|
| Cristina's Miracle |
|
With only a sixth-grade education, a woman runs a library and scholarship program for nearly 300 students in a Columban parish in Mexico. By Fr. Bill Morton
As a Catholic priest and a missionary, I have been privileged to preach the Good News among a wonderful variety of people, from my own Irish-American cultural background to the Chinese in Taiwan, to the African-American community in Chicago and, most recently, the Mexican people in Anapra, Mexico. 
Afternoon snack. Christina supervises children who come to
the Biblioteca after-school program in Anapra. At their core, these lay partners in our mission have always struck me as people who genuinely love their community and are willing to sacrifice, be inconvenienced, take risks and recover from problems for the sake of the common good. They also seem to share an unshakable faith in God. Soon after I arrived in Anapra in 1999, I met Cristina Estrada. She was short and dark with a beautiful smile and boundless energy. When two Annunciation House volunteers, Tim and Clare Broyles, were getting ready to move back to Phoenix, they asked Cristina if she would take over a children’s library. Clare had started the children’s library in the Corpus Christi church, now the Columban parish in Anapra, an unincorporated community of squatter homes just west of Ciudad Juárez along the U.S.-Mexico border. Cristina was interested, but she did not want to have to go the mile or so down the hill to the church every day. She said should would take on the project, but only if she could operate it from her home. Everyone agreed, and the Biblioteca Infantil el Buen Pastor (Good Shepherd Children’s Library) was born. Cristina’s husband, José, arranged some plywood as a simple roof, and the children gathered there, right at Cristina’s front door. “Padre, we need some little plastic chairs and little tables,” Cristina told me. We found some money and got them. “Padre, we need some colored pencils and paper. And some of the children want to go to the primary school, but they don’t have money.” We found some more generous donors to help, and the program expanded. ‘A Dream Come True.’ Now there are two separate buildings behind Cristina’s house. The original students from eight years ago are now library volunteers, helping with the smaller children. The Biblioteca program started as an after-school children’s program and has since grown into a scholarship program, as well. Today, we have 160 children in primary school, 75 in secondary school, 38 in high school and—miracle of miracles—five attending college. Cristina believes it was God’s grace that led her to this ministry of education. At the time I met her, Cristina had just been seriously burned in a soldering accident at the maquiladora (factory) where she worked in Juárez. She was disenchanted with the tedious work and the long trips by bus to the factory. She wanted more time with her own children and the children in the community. She saw the opportunity to run the library as part of God’s plan for her. And so, with only a sixth-grade education, Cristina developed and now supervises and animates the 288 children and teen-agers whose lives are being touched by our scholarship program. Cristina’s lack of formal education, and the opportunities it would have provided, has forged her fierce advocacy for children’s education. Once, two high school girls became pregnant and were afraid they would have to drop out of school. Cristina insisted they continue. “All my students graduate,” she told them. “Besides, you think all this money we’ve been spending on you is going to go to waste? You will continue, and you will graduate.” And so they will. Missionaries that bring groups to the U.S.-Mexico border for a mission experience like to have them meet Cristina. They want them to hear her story about life in Anapra and the miracle of the Biblioteca Infantil el Buen Pastor. As Cristina always says, with tears welling in her eyes, “Este es un sueno hecho realidad!” (“This is a dream come true!”) Like many Columbans and other missionaries, our faith and commitment to God’s Kingdom are strengthened and animated because of gifted people, such as Cristina, with whom we are privileged to live and work. And like Cristina, sometimes the only thing we can say is “Gracias a Dios!” (“Thanks be to God!”) to Cristina and all who make this ministry possible. Columban Father Bill Morton from Philadelphia was ordained in 1985 and is the vice director of the Columban Society’s U.S. Region.
|