Neither Sister Pat Gardner nor Sister Carolyn Giera describe their ability to speak Spanish with any real confidence. They can handle a few words here or there, of course. But, for the most part, they’ve had to get creative since they arrived at a shelter in El Paso on Feb. 5.
“Our conversation, really, is so nonverbal. We just go around smiling, we give high-fives,” Sister Carolyn said.
Sometimes they find themselves in an impromptu game of charades that, even if it doesn’t lead to the requested item, at least results in some good-natured laughs. That was the case with at least one young boy who, as it turned out, wasn’t asking for a Q-tip when he pointed to his ear.
“We laugh at ourselves because of our inability to communicate extremely well,” Sister Carolyn said. “But we do communicate. And they really know that they are loved and cared about.”
The nuns provide a welcome touch of humanity amid a humanitarian crisis during which busloads of migrants file daily through Nazareth House, the short-term shelter where the sisters are volunteering in the border city. At Nazareth House, migrants can shower, change into a fresh set of clothes, and sleep in a much-appreciated bed in the transitional days between their release from detention centers and their reunification with the spouses, family members, or sponsors in the United States with whom they’ll stay while authorities process their asylum petitions.
Nazareth House is one of several sites that operates under El Paso’s Annunciation House, a migrant-serving nonprofit where a need for volunteers is in part being met by nuns across the country. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious put out a call for volunteers in November, to which Sister Pat and Sister Carolyn are responding on behalf of the Sisters of St. Francis in Sylvania. They’re in Texas through Tuesday.
As they reflected on their experience about a week after arriving in El Paso, they challenged a negative narrative surrounding migrants like the ones they serve at Nazareth House. Even since they arrived in Texas, President Trump, in pushing for allocations to build a border wall, has characterized migrants as dangerous and the border situation as a national security crisis.
He directly referenced El Paso in his State of the Union on Feb. 5, then arrived in the city for a rally Monday.
“I think a lot of people are just afraid, because they don’t know [what the situation is like] and they hear things and they believe,” Sister Pat said. “But once you get to know [the migrants], you break down the fear. ... It becomes people and not groups.
“And that’s, I think, our problem. We want to lump everyone together. We’re all individuals. There are good people; there are bad people. There may be some bad people coming, but they are mostly good people just like all of us.”
When Americans can get to know them — or at least come to know their stories, Sister Carolyn added — “it will affect a change in how we look upon this whole situation.”
Sister Pat is the co-director of the Justice and Peace Office for the Sisters of St. Francis in Sylvania. Sister Carolyn is the transitions coordinator for the community. At Nazareth House, they’re essentially jack-of-all-trade volunteers.
A shift might find them putting together a meal with whatever ingredients are available that day or driving guests to the bus station or airport. Other times they’re tidying the facility, distributing medication, or helping with intake. Coordinators assign them tasks based on immediate need.
The busiest time of day is when the buses arrive, bringing anywhere from 40 to 100-plus men, women, and children just released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The sisters have gotten used to seeing adults wearing ankle monitors, which ensure that they check in with authorities as soon as they reach their destination.
Two buses generally arrive each day, although the sisters said there’s really no way to anticipate when they’ll be there or how many migrants will be on them. Sister Carolyn said that can make it tricky to plan for meals and accommodations.
Because Nazareth House is transitional, a typical stay is just a few days.
The shelter operates out of the closed wing of a nursing home founded by the Sisters of Loretto, with two families assigned to a room, so accommodations aren’t particularly spacious. But they do tend to be appreciated: Migrants tell of cold nights sleeping on concrete floors in the detention centers, which in turn leave many of the young children with fevers and coughs.
There are a lot of lines at Nazareth House — for intake, for showers, for meals, for rides when they’re ready to leave the shelter. But one thing that has struck the local sisters is the patience, graciousness, and appreciation of the migrants, whom they call their guests.
“I think I was very touched by that kind of spirit,” Sister Carolyn said. “There was a sense of community, that there was no one who had to be No. 1 or first.”
They’re quick to lend a hand in the day-to-day chores at the shelter. Sister Pat recalled one interaction with guests who had stepped up to help her clean.
“I said, ‘We’re grateful for your help,’” she recalled. “They turned to me and said, ‘No, we’re thankful to be here.’ Some of them are really, really fleeing for their lives.”
As El Paso drew national attention earlier this week with the arrival of President Trump on Monday, Annunciation House staged a news conference to challenge the perception that migrants and refugees are criminals. After opening remarks, Ruben Garcia, head of Annunciation House, gave three refugees an opportunity to tell their own stories of flight and asylum.
One Honduran woman described her struggle to explain to her young daughters why they’d been separated upon their arrival in the United States in October. Another recently arrived refugee spoke with a child in her arms of responsibility to fight for her daughters’ well-being and her desire for opportunity in the United States.
Sister Pat and Sister Carolyn hope stories like theirs and the ones they’ll bring back to Ohio will help shift attitudes, so that migrants can be seen as individuals rather than through the lens of blanket judgment. Try putting yourself in their shoes, they suggested.
“We need to start looking at everyone as a brother or sister, regardless of where you’re from,” Sister Pat said. “We’re all one people. We’re all human beings.”
First Published February 16, 2019, 12:30 p.m.
