LUPE ORTEGA hangs laundry to dry outside the small trailer where she and her six children live in Sparks colonia outside El Paso. (Photo by Scott Collins)

MINISTRY ON THE BORDER
Colonia America
___By Russ Dilday
___Buckner News Service
___SPARKS COLONIA--Ten miles east of El Paso, a chill wind blows a constant stream of sand with a hissing noise through the scores of trailers, cinder-block structures and crudely built shacks that make up the community of Sparks colonia.
___In the center of the colonia, sand flies over partly-interred trash and against a small, older-model travel trailer with a tar-paper shack fastened to the side to double its size. The home has no electricity, no running water, no heat.

INSIDE the small addition to Lupe Ortega's tailer, Esther Legorreta (standing) and Esther Mata, members of Vista del Sol Church in El Paso, pay a ministry visit to check on Ortega and her children. (Photo by Scott Collins)

___This is home to Lupe Ortega and her six children.
___At first glance, Ortega's little trailer might seem to be a place where dreams are killed, sacrificed to poverty and bare living conditions. But Buckner Children and Family Services and a local Baptist congregation have turned it into a place of love and hope.
___Sparks colonia is similar to the hundreds of colonias that rim the Rio Grande on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border. Colonias are dusty towns divided into small plots of land with few or no utilities, filled with Hispanics seeking opportunity in or near the United States--laborers willing to work for low wages to provide for their families.
___It was the promise of opportunity that brought Ortega, 42, her husband and family to Sparks eight years ago. They purchased a small lot in the interior of Sparks and lived there for six years. Then, two years ago, life unraveled.
___Sentenced to 25 years in prison for sex-related offenses, her husband no longer could support the family. Nor could Ortega, who is not an American citizen, apply for government assistance. With no money for food, no means of support and no one to help, she turned to the Sparks Community Center, a government facility where Buckner provides community services to area residents.
___Sparks program director Sylvia Holguin explained Ortega's situation when she came to Buckner in 1999 for help: "When her husband left, he was the main provider for the family, and she had no idea how the bills got paid or when the bills got paid. He had food on the table and provided the money for the home.
___"Because of citizenship issues, they could not get assistance through welfare or through Medicaid," Holguin said. "When we found that out, we had to find a way to get the children medical help, school clothes, school shoes, all those type of things. And we had to get Lupe the personal help she needed. She had a lot of things in her head, things she had to deal with."
___The Sparks Community Center sits in the middle of the colonia, its grey-brick walls and white columns a contrast to the sparse surroundings. Built by Texas A&M University, the center is managed by Holguin, who seeks to find resources and services and educational opportunities for colonia residents.
___"We work with social agencies and schools and provide other types of services that the community needs," explained Holguin, who said the numbers served by the center have grown continually. "For the Christmas season, we had about 5,000 people for different types of help."
___Holguin's eyes and ears in the community are promotoras --promoters--who work with her through A&M's Vista program.
___"They are community outreach workers living in the community," she said. "It's not uncommon for them to come to me and tell me that they have found a family that does not have anything to eat or is in a bad situation. Then we'll all work together to find an agency or people to help them, or help them ourselves in any way we can."
___"Sylvia and the Buckner people are really blessed," Ortega said. "In the community, they are a great help. All the community gets help from the center. I give a lot of credit to them. All the times that we go out there, they are open to us and they are ready to help us. They have never closed their doors on us or say that we can't be here. I guess all this belongs to God. He has helped them. He has blessed them ... and they have blessed me."
___Anastacia Ledesna, a founding member and current president of the Sparks Committee, a community benevolence board, was one of the first residents to work with Buckner and Texas A&M to build and staff the community center. She said Buckner has "changed the lives of the people" who live in Sparks colonia.
___"We have prospered because of the help Buckner has given to the community center and the community," she said. "I see it having a lot to do with the prosperity of whatever is happening in the community. They have given us a lot of strength and they have given us a lot of help in getting stronger in our faith."
___Because Holguin could not find government assistance for Ortega and her children--ages 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19-year-old twins--she turned to one of several churches that partner with Buckner in the colonias, Vista del Sol, a large, rapidly growing Baptist congregation in El Paso. Through their efforts, the church that promises a view of the sun also has given Ortega a view of the Son of God.
___"They have brought food, clothing and spiritual help," said Ortega, who speaks no English. "Sometimes I feel things inside that I cannot handle myself. So, if I talk to one of (the Vista del Sol volunteers) or to one of the Buckner workers in the center, I really feel a relief to have someone to go talk to and confide in."
___Among those she confides in is Vista del Sol member Esther Legorreta, who often spearheads church involvement in the colonia. Legorreta has worked with Ortega for much of the past two years, bringing food and clothing from the church, arranging for help with propane gas for the trailer's small cookstove and coordinating construction for Ortega's home, as well as bringing hope.
___"Vista del Sol is a giving church," Legorreta said. "It's a missionary church. You go into a classroom and tell them about a need, and they are ready to give whatever. At Christmas, there were ladies who made more than 200 Christmas stockings, and we sent them all over to the homeless. We filled them up with shaving cream, toothbrushes, soaps and candy."
___Legorreta said that Vista del Sol volunteers visit the Sparks colonia "about twice a week" and have brought "truckloads of clothing, materials for sewing or painting. We have fixed homes. We have put in ceilings and windows."
___"God sent us here," she said. "We all attribute this to the Lord. If it was not his will, we would not be here."
___For Legorreta, the love for the Sparks community is a family devotion as well as a church commitment. Her daughter, Esther Mata, a truancy prevention program director for El Paso schools, has arranged for school children to do volunteer community service projects in Sparks. Another daughter, Raytha McCallenda, and her husband, Jerry, who own a fast-food franchise in the area, have helped with feeding and construction projects. A third daughter, Marta, has led the Vista del Sol youth group to do projects in the colonia as well.
___To Ortega, these volunteers represent the very hand of God.
___"I really feel the hand of the Lord working in my family," she said. "I know for sure now that without the Lord, there is nothing. I have gotten to know the Lord much better and gotten closer to him because of these people coming in here. It is not the material things but the spiritual things I feel."
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The Baptist Standard