Join us on a trip of a lifetime to experience the U.S./Mexico border for Yourself
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Watch the video below for highlights of the latest trip to the Border with Abriendo Fronteras-Opening Borders October 2019
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Watch for news of two trips scheduled for October, 2022.
Contact Vicki at [email protected] for more info on how you can join.
Please pray for those in detention, separated from family, and struggling to survive.
Meet the group who visited El Paso and Juarez in November 2018
Meet Vicki Schmidt, one of the founders of Abriendo Fronteras and your trip host and organizer.
Vicki Schmidt, a co-founder of Sister Parish, Inc. is a firm advocate that everyone should experience life from different perspectives. This includes what life is truly like--from several perspectives--at the US-Mexico border.
In her new book, "Grace Gallops," Vicki shares her own life experiences of encountering the stranger who becomes a friend through her ministry of matching worshipping communities in the north (North America) and those in Central America in an attitude of mutual care and solidarity and also through Abriendo's immersion trips to experience the border first-hand.
She has lead countless trips to the border with legislators, church leaders, lay people, university students, Members of Congress, and many others. Her stories of faith, struggle, and new life are recorded in her deeply moving memoirs of "Grace Gallops." You can purchase it here. Or read a review here.
In her new book, "Grace Gallops," Vicki shares her own life experiences of encountering the stranger who becomes a friend through her ministry of matching worshipping communities in the north (North America) and those in Central America in an attitude of mutual care and solidarity and also through Abriendo's immersion trips to experience the border first-hand.
She has lead countless trips to the border with legislators, church leaders, lay people, university students, Members of Congress, and many others. Her stories of faith, struggle, and new life are recorded in her deeply moving memoirs of "Grace Gallops." You can purchase it here. Or read a review here.
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Contact Vicki Schmidt at [email protected] to learn more about future delegations or click here. _________________________ Excerpt from the February, 2020 trip to the border written by Karen Ehrens. Our intrepid group of explorers began our journeys Sunday, February 23 to El Paso-Ciudad Juarez area to witness, learn, feel, reflect and share experiences of immersion. Twelve of us have come here from near the Northern border of the United States, North Dakota and Minnesota, to the Southern border. We have been brought together through the efforts of Vicki Schmidt, a founder of “Opening Borders/Abriendo Fronteras” http://www.openingborders.com/ . The “program educates participants about border issues through shared learning, experience, work, and prayer.” We gather at the beginning of this journey and start and end each day of the week in the same way, by coming together. We are hosted here by Father Bob in a common dwelling house that welcomes travelers nearly every week, the Columban Mission Center https://columban.org/columban-mission-center-el-paso-texas. Our learning begins first thing Monday morning, February 24, with grounding in the layers of history of this “in-between” region. It is a history that starts with the people indigenous to the El Paso area, the itinerant tribal people of the Chihuahua Desert, whose routes of travel flow north through Central America. After thousands of years, Spanish conquerors arrive, claiming land for Spain. Then arrive settlers churning along the routes of westward expansion, again claiming title to the land. Waves of change continue today despite attempts from the 1800’s and forward to stop the flow of people across lands drawn in sand and/or water with barriers of fences and walls and force. Want to know more? Then click here to check out our FAQ page for more particulars. You'll be glad you did. |
Can't go to the border yourself?
Then support someone with a scholarship so they can attend a border trip. Donate above and note that it is for a scholarship. And thank you very much! Abriendo Fronteras--Opening Borders organizes trips to the United States Mexico border at El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Our border partners live, work, and know life on the United States Mexico border. They are experts in their fields and know what they are doing. They are there to help you see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears what is happening as two countries meet. A different kind of "mission" trip Our Mission: Cultivating peace and justice by creating opportunities for building relationships of mutual respect and dignity.
A group of concerned friends got together in 2003 with a common goal of sharing their experience of being on the border. They wanted others to see, hear, touch, and feel what it is like to live on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border. |