Everything is challenging because reality itself is always going to challenge one’s involvement. There are small details in which you can help and give yourself to others, which is priceless and timeless
Sr. María del Carmen López, a Panamanian who has studied theology, has collaborated in the parish pastoral ministries and evangelization. At 55 years of age, she has experience in the educational field in the parishes and in indigenous pastoral care in Guatemala and Panama. Currently she is working with people coping with forced mobility who are in the “Frontera Digna” migrant shelter in Piedras Negras, Coahuila. We share the interview with Sr. Carmen here.
How did you come to volunteer at Frontera Digna?
On this path in the consecrated life, the congregation saw an urgent need to attend to the call of the church and work in the field of human mobility and thus they visited Mexico. From that moment I felt very anxious to come to the country. Sr. Isabel had already been chosen by a team; therefore, I had to wait a year and a half for them to answer me. I wanted to live and work in the migrant ministry. When they answered me they said that I would go for a volunteer experience that the RFM had just launched. I was the first in the congregation to have been given that permission: living and volunteering.
Arriving here has been wonderful and gratifying, because of all the places I’ve been, I feel that there really is a specific job here. I’m not saying that there wasn’t in the others, but one feels, sees, and even vibrates, because one is in direct contact every day in listening, paying attention, guiding, and providing immediate assistance. Therefore it has been a very rich opportunity for me. There is the organization itself, and also the base team that is working on the ground. I have been serving and helping them as much as possible, because when I arrived as a volunteer they told me that they needed me to collaborate in the secretariat and accounting, since I have experience from being in provincial government. Now I dedicate myself to that, although without separating myself from the contact and closeness with the migrants who arrive daily in droves. That contact fills me up, and I feel happy to work.
At first, I came as a volunteer for three months, but I asked the congregation if I could stay here for at least this year, so the volunteer experience became longer term and we are no longer calling it volunteering. , but I already belong to the community and work directly in the migrant ministry. However, I told Sr. Isabel that as a volunteer, one has to do everything: “do this, do that, go get this other thing.” The volunteer has to do and be in everything. The truth is that I have worked with pleasure and I feel happy. Sometimes you don’t feel tired because compared to what the migrant experience on their journey and the places and the situations that they have to live in, the risk is really nothing. At the end of the day one arrives tired, but you have a little house, you have a little bed. In this way, I can offer physically and humanly, as I reflect upon their needs and difficulties that they have to go through.
You mention that you have worked in the educational field and evangelization. In which places were these projects developed? And were they for people from communities or for migrants?
I have been in Panama in the education field. In El Salvador, I studied and was in a parish for a long time. In my first years as a nun, after leaving a novitiate in Guatemala, being in indigenous pastoral ministry was very impactful and enriching. Starting my first steps of contact with the people, with the poor and the needy, and also with a difficult language and all the unknowns, it was hard. I did not speak it, but I did understand the culture. Later, I was in San Pedro Sula, in Honduras; in Nicaragua, in parish pastoral work, also in education and social work in nurseries and dispensaries. Most of my work has been in Central America with peasants, indigenous people, and a semi-urban population, and it has been an accompaniment to the laity and theological formation. My experience with migrants was only in Mexico. I always heard about the situation in which they lived; in Panama there was a migrant situation, but I did not see it. And in El Salvador I never got involved. I worked a little in JPIC. I have always identified with those themes, and I like to participate.
Sr. María del Carmen López, FMI
Being immersed in all activities as a volunteer, what has been your experience and/or teachings?
Everything is challenging because reality itself is always going to challenge one’s involvement. There are small details in which you can help and give yourself to others, which is priceless and timeless. I learned with this that they are vulnerable people, stripped of everything because they even have to experience robbery, fraud, and so many other things. One is left powerless in the face of their problems, their situation. The richness has been listening, because they want you to listen to them. That has been very nice, not pointing fingers, not judging anything, just having attentive ears to listen to them. It has helped me a lot because within the volunteer experience I have learned many things, like looking for families requesting asylum, who want to reunite with their family in the United States or working with special cases. Through IMUMI, legal advice is sought for the family so that they understand how the process is going to be and if they have the possibility of entering for asylum or another cause. That helps me because one really does not know how much these people suffer and why they leave their country; they leave everything and there is a really shocking situation behind. One feels small, powerless in the face of a large societal problems: “there they are persecuting me, my life is in danger, that of my family and that is why we are here.”
Everything has been very significant and I have nothing left when we get home but to offer to God every day, what I have lived, and present it. There have been little details, little things with the children when you have to give them clothes, they ask you for things with love, some with sorrow. We must learn to speak with love and tenderness. As the Pope says “protect, welcome, listen,” that has been my wealth and lesson. I can hardly complain about my pain because it is nothing compared to what they live.
I assure you that listening to the migrant enriches us. Everything they talk about completely changes our panorama and perspective: we put ourselves in the place of the other. Finally, would you like to add any other reflection?
As you say, when stand by another’s side, you can find yourself pointing fingers without knowing their reality. When I see Sr. Isabel, her enthusiasm, and her activity, I say that’s why we’re here, striving for them, because that’s our job, not to get paid, but because we do it with love. I always try to do that, to listen, to be like the mediator, the trustworthy person to attend to their needs. Putting yourself on the other’s side, in the other’s shoes, is a serious thing. Even if the shoes fit me, each one has been molded to the foot of the other. I feel that they have taught me. I am a religious sister, however, they have tremendous faith. There is a little chapel here, it is not formal, but it has the Virgin of Guadalupe, and I see them kneeling there, praying, and not just for five minutes. They stay a while, and I see that harmony they have with God, thanking him because they are in the shelter, because they came, received a plate of food. This has also been wonderful, to feel that people are with God, accompanying each other along the way. They have not separated their spirituality—they carry it there and they know that God is with them.
In conclusion, whether one is a volunteer or not, being here it is up to one to give oneself and serve in what is within reach, to have that common sense, not to do things just because they ask me, but to be attentive to those small details that go unnoticed and that one can see. For example, if they ask for a toothbrush, but do not have toothpaste, then it is also provided; it is the small details that are often overlooked and that people appreciate. Volunteering is that—seeing where I can serve, help, listen, and attend. Do not overlook anything. I have to communicate hope and faith to people, not leave it aside. With God everything is possible.
Vianey Martínez
Franciscans Network for Migrants
