Annie Armstrong Easter Offering 2025 – Week of Prayer Day 6
It might be the most unique classroom in North America. The Send Relief Ministry Center in Laredo, Texas, located just a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, is where Osvaldo and Vanessa Lerma bring volunteers for hands-on refugee ministry experience. “We introduce them to refugees coming to the U.S. who are legally seeking asylum. And after these churches get the opportunity to minister to them, they’re better equipped to go home and share Christ with the nations who are coming to their communities.”
It might be the most unique classroom in all of North America.
That’s how Osvaldo and Vanessa Lerma describe the Send Relief Ministry Center in Laredo, Texas. Located just a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, this is where the Lermas bring volunteers for hands-on refugee ministry experience.
“We minister alongside churches that have been called to share Christ with hurting people,” Vanessa says, “by introducing them to refugees who are coming to the U.S. to legally seek asylum. We’re always amazed at what refugees go through to come here. They left behind horrible poverty and violence. Some of them walk for weeks or even months.”
From 2011-2023, the U.S. admitted 624,589 refugees.
The Lermas pair up mission teams with Laredo churches and a local respite center. “We all work together to provide tangible help including meals, hygiene kits, and a safe place to rest and to shower,” Osvaldo says. “But, most importantly, we tell hurting people how they can find hope in Jesus.”
For mission teams, this is an opportunity to be on the front lines of refugee ministry and be the hands and feet of Jesus. “All churches are called to be compassionate,” Osvaldo says. “We’re here to help them see how God might lead them to start compassion ministries in their own communities.”
NAMB, AAEO, Nueveo Laredo, MX
Pray for…
- Osvaldo and Vanessa’s endurance as they serve refugees in Laredo in this challenging time.
- Mission teams to learn lessons in Laredo that will make them more effective gospel witnesses in their own communities.
- Refugees who are resettled elsewhere, that they may be connected with local churches who will compassionately share the love of Christ with them.