OUR NEXT MEETING WILL TAKE PLACE ON MONDAY, MAY 26, 2025
from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, 17750 S. LaCañada, Sahuarita, AZ
from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at Good Shepherd United Church of Christ, 17750 S. LaCañada, Sahuarita, AZ
Some of GVS Samaritans activities and services have been temporarily suspended due to changing policies and circumstances on both sides of the border. Please see the How to Help page for more information.
We Provide Humanitarian Aid
We respect human rights and one's ethical responsibility to those who are suffering.
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When the Door Slammed Shutby David A. Hoekema
January 25, 2025 
"Esto es para Usted, señor."
The young boy reached out to offer me a wrapped piece of candy. Members of the Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans had traveled south, across the Arizona-Mexico border, to Kino Border Initiative (KBI) to help in its cafeteria, el comedor. We served a hearty breakfast to about a hundred asylum seekers and gave treats to the children, two candies apiece. After we had introduced ourselves – “me llamo David / me llamo Heraldo” – the six-year-old insisted on sharing his good fortune. Heraldo’s parents and two-year-old brother had arrived at KBI in Nogales, Sonora, a few days earlier, two months after fleeing their village in Venezuela. Government soldiers were raiding homes and abducting anyone they suspected of supporting the opposition, and the family feared they would be next. Crossing Colombia by foot and bus, they had to make their way on foot through the dense tropical forests of the Darien Gap to Panama. CNN reporters have called this a “minefield of lethal snakes, slimy rock, and erratic riverbeds,” where travelers are beset by “masked robbers and rapists.” The Venezuelans paid steep fees to a guide for protection from predators, both human and animal, and directions to overnight shelters in the jungle. Carrying the children most of the time, the parents picked their way through dense undergrowth and across swollen streams for a week. On a smartphone they showed me photos of their broad smiles when they emerged at last into an inhabited area of Panama. But their journey of several thousand miles had only begun. Coyotes helped them cross Panama and enter Costa Rica, then Nicaragua, then Honduras, then Guatemala, and finally Mexico, evading border guards each time by crossing at night far from roads and settlements. Story continues here |
Death Map
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Updated April 2025
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