminary. So she started the candidacy process. “I wanted to grow in my spiritual life, learn more about theology, and be more helpful to the people I was working with and serving.”

Banales loves the ELCA “because of the theology, the diversity, and the inclusiveness. We are traditional, liberal and conservative at the same time: like saints and sinners.”

In January 2013, then-Bishop Kevin Kanouse asked Banales to serve First Sagrada Familia in Garland, Texas, a two-expression congregation, as a SAWL (Synodically Authorized Worship Leader), where she ministered until 2017. Also, in 2017, “God blessed me double,” because, at the suggestion of Bishop Erik Gronberg, she applied for (and got the job as) DEM for her synod, and married her husband, “my angel, David.”

Banales feels blessed to accompany churches and leaders in their joys and sorrows. The journey continues.

 

by Kris A. Mainellis, Program Director for Communication and Events, Congregational Vitality

Overcoming challenges in El Cenizo

The Rev. Mariana Mendez knows how to make the most of difficult situations. Mendez and ministry partners at Misión Luterana Agua Viva work to share God’s love in spite of, or perhaps because of, the challenges of life in El Cenizo, Texas. Located 20 miles south of Laredo, this small, rural city of a little more than 3,000 people is situated just four blocks from the banks of the Rio Grande River. The river serves as the border between the United States and Mexico.

Incorporated in 1989, El Cenizo’s history is framed by its origin as one of hundreds of south Texas colonias established in the 1950s rural, unincorporated subdivisions lacking basic infrastructure such as potable water, sewer service and electricity. This region continues to be one of the most impoverished areas in the United States.

But Mendez focuses on the positive. She believes that although the community of El Cenizo faces significant challenges, “it also has significant opportunities for life and ministry.” Misión Luterana Agua Viva is a place of refuge, offering help and instilling hope. The church partners with local organizations, agencies and other churches to help the people of El Cenizo survive, find stability and grow through a combination of direct support, education and training.

Agua Viva school supplies program helps families overcome challenges of life in El Cenizo.

Each fall, with help from partner Lutheran churches and individuals, Agua Viva provides backpacks filled with school supplies for 250 children in grades K-12, through its Aprendiendo a Leer Con Jesús (Learning to Read With Jesus) program.

Empowered leaders share God’s grace

Key to its mission is its focus on cultivating leaders. The church identifies leaders and sends them for training with public agencies. Episcopal and Methodist sister churches and nondenominational partners provide further training in health care, education, self-sustainability and entrepreneurship, nutrition and family care. In addition, Agua Viva works closely with a local pastoral counseling and coaching center, which has (so far) certified and graduated 12 leaders who serve as community facilitators from Agua Viva.

Mendez’s late husband, the Rev. Moises Mendez (who recently passed away), set into motion the church’s ongoing practice to develop and multiply church mission workers. One essential element of training: each leader is charged with identifying and developing other leaders. Mariana believes this practice is essential to accompanying the people of El Cenizo in their efforts to survive and thrive in this Third Culture border town. “We are multiplying the priesthood of all believers as we work together as partners inside the church and in the community to become facilitators of the work of God.”

Vegetable garden beds at Agua Viva, El Cenizo, Texas

Agua Viva church members plant and harvest organically grown vegetables for use at the Pan de Vida (Bread of Life) hunger-relief after-school program (typically serving 125 children ages 1-17). More than 2,500 monthly food portions are prepared by a full-time volunteer staff at the Vida Plena (Plentiful Life) program, which offers warm, freshly made food to more than 120 elderly people daily. Agua Viva’s pantry distributes 60,000 pounds of food per year.

Mission partners make all the difference

Mariana and Moises were initially called to mission development in Laredo in October 2002. The mission moved to El Cenizo in 2007, where Agua Viva took up residence in two double-wide trailers within four residential lots purchased 14 years earlier by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. With additional partnership and support from the ELCA’s Southwestern Texas Synod and the help of seven partner churches, Agua Viva was able to refurbish the trailers, pay off the mortgage on the land, build a sanctuary, and begin ministry and mission in the community. Agua Viva continues to steward its resources carefully, including ongoing ELCA churchwide mission development support. Mendez credits the Holy Spirit for “helping us to grow the Kingdom of God on earth,” and she appreciates the church’s many partners: “Thank you for your prayers, your commitment and solidarity toward those most in need within our border community.”

“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” — Jesus (John 17:18 )

by Kris A. Mainellis, Program Director for Communication and Events, Congregational Vitality