Serving with Neighbors
Our congregation council has approved two organizations be named as the recipients of benevolence giving for the year 2022: Micah 6 and Eagle Pass Frontera Ministries.
Many are familiar with the mission of Micah 6 and its service to those experiencing homelessness and/or poverty in the university area, especially young people. As one of its founding congregations, our commitment to Micah 6, including the time and financial resources of individual members of our community, remains an important outreach of the First English Community. Our commitment to Micah 6 is still strong and Micah 6 should remain as one of our benevolence partners.
Eagle Pass Frontera Ministries is an initiative and ministry of the Southwestern Texas Synod of the ELCA. Frontera ministers to migrants and asylum seekers, serving alongside a Methodist ministry, Mission Border Hope. Approximately 300 people seek support each day as they cross the border into Texas. Frontera is there in Eagle Pass to provide essential needs: food, water, shoes, basic clothing, hygiene equipment, and other necessities to sustain life. Other organizations, like Mission Border Hope, work with Frontera to provide housing and transportation beyond the border after initial and urgent needs have been addressed by Frontera.
Part of the FELC intentional outreach vision includes service to neighbors. The people crossing the Texas border are our neighbors. People cross the border for many reasons – to be with family, to access educational and job opportunities, to escape violence. But all are neighbors in need of kindness and respite and the basics of life that come so easily to most of us. Eagle Pass Frontera meets these folks where they are and provides those basics; this is “boots on the ground” work. Along with our support of local organizations like Casa Marianella, supporting the work of Eagle Pass Frontera Ministries can be an expression of our love for our neighbors. The desperate plight of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers all over the world, whether related to Ukraine or the southern border of Texas, shows us that the need for neighborly love and practical care will always be present and should always be a part of the mission of the church.
Let’s do our part to support this necessary work in all the ways we are able and to share God’s grace in all the ways we can.