Here are a few questions we asked Sara about her work.

What does a typical day of work look like for you?

What gives you a lot of life in your work?

What are some of the greatest challenges you have in your work?

Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges was a black girl who integrated in schools in the 1960s and is Sara’s childhood hero. It was Sara’s first glimpse into the past and was what sparked her interest in history and the Civil Rights Movement. The book also gives a glimpse into how Sara sees her family and past. For Sara, when she read the book as a kid, she saw that there was a right side of history and a wrong side of history. Then when she started talking with her parents about Ruby Bridges and the Civil Rights Movement, she learned that her family was not on the side of history that she wanted to be on. This book sparked Sara’s awareness to question what is going on in the world presently and think about on what side of history she wants to be on. This book was Sara’s catalyst for wanting to work with immigrants and immigration issues. In high school and college, immigration seemed like the big issue occurring in the United States, and so she decided to understand those issues so that she could one day work for immigrant justice. 

Ultimately, Sara now strives to live and reflect from history in a way where she is not blindly molding to culture and religion. She finds history very disheartening in the fact that we continue to repeat injustices against certain groups of people. One of the reasons she no longer identifies as religious because she has seen the danger of blindly following religion and how Christianity has been perverted in history. While she thinks that religion can provoke good reflection and thought, she does not think that it is very common. For her religion can provoke groupthink. And while she knows this can happen to any people in all areas of life, it is the church as an institution that has been the tool to justify many of the atrocities she is against. This is also why she is drawn to churches that are social justice oriented because it proves to her that the institution of the church can be used to do good in the world. However, she was not exposed to more progressive religion growing up nor does she see religion painted this way in history. 

El Colibri (hummingbird)

When Sara became interested in immigration issues, she knew that she needed to learn Spanish. So, a year after college she received a job with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Guatemala. And she went to Guatemala with the purpose of learning Spanish and why people migrate. One of the first communities that she worked in was Santiago Atitlán (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_Atitlán). It was also how she met her good friend Kat and the women at ANADESA (https://www.natik.org/anadesa) who do mostacilla (bead work).  For Sara this colibri (hummingbird) represents many things, like her intro to a Mayan culture that she did not even know existed before. It also represents the people in Santiago that she met and how important they are to her, something that she did not even realize for her first years in Guatemala. El colibri reminds her of why she went to Guatemala in the first place, and all the things that she uncovered in Guatemala, and why she can’t stay away from Guatemala now. She finds friendship in el colibri because Sara shared experiences with friends in Guatemala who have become some of her longest friendships apart from childhood.

Sara also identifies with the meaning of el colibri in Mayan culture as a sign of resiliency and bearer of strength in confronting obstacles. Sara acknowledges that as much as she loves Guatemala, there were other things occurring in her life and being in a foreign country added extra layers of difficulty. Some people have asked Sara why she did not leave Guatemala during difficult parts of her life, but Guatemala felt so much like home for her that she wanted to make the best of her life even in those difficult times. She now realizes that while she would have never used the word “resilient” to describe herself before Guatemala, she now has constructed resiliency for herself, and she enjoys that aspect about herself. 

Migrant Trail Bandana 

This is the bandana that Sara took on the migrant trail. Sara started to work for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in 2016 and it was her job to facilitate learning tours for MCC Guatemala. So, she had the opportunity with MCC to participate in another MCC learning tour anywhere around the world, and she chose to go to the U.S./Mexico border because she really wanted to learn about this part of her country. She was drawn to immigrant issues there, and she felt it was really important to know what was happening with immigration in her own country on the border. On the learning delegation she visited Tucson, Douglas and Agua Prieta, MX. She remembers feeling that there was a great harshness to the borderlands, but there were also a lot of glimpses of hope from the harshness. 

She was inspired by Jack and Linda in Douglas, AZ of their intentionality of living on the border, and how they had found hope and beauty in the midst of the injustice and the ugliness of the borderlands. After the learning delegation, she participated in the Migrant Trail (https://azmigranttrail.com), and it was a powerful experience for her to reflect on the journey of migrants to the United States. She also met many people like Jack and Linda who have shaped their vocation and profession around helping immigrants. The bandana represents her redirection in life from her visit on the border that eventually led her to live and work with immigrants on the border in 2020. It was after the Migrant Trail where Sara went from saying that one day, she wanted to work with immigrants to saying that she wants to work with immigrants on the border after her time in Guatemala. Sara has made this a reality for herself when she moved to Tucson and began to work with Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, MX. However, she thought she would be here in Tucson a long time, but it has not been a great year for her professionally. Her time in Guatemala was supposed to be like a steppingstone to work in immigration on the border, but she has not felt belonging in her work or she has the skills for her job. Now that she has been re-directed back to living and working in Guatemala, it feels a little bit weird for her. But Sara is also really excited to go back to Guatemala for more aprendizaje, and she feels good with making the choice to go back. 

Santiago Atitlán Painting

The last year that Sara lived in Guatemala, she lived in San Juan La Laguna, which is a small village on Lake Atitlán (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan_La_Laguna). The town is almost 100% Tz’utujil Mayan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzʼutujil_people), and it was a culture shock for Sara because she had been never exposed and immersed so much in Mayan culture. She lived with a family who adopted her into their family like a daughter. Since they were a family of painters, they wanted to gift her paintings when she was about to leave to the United States. She asked them to paint her a woman from San Juan and a woman from Santiago. The woman in this painting is from Santiago Atitlán. 

These two places for Sara are important because they are the sandwich of her aprendizaje (learning) of indigenous cultures in Guatemala. When Sara worked for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) she would visit the town of Santiago often. It was in Santiago where the community helped her learn the Tz’utujil Mayan culture and norms there. Her aprendizaje in the community of Santiago then helped her do work in San Juan La Laguna. In this way, the painting is like a representation of how her life in Guatemala came full circle. In Santiago Atitlán she had to go through a lot of cultural choques (clashes). Sara feels that during this time in her life she did not do things with a lot of grace, and she was frustrated all the time. Her frustration came from that everything in the Tz’utujil Mayan culture just did not make a lot of sense to her. But then when she lived in San Juan La Laguna it was not such a cultural choque because the people in Santiago Atitlán had been so patient to teach her. Her time in San Juan La Laguna was really beautiful because she knew she was utterly different from everyone else there, but it was not an obstacle, her differences were something that she could celebrate. And she feels that her time, exposure and personal growth in Guatemala allowed her to learn to celebrate her differences. 

The post Young Adults in the Borderlands: Sara appeared first on 787 Collective.

I also asked Brenda to show me four symbolic objects in her life, and here is what she shared.

Red Bracelet

Brenda comes from a family with non-western traditions. Her mom has always given her a bracelet to protect her from mal de ojo. She wears the bracelet so much that she has a tan line from the bracelet. Whenever it rips she always gets new one, and her mom tells her it has served its purpose and gives her a new one. Whenever she is not wearing her bracelet, she feels like something is missing, and her friends and family notice that she doesn’t have her red on too. Her red bracelets will usually have an appendant of a saint, which has a religious function of her catholic beliefs. Having a saint on the bracelet helps her center herself in prayer, God and spiritual connection. The red color on her bracelet reminds her of her family blood and family ties. 

Photo of Sister

This is an older picture of Brenda’s sister that she always has in her wallet. It is a photo that she always carries with her because her and her sister are really close. Whenever she is having a hard day, and she opens up her wallet to buy something, the picture reminds her that things are going to be okay. Her sister has always motivated her to be successful. Her sister has special needs and has been through a lot in her short life. So, when she looks at the picture it reminds her that if her sister has been able to get through hard things in life, then she can get through everything too. Since her sister is five years younger than her, she has taken more of a parental role with her sister. And seeing her go through so many life struggles, has made her look up to her sister because of her resilience.

Necklace

When Brenda graduated her professor gave this chain to her as a gift. Her professor told her that she would always need these two things for her type of work – faith and love. The necklace is a reminder to her and her work that she needs to have faith in herself and love for herself to share faith and love with others in her work. In her field of work, having faith in herself is a reminder to not doubt herself or get mad at herself with mistakes. When you work in community health it can be easy for someone to doubt themselves even though the work can really impact people. Brenda has learned that it is very important to have trust with communities because they are relying on you for their health, and you can easily lose people’s trust if you make a mistake. In whatever public health work that Brenda does, she does it with love and faith that her work will impact their health. For Brenda, giving love to her work means that she tries to be a loving person and treat people as she would like to be treated. In this way, being loving means giving them respect. 

School/Work Agenda

Brenda carries this agenda everywhere because she likes to plan everything out. If she does not write something out then she can’t conceptualize it. She feels like she is never off from work, so she always has it with her to write things down. When she is working she is also not off from her personal life so she will write down personal things in her agenda. It helps her then organize and balance out her life so if she has too many work things planned and then she can move things to a later day. Her agenda helps her keep a good work-life balance. She also feels like she is a busy person, especially, last semester when she had to balance being a student, having a profession and having a personal life. Since Brenda has to travel a lot for work, her agenda lets her know where she will be that day. When she opens up her agenda it gives her a sigh of relief that she sees what she has to do for the day because if she just went from her memory, she thinks she would be a lost soul. She also feels that she is involved with a lot of things in work and out of work because she is starting new projects or new interests a lot, so her agenda allows her to time manage and do the best she possibly can. It also allows her to prioritize her days at work, the projects she is working on and other things she has going on outside of work. 

The post Young Adults in the Borderlands: Brenda appeared first on 787 Collective.

In the United States we have often worked against the God of life to create social systems that now leave us vulnerable and uncertain about our future. We opted for white people being dominant over brown and black people resulting in lynching’s, walls, racism and hate. We opted for fossil fuels over other forms of energy on earth like sun, wind, and water that result in climate change, human displacement and species extinction. We opted for monoculture farming over traditional farming that made us unhealthy, gave us diseases and leaves the land without nutrients. Yet, the God of life disrupts our systems of dominance in the United States. She has given hope to the oppressed, preserved our sacred knowledge and helped us work together to resist social injustice. And I have faith that the God of life will help the church and people continue this work in the future to resist the cultural and physical death of people, animals, plants and our Earth. 

Native people in the United States speak about a farming style called the Three Sisters that can help us understand how we can approach mission and church with young adults in the United States. The seeds of corn, beans and squash can certainly grow all by themselves, but together they can produce more fruit than they would alone.^[1] Corn is like the oldest sister because it is the first sister to grow and the tallest. But she will not have enough mineral nitrogen from the soil without the help of her middle sister, beans, who can produce nitrogen from the atmosphere to add more to the soil. The beans can utilize her older sister corn to climb high and grow up from predators on the ground. While squash is like the youngest sister, who can create a new way for herself by growing horizontally below her older sisters.^[2] But their seeds must be equally planted if they are to produce the most fruit and food for us. When one sister becomes dominant in the soil, then we don’t get as much food and harvest from the other sisters. 

Perhaps, our churches are like the oldest corn sister where they have grown tall and strong over the years but need more nutrients due to the lack of beans, which is like the diversity that is missing in many protestant churches across the United States. Perhaps, it is the youngest sister squash who are the young adults that can show the older sister and church new ways of approaching mission in a changing world. But, the younger sisters can both benefit from the strong structures and experience of the church to help them grow even taller and wider to produce more fruit and love for our world. But if our churches are only filled with corn then we need to find a way to make more room for our younger siblings. We need to preference and support the lives, work and spiritualities of young people to watch them grow tall with the help of the church. We hope to engage and connect siblings across generations in this blog series of Young Adults on the Borderlands for love and connection in the U.S./Mexico borderlands. The series will focus on connecting the lives, work and spiritualities of young adults with communities that have rich histories and wisdom to help nourish and give to young adults. We will be sharing the lives and passions of two amazing young adults Brenda and Sara in Tucson, AZ with two communities in the borderlands DouglaPrieta Trabaja (Agua Prieta, MX) and St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church (Tucson, AZ) to nourish young adults with friendships, gifts and God’s love.  

James Martin                         

^[1] Robin Wall Kimmer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. (Minneapolis Milkweed Editions, 2013), 130.

^[2] Kimmer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 132-134.

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