The problem

A national study, “Hunger in America 2006,” revealed that:

• fewer than five percent of those receiving food in California’s San Joaquin Valley are homeless, underscoring the plight of the “working poor;”

• almost half the households served have at least one working adult;

• more than two-thirds had incomes below the federal poverty level;

• 85 percent describe themselves as “food insecure,” meaning they don’t know where they’ll get their next meal.

 

 

The solution

From June 11 through Aug. 20 with one week still unreported, 559 volunteers from 52 churches reported:

• 5,862 individuals had been ministered to;

• 1,882 children had attended VBS;

• 159 medical patients and 212 dental patients had been seen by the mobile clinics;

• 1,947 grocery bags had been distributed*;

• 999 professions of faith had been recorded through week-long ministries in 54 migrant camps and low-income migrant cities;

• 1,668 Bibles and 5,125 tracts had been distributed;

 

Items distributed through the children’s back-to-school ministry were:

• 1,094 backpacks;

• 2,856 reading books;

• 1,976 new sets of clothing

^{*Each bag of groceries feeds a family of six one meal per day for a month (a total of 30 family meals)}

^{Source: California Southern Baptist Convention, Migrant Ministries}

 

Through its “Feeding Those Who Feed Us” ministry, California Southern Baptists are working to minister to the state’s migrant workers who bring food to America’s tables.

It’s ironic that in the nation’s most fertile valley where most of America’s crops are grown, many of those doing the harvesting are going without adequate food and other necessities. California Southern Baptists are seeking to help those who feed America, and are calling on Georgia Baptists to join them in the quest.

 

---

 

FRESNO, Calif. — For Juan Samuel, the Good News – wearing khaki slacks and a blue shirt – arrived under the shade tree where he was sitting with two other friends from Mexico.

The temperature was 105 degrees just beyond that stretch of shade and there was hardly a breeze blowing on the early August afternoon. Good news doesn’t usually walk up unannounced, but on this day it came with a smile and a handshake.

Oscar Sanchez, migrant ministry field specialist with the California Southern Baptist Convention, was making his rounds of the migrant housing center in Madera. The center, located a dozen miles outside Fresno in the fertile San Joaquin Valley, is a cluster of highly sought after government-subsidized duplexes for farm laborers who are in the country legally.

The good news that Sanchez was bringing the men and women, few of whom spoke English, was that the state convention would be on site the following week for a week of Vacation Bible School, crafts, and related workshops for women, and distributing new children’s clothes for the start of the school year. If the schedule allowed the Convention would even provide free medical and dental services through two mobile units.

While some criticize the workers presence, California Southern Baptists are sidestepping the political minefield and seeking ways to minister to those who bring food to America’s tables. The ministry, called “Feeding Those Who Feed Us,” is a godsend for nine weeks of every summer as churches bring spiritual hope and physical relief to the state’s 54 migrant centers and low-income farm communities.

 

Friendships developed, gospel shared

By the time church volunteers leave the complex at the end of the week, friendships are developed, many have accepted Christ through an evangelistic service or Bible studies, and lives are changed. And hopefully, as those workers eventually pack up and leave at the end of the growing season for greener fields, they take the gospel with them as itinerant missionaries in their own right.

California Baptists are calling for Georgia Baptists to walk alongside them through the field ripe unto harvest, both literally and physically. While Georgia has its own migrant ministry, volunteers may find a different perspective and fresh insight into how a sister convention seeks to meet similar needs.

Such cross-pollination of ideas can only serve to strengthen both ministries, veteran workers maintain.

L.J. “Randy” Randolph of San Diego, a volunteer who drives one of the two mobile medical units, says he sees a spiritual solution where others see only a political quagmire. He has chosen to be part of that solution.

“When we sit down to the table – whether we live in Fresno or Boston – we don’t realize that virtually everything on our plate has been touched by migrant labor. If you were to take the illegal immigrants in California and send them back across the border our country would agriculturally go belly-up in six months because we would have only a fraction of the manpower to plant and irrigate and harvest the crops.

“I don’t see summer college students or any other Americans out there in the fields; who do we think would do the work? This country operates on migrant labor whether we want to admit it or not. I believe we should reach out to them in the name of Jesus and try to help them any way we can.

“I leave the politics to the politicians, but I believe the church needs a response and that’s why I want to be part of a ministry that is making a difference. There are government social programs out there but they don’t offer a spiritual dimension. Seeing someone coming to you with a sad face and leaving with a big smile and a new sense of hope is worth the world to me,” he says.

Edd Brown of Pioneer, Calif., who serves a volunteer recruitment liaison with the Georgia partnership, echoed those sentiments.

“Half of those who cross our borders are husbands or fathers who are sending their paychecks back home to support their families. What I see is a wonderful opportunity to send some of those men, women, or children who come as family units, back home as missionaries to their towns and villages. Sending them back with a changed heart is the greatest gift they can receive from America,” he said.

That’s the goal of the state convention’s ministry that seeks to serve the whole person, Brown explains. The ministry is not just to migrant camps such as those frequented by Sanchez in Madera, but goes a step further to areas known as migrant cities where many illegal workers live in poverty outside the state-sanctioned “camps.”

Brown and his other volunteers are pleased with the progress that has been made in recent years but are quick to point out that the solution is still far from meeting all the needs. They do their best given the financial resources at their disposal.

Most individuals who work in the fields live in one of two places: either one of 24 migrant centers subsidized by the state, or in one of 30 impoverished towns that have sprung up around the growing seasons. The government-subsidized centers close down between September and October as workers leave for greener fields, following the growing cycle through Texas and up to Washington and Oregon.

 

A week packed with ministry

During a typical week, volunteers fan out into a migrant community with a variety of ministries, depending on the capabilities of staff. Some locations are provided with a sports camp while others offer haircuts. A month’s supply of groceries – based on one meal for a family of six per day (30 meals total) – are distributed to heads of households. Crafts classes for women are frequently offered while children participate in Vacation Bible School programs.

Medical and dental health mobile clinics are scheduled as professional volunteer labor is available. In some cases a Bible study or evangelistic service is held in the evenings when adults are together; but regardless of that option, an evangelistic service is held at the end of the week.

One of the more popular ministries is the outreach to children, Brown says.

“Since these are summer camps, the opening of the school year is right around the corner. Many of these children are embarrassed by not having new clothes to wear on the first day of school like their friends, so we try to help in that area.

“Each child age 4-12 receives a nice backpack with school supplies, a pair of new jeans and tennis shoes and two shirts – everything they need for that first day of school so they will fit in with all of their friends,” he says.

 

Easing a subsistence level of existence

The life of a migrant farm worker is hard, Brown continues, and California Baptists want to help take some of the edge off of that subsistence level of existence.

Fresno resident Rita Rios, a volunteer in the migrant ministry, grew up in the Valley in a farm labor family so she has a strong appreciation for the people on the receiving end of ministry, she says.

“I want to give something back to the community that I came from. I have a background as a medical social worker and have found that I can use those skills with our mobile medical and dental units.”

Rios was raised in the Hanford and Huron areas and recently joined a Hispanic church nearby to locate ministry contacts.

“I have come full circle, right back to my roots. Church planting is something God has placed on my heart and it’s such an exciting way to be involved. I know of one Christian family who helped in a VBS for migrants in an apartment complex and felt led to start a church. Now, seven months later and working through pastor Lee Yarbrough of First Southern Baptist Church of Hanford, they have called mission pastor – William Soto – and average 70 adults and children in attendance.”

Frank Sanchez, who works with migrants as a volunteer missionary at Annadale Baptist Church in Sanger, also knows well the life of a migrant family. As he walks around a migrant center which recently hosted a Vacation Bible School he reflects back on his childhood.

“As a child I remember being embarrassed because I didn’t have socks to wear and my tennis shoes were so old they caused blisters to form on my feet. It would have meant the world to me to have had a new set of clothes to begin the school year.

“When I was 10 years old I remember being wakened by my dad at 3 a.m. to go out into the fields to irrigate the crops and wading through mud up to my knees. There were long, hot, summer days when we would begin picking grapes at 6 a.m. and not finish until 7 p.m.

“I wish Baptists would have had a presence among the workers back then … it would have made life so much more bearable. We never asked for anything, even when we didn’t have food to eat,” says Sanchez, who eventually served his country as a Vietnam veteran and worked in private business.

“There were times when my father would get two or three months behind in the rent because it was cold and rainy and he couldn’t work in the fields. It was not unusual to have our electricity and water turned off and use kerosene lamps for two weeks at a time.”

 

“It’s amazing how God took two ordinary people like us ...”

“I know what it is like to suffer out there,” continued Sanchez, “and that’s why I want to help bring the gospel to these laborers. They need to know that Christ and His church cares, when no one else does.”

His wife, Linda, uses his reflective pause to add to the conversation.

“It’s amazing how God took two ordinary people like us and used them for His glory. Frank and I are just two specks in his eyes that He chose to use. If more of us, from California and Georgia, can just step out of our comfort zones and see what God wants to show us through our obedience, our lives will be changed forever.

“We have no money. We have no extra education. But we are willing to be used.”

Roberto and Becky Benavides of Sanger, Calif., have been involved in the ministry to the migrant camp at Parlier since it was launched four years ago.

 

“No retiring from serving the Lord”

“We don’t always understand how difficult it is for these people to leave their homes and come here to work. It’s exciting to see some accept Christ, leave to work crops in other parts of the nation, then return the following year much deeper in their faith,” Roberto Benavides says.

That’s why he continues to deliver pickup truck loads of food and why Becky teaches arts and crafts skills to the women as well as a Bible study.

“I have had several women from last year return to the same camp and ask me to teach them more songs about Jesus. They tell me they have been singing them for the entire year and want to know more about Him.

“Roberto and I keep saying that we need to slow down and retire from this but you know, there really is no retiring from serving the Lord.”

 

---

 

Migrant ministry opportunities available on both coasts

• Individuals wishing to join California Baptists in their migrant ministry opportunities should contact Oscar Sanchez with the California Southern Baptist Convention at (559) 229-9533.

• Georgia Baptists who want to become involved in migrant ministry a little closer to home can contact one of two GBC Hispanic missionaries. In South Georgia they can contact Dennis Rivera at (229) 848-1715 or by email at drivera@gabaptist.org; or in North Georgia they can contact Moses Valdes at (770) 931-8323 or by email at mvaldes@gabaptist.org.