wfn.org | Border project at a crossroads

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Note #7091 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

15-March-2002
02104

Border project at a crossroads

Center shuts down social-welfare ministries, starts rethinking its role

by Neil Shurley

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico - For 17 years, Proyecto Amistad, a health and social ministry headquartered in a community center here, has been considered a vital part of the Presbyterian Border Ministry - an important resource to the poor people of the area and to struggling congregations of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico (PCM).

Now the center's future is in question.
The medical and educational services that have always been the lifeblood of the Amistad Presbyterian Center have been turned over to two local congregations, one in Piedras Negras, just across the border from Del Rio, TX, and the other in Ciudad Acuna, a town about 50 miles to the north. What will happen to the facility now is anybody's guess.

The catalyst for change was a survey conducted recently in the neighborhoods around the center.

"The survey was prompted by our suspicions that the medical and educational programs we were offering were not those most needed by the community," says the project's U.S. coordinator, Susie Frerichs. "Instead of health care and educational opportunities, their greatest concerns were for the men and youth of the community caught in the bondage of alcohol and drug abuse, gang activity and crime."

The Amistad board of directors, noting that participation in the center's programs was off and that most residents now have access to comparable government services, had wondered whether a change in focus might be in order. The survey results answered that question. Recently the board sent a letter to sponsors and friends of the project, advising that it had voted to shift responsibility for social services to local congregations, terminate the center's medical and educational services, and use the rest of 2002 to regroup and reorganize.

Proyecto Amistad (Project Friendship) was founded in 1985 as a project of the Presbyterian Border Ministry, a partnership between the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the PCM. It began with the construction of a sanctuary, Uno en el Espiritu (One in the Spirit) Church, which achieved financial independence in 1995, and the creation of then-desperately needed health and education programs. 

The project later "adopted" fledgling congregations in Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuna.

The Amistad Center is a two-story building with offices for the U.S. and Mexican program coordinators (Frerichs and Juvenal Ortiz), classrooms, a basketball court and a two-room medical facility (now closed). The compound was the home of the medical and educational outreach programs and also served as a base for visiting mission teams. Now the board must decide what to do with it.

"Juvenal and I would like to see the center in the hands of the Uno en el Espiritu Church," Frerichs says. "Our vision is for turning the clinic into a pastor's home, turning the educational building into Sunday school classrooms, and building a sanctuary on the basketball court. However, these decisions are not ours to make. The Amistad board  will negotiate with the Mexican presbytery and the Uno en el Espiritu Church later this year."

Frerichs says she expects the center to play a role of "support to the local community and local congregations as they develop community programs." She adds: "We will no longer do that work for them."

Visiting mission teams will continue with construction and evangelism projects, and Amistad will continue funding pastor salaries at its two mission churches and financially supporting their outreach programs, Frerichs says.

"This is going to transform the way we do ministry," she adds. "All projects need to be community-led, and based on real, expressed needs (as determined) by that community, not (by) what an outside organization or person wants to give, or thinks the community needs. Too often we do for others what they do not need, or should do for themselves. In this case, we were operating social-ministry programs that ought to have been outgrowths of the local Presbyterian churches. As long as Amistad was doing it, the local churches did not have reason to do their own work in their own communities."

Stan de Voogd, a spokesman for the Presbyterian Border Ministry, emphasizes that the community programs won't disappear, but will be maintained by the local congregations. "Our objective is to foster the formation of faith communities," he says. "We help the (PCM) to establish churches, and as they mature, to facilitate their outreach."

"When you have an institution, the tendency is to maintain it," Frerichs says, "but if we are truly desiring to serve the community, we must change as the community changes, as needs change."

She sees the "death and resurrection" under way at Amistad as a positive development.

"We should seek to support our brothers and sisters - without doing too much for them," she says. "They have gifts and resources that God wants them to use in their communities. We have to be careful not to underestimate those by giving too much, or doing things for them because they are 'poor.' This robs them of their dignity. 

"There is a difference between not having food or housing, and just not having money to buy all the gadgets we find in the mall. We must take care how we define poverty - by our standards, or by God's."

The Amistad board will meet on March 16 to continue discussing the center's future.
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