Through a Maryknoll Immersion trip to the U.S./Mexico border, Mission Educator Ray Almanza encountered people whose faces bespoke the radiance described in the gospels’ accounts of the transfiguration. There in Ciudad Juárez, Mercy Sister, Betty Campbell together with Carmelite Father, Peter Hinde relocated their contemplative political action community Tabor House from Washington D.C to Juárez. The name of Tabor House is a reference to Mount Tabor which the earliest Christians traditionally ascribed as the site of the transfiguration. There, Jesus took the three disciples with him and was transfigured before them. The Gospel of Matthew says “his face shone like the sun.” For Ray, when thinking of having experienced such countenances, where the glory of God is visible, Sr. Betty’s face, full of joy at Casa Tabor instantly comes to mind. In that place, the people of faith dispel the darkness as the prophet Isaiah writes, “though darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds, the peoples, Upon you the LORD will dawn, and over you his glory will be seen.”
The darkness of the rhetoric that envelops discourse about the U.S.-Mexico border frames the expectations when one travels there. On my immersion trip to El Paso with Maryknoll, I was not sure what I would experience. We visited El Paso and Juarez, the sister city on the Mexico side of the border. The border itself spans just over 1,900 miles long, while only 700 of those miles have fencing and even less than that is easily accessible. Geographically, this area is small and looks insignificant amid the vast expanse of desert and in comparison to large metropolitan areas. But the forces that operate on it are immense.
Juarez is densely populated with close to two million people. The economy is fueled by the interests of U.S. and Transnational corporations seeking cheap labor through the maquiladoras. These are factories that benefit from advantageous trade agreements between the U.S. and Mexico, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Northern Mexico is also plagued by violence from Drug cartels. As a port of entry to the U.S., Juarez sees migrants and refugees coming from all over the world to seek asylum. This puts some of the most vulnerable people in the world within arm’s reach of criminal organizations. They are easy targets of human trafficking, extortion, violence, and especially since 2020, at increased risk of disease. Juarez is probably most infamous for the feminicide that has taken place over decades. It once held the title of murder capital of the world.
Driving on dusty gravel roads along the border, visiting one site after another, what collided with these expectations of darkness, were spaces that were full of light. I witnessed how people responded to these circumstances by coming together to build a better future. One these places stands out like a light in the impenetrable darkness. On one of these dirt roads, at the edge of a bluff sits a small unassuming pink house with a sign in front that reads “Casa Tabor.” This is the residence of Sr. Betty Campbell.
Sr Betty told us a little of the history of the work she has done over the years with Fr. Peter Hinde. In the 60s she studied nursing and went to Peru to work as a nurse mostly with the Quechua indigenous people. It was here that they learned what pastoral ministry could be if done with the people. They formed a “comunidad de base.”
They had come to Latin America in good faith, wanting to help people. But their first hard learned lesson was that the people they came to help were the protagonists of this work and not them. In a meeting with the community the locals shared an analogy to illustrate how they see the NGOs and missionaries who came into their communities and tried to solve their problems. “If you invite someone into your home and immediately, they start to rearrange the furniture, this is not a good guest” she recounted. “When you become friends,” she continued, “after a while you look up and then you see what you can do together, but you foreigners came in and started moving everything around.” And it was hard to hear, Sr. Betty said, but they kept learning from them. Eventually the sisters sold the school they had built at a loss to return the autonomy to the community and they returned to the states.
Taking this wisdom to do advocacy, they started Tabor House in 1973 in Washington, D.C., as a grassroots Catholic worker community with an anti-imperialist agenda regarding U.S. influence in Latin America. First, they gave homeless people hospitality then refugees. They called it a contemplative political action community. A Lot of young people joined. Later, the U.S. Mexico border became the place where need was felt. When they came to El Paso and Juarez, they saw it firsthand. Sr. Betty began to facilitate meetings around domestic violence. The women just needed a safe space to gather and support one another. She learned a lot from these women.
In her backyard patio, Sr. Betty has worked with the community to build a memorial that commemorates all who have died as a result of the conditions in Juarez. The walls are lined rows and rows of names offset with murals on brightly colored walls. One of the larger sections in pink displays the names of women who have been murdered or disappeared. The color has become a symbol because of the pink crosses displayed as a public form of resistance to the feminicide. The practices of the community of faith that identifies the suffering here with that of the suffering of our savior on the cross gives credence to a people of resurrection even when confronted by the brutality of death. Other sections include names of journalists who have died and reads “the cost of informing: the lives of journalists.” Each name represents a life, a history, an extended network of family and friends who loved them. The air in this space felt heavy, the scale of human suffering was palpable.
Sr. Betty shared with us on that day in December of 2021, “from June to now, 74 women have been killed and only 24 identified.” In sharing all of this with our group, I did not get the sense that she or the people of this community in Juarez have despaired. They are not overcome by the darkness. The acts of solidarity and community are a defiant form of resistance that confronts the immense power of organized crime, corrupt government, and corporate interests that conspire to rob them of hope.
In each act of kindness that nourishes a sense of community the ember of hope is safeguarded. By displaying the pink crosses in public spaces, the community resists society’s apathy towards the suffering of women in Juarez, they become light.
The name of Tabor House is a reference to Mount Tabor which the earliest Christians traditionally ascribed as the site of the transfiguration. There, Jesus took the three disciples with him and was transfigured before them. The Gospel of Matthew says “his face shone like the sun.” When I think of the places where I have experienced such countenances, where the glory of God is visible, I instantly think of Sr. Betty’s face, full of joy at Casa Tabor. Through her work, and that of many others, the acts of remembrance sustain the fabric of life for a community laden with suffering. The people of faith dispel the darkness as the prophet Isaiah writes, “though darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds, the peoples, Upon you the LORD will dawn, and over you his glory will be seen.”