A new way to travel home

Well, I wasn’t sure I was going to post this story here, but people have been asking, so I thought I would at least put part of the story here.
As many of you have heard, I had the interesting experience of being deported from a foreign country. Although I thought what I was doing in Mexico (volunteering and learning about a new culture and a new language) was fine on a tourist visa, it was not okay to the Mexican government. They want you to be pouring money into the economy, not helping out those without money. Anyway..here is some of what I wrote the day after I got back to Oregon.

It is snowing outside. I am wrapped in a blanket and have slippers on my feet as I watch it fall. As you can probably guess, I am no longer in Mexico. It is a long story. I wasn’t supposed to be home until a week from now, but some things are out of our control. The story will unfold below, but the simple answer is, I was deported from Mexico. And what makes it so hard, besides the fact that I only have a small suitcase of my things that someone else packed for me and I didn’t get to say goodbye to any of my friends or the kids, is that I was yanked out of my second home.
That’s what Mexico has become to me over the last several months; my second home. So, it is good to be back in my first home surround by family and knowing I have the support of people who love me, but everything around me reminds me of my second home that I left without any kind of closure. Seeing the snow reminds me that in Mexico the sun is shining. Wearing slippers reminds me that just a few days ago I was wearing my Chaco sandals and walking around in a t-shirt. Driving down the highways reminds me of the Pan-American Highway and driving in to Oaxaca City. My parents heading off to church this morning reminds me of the fact that I was supposed to be worshipping with familiar Spanish songs this morning…songs that mean so much to me, but that I won’t be able to listen to for a long time. I see my car and worry about driving in the U.S. because I am so used to driving in Mexico. I see Christmas decorations and think about the Christmas party I am going to miss with my 50 kids and my many friends.

On Thursday morning I went about my normal chores; however, when I got to the office the Mexican Immigration van was waiting outside. Told to get my passport so they could check my Visa and documents, I headed back to my apartment…not worried about anything. Two hours later I was in the immigration office in Oaxaca City with four other missionaries. We then began to be called one at a time in to separate offices to give statements. While I was being interviewed I kept reiterating that I wasn’t being paid, I was helping where they needed help and I was here to learn about the culture and to learn Spanish. The Immigration Official printed off my statement and then asked me to sign it. I prayed that everything on the Spanish-written document was correct and then signed it. I will admit, I was a little nervous, but I still didn’t think I had done anything wrong.

After several more hours, one of the missionaries was allowed to go home, but we still hadn’t heard anything else and we continued to sit in the little room with a guard sitting outside. We were tired and began to wonder when we were going to know what was going on. They moved us downstairs to a break room and brought us dinner. There they started interviewing us again, one at a time. Carmen was asked what valuables she had on her, what color her eyes were, if she had any tattoos…we started getting concerned. Were we going to be stuck here over night? That is when Carmen got a call from her fiancée, Fabian, who had been waiting in the office all day. All I heard was “Honey, that isn’t funny. Don’t joke about that.” I knew the worst-case scenario had occurred. We were being deported. Fabian came in…we could each have one small suitcase and he had two hours to go and get them. Just enough time to drive to the Mission, grab something, and drive back. He told us to write down what of our belongings we wanted. He grabbed our practically non-existent lists and headed out. We cried together. All of a sudden our worlds were turned upside down. We tried to comfort each other, but it didn’t work.
The most frustrating thing was sitting with the unknown. They wouldn’t tell us exactly why we were being deported. We didn’t know how or when we were leaving. We were going to have to leave Cristina by herself as she headed to Guatemala and the rest of us headed to the U.S./Mexican border.

Fabian brought us our bags. We got a slight laugh out of what was in our bags, since Carmen would be heading back to Sheboygan, Wisconsin in December with cut-off shorts, some tank tops, an old pair of flip-flops and apparently her whole medicine cabinet.

Then our cell phones were taken from us and we were put in the break-room, which now felt like a prison. The guards on the other side of the break room were laughing, cussing and smoking, while listening to loud music. We prayed together, trying to find the blessings in the situation: we were all together, the Mission was trying to help us get home safely, God is with us in all circumstances and knows what will happen to us. We turned off the TV and tried to sleep, curled close to each other on gym mats on the floor. We were afraid to use the blankets, not knowing who else had used them before us or when they were last washed.

In the morning we had more papers to sign. We once again took turns being escorted to the bathroom. They told us that those of us from the States would be flying out around noon. Cristina would be left by herself until they drove her to the Guatemala border, leaving around seven in the evening. They brought us breakfast and we didn’t really eat. They didn’t realize that not only was Carmen leaving here fiancée, but we were all leaving our second family and we hadn’t even said goodbye. We were abandoning kids that had already been abandoned by their parents. We brushed our teeth and tried to feel refreshed even though we had been in the same clothes for at least the last 24 hours. We talked about what we were looking forward to in the U.S., what we wouldn’t miss from Mexico, three things we wish we had from the mission that we didn’t.

Around 10 am we had to say goodbye to Cristina and walk out to the van to drive to the airport. We now felt like prisoners- knowing that we would be escorted by four officials the whole way to the border. They escorted us through the airport and sat with us in the waiting room. It was a good dose of public humiliation.

I ended up sitting next to one of the officials on the first flight; a twenty-year old man who had been with immigration for a year. We talked about several things; the fact that you can’t even help or volunteer on a tourist visa, that we could come back in a year. We talked about my other travels; how I would love to live in Oaxaca, but obviously couldn’t right now, and how I loved visiting Costa Rica, but wouldn’t want to live there. I talked about my job back in the states. We talked about our families. He wasn’t quite sure why it was so hard for us to leave. We were going home to our families, we would be back in the U.S. I explained to him that the majority of our things were at the Mission (my clothes, my Christmas presents to my family), that we hadn’t said goodbye to anyone, and that we considered Mexico our second home. I think it may have dawned on him the actual emotional severity of the situation. They don’t usually deal with three young American women who think they are doing things right and who have come to love people in Mexico and call it their home. American women who feel called to Mexico.
The guards were nice and considerate even if they were rule-followers. By the end of the first flight to Mexico City I felt like the young man I was sitting next to saw me as a person not as a number.

When we got to the front of the plane, we were escorted out the side door, not through the regular exit into the airport. Outside the plane a Federal Police Car was waiting. On our short drive in a Federal Police Car to the second Mexico City terminal, we talked about how we felt like true criminals being led by Federal Police and Immigration officials through the airport. We were led to a small room in the back of the airport with a guard sitting outside. Trying to make light of the situation we noted that there were two bathrooms attached to this room so we wouldn’t have to ask permission to use the bathroom. We could just walk in when we needed it.

I called the Mission while Carmen called her fiancée. I was comforted by Janelle’s words from the Mission…the American Consulate would meet us at the border and walk us through the process; a couple known by some of the missionaries was going to meet us and we were going to stay at their house for the night; Peter, the director of the board for the Mission in Oaxaca, would be arranging tickets home for us on Saturday. We were being taken care of. I called my parents for the first time, even though they had been notified by the Mission about what was happening.
Our next flight was from Mexico City to Ciudad de Juarez. We disembarked the plane, joking with each other that we didn’t know what were going to do when we got in to airports in the U.S. and didn’t have personal escorts. When our bags had been collected by our escorts, and an Immigration van had been brought around, we were taken out of the airport. They drove us to the border crossing and walked us over the bridge to the U.S. side. When we got to the other side we were taken to a back office.

After the Mexican officials had left, a new American official walked in and one of the officials that had signed us in told him… “Guess what, these three girls were deported from Mexico.”
He looked at us with a quizzical look and said, “How ‘d y’all manage to do that?”
We laughed, that is exactly what we had been thinking. Who gets deported from Mexico?

In a few minutes we were picked up by Peter and Glory who took us to their home, fed us dinner, let us take showers and made sure we had flights for the next day.
On Saturday morning they made us a wonderful breakfast, we packed up our things and headed to the El Paso airport for the last few legs of our trip.

I almost missed my connecting flight from Phoenix to Portland, and I have to admit that I cried when the lady told me that I might not make my plane. That’s what happens when you are emotionally stressed and tired. I practically ran through the airport to my gate. They had to reopen the door for me, but I was on my way home.

What a wave of tears of relief and sorrow hit me as we landed and I saw Oregon’s trees all set for winter and when I saw my parents waiting anxiously for me.

The bright side…most of my things, including my Christmas presents, are now in Bend, Oregon because a family that had been down there simply cleaned out my room before they headed home. Now I just have to figure out how to get all of my stuff over the mountains, but it is all back in the United States. What a blessing!

I know that this is a long posting, but I actually paired down all of the story from seven pages to the length it is here, closer to three pages. The thing that is most frustrating to me is that others (and myself) are putting so much stake in this deportation I am afraid it will overshadow what I have been doing for the last several months in Mexico. I would hate for everything I have learned in the last several months to be completely wiped out because of the emotional upheaval of my deportation. It is true that it was emotional and trying, but it is also a story amid many stories in my life. For now I can praise God that I am home for Christmas and not stuck in the Houston airport waiting for the Portland airport to allow flights to come in.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged me through words and prayers over the last couple of weeks. Grieving takes time, but joy comes in the morning and God is still at work in this world and able to overcome all things.