Day 2 McAllen 2016

Welcome to the blog post of AJ and Taylor! Proceed with caution…

Beginning the day with mass at Sacred Heart Parish was a great way to get our corazones de servicios started. From there, things only got better. We spent the next part of the morning helping clean and organize the inventory. Eli, who is in charge of the Sacred Heart Refugee Center, took us to the El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras consulates, where we were able to see and hear from the people that work at them. They opened our eyes to the different types of lives which people have that come across the border. The crime and dangers that surround them in their home countries are greater than we could ever imagine. Each country has its one issue and reasons as to why they leave. For Guatemala, it is because of the poor economy and lack of jobs where as Honduras and El Salvador are filled with violent cartels, which threaten lives. Young men are at great risk of being taken by the cartels and if they refuse, the cartels threaten the lives their families.

From there we went to lunch at Maria’s where the laughter was flowin’! Between the funny jokes and lighthearted conversations, this group is one that we are sure thankful to be apart of. Katie managed to close line herself in front of the restaurant, which gave everyone quite the laugh. After that we headed back to Sacred Heart where there were 14 migrants that we were able to be with. Thinking of their journey, it was hard for us to imagine ourselves in their shoes with the amount of danger and perils that they have to face. There is little to no security and everything they own was on their backs. They didn’t have anything to go back to and everything in front of them was risky and undetermined.

Along with these, so many blessing filled our day. Today was filled with eye opening experiences that is giving a wider perspective of the world around us. We are excited to see what tomorrow will bring.

Taylor and AJ

(Representatives of the unicorns in McAllen, Texas)