Acting as Everyday Peacemakers means we don’t just drop into conflicts to offer quick fixes. We don’t offer bandaids, we treat the disease that is causing the harm. 

That often means that we don’t see restoration in the short term, but in the long haul of mutual relationships. Rather than simply offering one-off charity, we train people to enter into long-term relationships of solidarity.

Over the past decade, our team on the border of Tijuana/San Diego has lived out this value in relationships with mothers who have been deported and separated from their children. After years of praying and advocating for a legal return to the United States, our dear friend and peacemaker, Yolanda Verona, was able to cross back into the United States and into the arms of her children. 

For the hundreds of you who have met Yolanda Varona and heard her story (and her husband Hector‘s who was a deported US military vet) on a The Global Immersion Project trip, you know the strength, resolve and courage in her eyes. You also know the grief in being separated from her children after her deportation. Last month, we met her at the border to welcome her home and this embrace with her daughter summed it all up with hope and healing.

Her faithful work supporting other mothers who have been separated from their children in Tijuana via deportation will continue. Yoli reminds us of the very best our faith and humanity has to offer our broken world.

Yolanda is home. Thanks be to God!

One of the local reporters at the border on the day of Yolanda’s return was so inspired by the work of Global Immersion that he came to our office to learn more and produced this piece that is being aired by news stations around the country.