“All the Doors Will Open”

Cesar Carrasco grew up “very poor” in Venezuela, he says in Spanish (with translation provided by Mother Jessie Alejandro, rector of the Church of St. Jude and the Nativity in Lafayette Hill).

 He attended school, but “we didn't have a lot of resources, and it was very complicated to live. There were times where I needed good clothing for my schooling, but they didn't have the money to buy me the clothing. There were many times where we went to bed without eating.

 “There were jobs, and we could work, but working for a whole week just to eat for two days.”

 His mother, who Carrasco called “a warrior,” decided to leave the country, and Carrasco made the decision to join her.

 They made it as far as neighboring Colombia, where his mother stayed. But while there, Carrasco met Dennisse Gonzalez, and, in October 2022, the young couple decided to embark on the long and perilous journey to the United States, a land that could offer more opportunities to build a life together.

It took three months, traveling over often difficult and dangerous terrain that included hacking their way through dense, overgrown jungles and crossing swollen, flooded rivers. But when they finally made it to the U.S., the parishioners of St. Jude and the Nativity Church in Lafayette Hill opened their church and their hearts to the refugees, building them a room they could stay in, donating clothing, buying food, with support from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, allowing them to use the kitchen to cook meals, and providing help with necessary paperwork, among other things.

And after several months, the church helped Carrasco find a landscaping job, a house in Philadelphia, and with the couple’s move to their new home.

 Carrasco and Gonzalez were the first refugees welcomed by Mother Jessie and the Church of St. Jude and the Nativity in 2022, but there have been many more since, from countries including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Haiti, and Jamaica.

Daniel Silva, a refugee from Venezuela who lived at the church for one year, sands boards for new bedrooms built at the church.

“We always talk about the Bible,” Mother Jessie says. “When we talk about the Bible, we recite the Bible about how Jesus talks about, if I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, you gave me some water. And I didn't have a place to stay, but you let me stay.

 “And that scripture kind of just dawned on me because what it meant for me, it wasn't just the fact that you were giving anybody a place to stay or something to drink. It goes beyond that. It goes deeper. I mean, what it is to help someone, give them a place to live is not just let them sleep and that's it. No, it goes way beyond that.”

 It certainly has gone way beyond that for Carrasco and Gonzalez, who plan to be married at the church in January 2025, and their daughter Cedimar, born here in 2023.

Cesar, Dennisse and little Cedimar being baptized together at St. Jude and the Nativity in 2023.

 “It was, for me, like I just got to a place where I am part of the family,” Carrasco says.

Rossy Calderón, a Hispanic, bilingual immigrant who came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic about 10 years ago and is a member of the church, understands what Carrasco means.

“What I have felt, what I have seen here is that we are like a family,” says Calderón, an assistant at the church who volunteers with the refugee program. “So we see people come in every Sunday, and we greet each other, and we support each other, and we collaborate with each other. When somebody has an issue, everybody jumps in to help. And we also help with people's needs, and I am a part of it. And yeah, that's what we are.”

Carrasco also says he has learned a lot from his time staying at the church and attending services there. “I learned a lot to pray,” he says, with Mother Jessie translating. “I also learned to worship God. And I also learned that once you continue to follow Jesus, all the doors will open.”

Lollipops and Roses

Carrasco was just 18 years old when he undertook the daunting trek to the U.S. But he was resourceful.

Along the way, he would sell lollipops all day when they would reach a town to try to raise enough money so he and Gonzalez could eat and occasionally ride in a bus instead of walking the whole way.

When they finally reached Texas, Carrasco says, they had nowhere to go. He met a man from Mexico, and pawned his smartphone in exchange for two packs of roses.

“Now, since I had the roses, I went out with Dennisse and I began to sell roses,” Carrasco says. “That day was really, really good because we were able to get our phone back from the Mexican guy after we pawned it, and then we were able to rent a hotel that night.”

 He continued selling roses to raise money to survive as the couple started filling out the paperwork for asylum. They discussed where they wanted to go “so we can plan a family and start a life,” and agreed on moving to Philadelphia.

But their first night in the City of Brotherly Love, they couldn’t find a shelter where they both could stay. They wound up spending the night on the street, near the William H. Gray III 30th Street Station at 30th and Market streets.

The next morning, they woke up and decided to try to find a church. The first church they found was an Episcopal Church, and the couple met with the priest at the time, Father Joseph, who referred them to Mother Jessie at St. Jude and the Nativity and drove them up to the Lafayette Hill church.

“We were so excited because we felt like we finally found a place that was going to help us out,” Carrasco says, as Mother Jessie translates. “There was a lot of love and compassion. When I got here to the church, it was such a great experience. And I was able to also help in the church as well. I helped paint, I helped clean up the church. I'm grateful that I am where I am today, and I feel very, very happy.”

 ‘We Listen’

The program has been blessed with generous support from parish members, people who live in the community, and other churches and organizations. It ranges from a local dentist who helps refugees “get the right treatment that they would need” to a group of Latino handymen who attend AA meetings at the church who came to build bathrooms for families staying there, Mother Jessie says.

“When the folks started to arrive, immediately I said, ‘We need to make rooms for the families that come.’ Now, we don't have the money to make the rooms. We have the talent of the people to make the rooms.”

“And some of them that were here staying, they also knew how to do the work,” Mother Jessie says. “So we just needed to get the materials. Some materials, we were able to get from the diocese. They helped us buy some of the materials to get, for example, the bathrooms done. But other materials, like for example, the bedrooms that were done downstairs, were done by the community, by the folks coming together, buying the materials, putting it together, making the framing, everything.”

Other churches in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, especially St. Martin’s and St. David’s churches in Radnor, have generously donated clothing and other items. “I would just say I have a group of families that arrive and I need help,” she says. “And people would just share. I would see so much grace in that, where people would just come and drop off clothes or drop a thing and they wanted to meet the family.”

Nixsa Hernandez, a member of the church, worked as an aide and technician in the medical field for more than 30 years. She also was a family caregiver for her mother and then her father as their health declined.

Nixsa Hernandez helps a young refugee woman get food stamps.

When the refugee program started, Hernandez stepped up to help with most of the paperwork required for various social services. From helping get children who were already citizens of the U.S. into WIC (the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) to helping with insurance forms to arranging vaccinations required for children to get into a local school, Hernandez has made a difference in the lives of many refugee families.

But the program has also made a difference in her life.

“It's amazing how sometimes you think you have so much, but you know there's so much you have that you can share,” Hernandez says. “So I'm actually, in my own personal life and my own personal family, we downsize a lot and we're able to help people that need it with clothing because they go to church to look for clothing.”

And as much as shelter, food and clothing matter, there is another way the church is uniquely qualified to help those in need, she says.

“I think in the church, we listen. We do listen. We help,” Hernandez says. “And it's spiritual, too. It's just not that materialistic thing, which is important to them. But it's also somebody just sitting and listening to them of what's going on in their life and their needs. And I think that's valuable.”

‘I Felt Hope’

Calderón was doing community work in Norristown when she first met Mother Jessie three or four years ago. She started attending and volunteering at St. Jude and the Nativity about two years ago after Mother Jessie became rector there.

She now handles much of the intake process when new people show up at the church looking for a place to stay.

“So part of the things that we do — and since we don't know if the persons read or not — we have the information in Spanish, but we read the information to them,” Calderón says. “It's a two-page document that I read to them, and I ask them to sign each page.”

If any information is missing, such as ID or proof of maternity for children, it’s noted in the document. Refugees also have to agree to a strict set of rules. The normal range for someone to stay at the church is three to six months. The maximum is one year.

 “There are rules in order to stay here — what time you go in, what time you can go out, the time frame that you need to stay, the time frame to use the kitchen, not drink or use any type of drugs. If you are found even in the outside area, it has consequences,” Calderón says. “So yes, everything is established prior to their stay in the church.”

On this day in late September, Calderón has just finished the intake process for a woman with three young children who was facing homelessness after the owner of the place in Norristown where she had been living gave her until the end of the month to move out.

 The woman, whose name is being withheld because she is a victim of domestic violence, was referred to St. Jude and the Nativity by the Rev. Christopher L. Schwenk, vicar of St. John’s Church at Diocesan Center, after he was contacted about her plight by a social worker in Norristown, she says, as Calderón provides translation.

 “I decided to come to see if there was any help available. In the meantime, I can get back on my feet and find a place to stay,” the woman says.

 She fled Honduras seven years ago after a sister and uncle had been killed by gangs who were also threatening the rest of her family.

 “I'm here for my children. And overall, this is the best thing that has happened, being in this country. The safety, and that I can be sure my children will be OK,” she says. “I know it's not always good. There are ups and downs. But it feels so good to sleep peacefully and not hear threats. That's what I heard all the time in my house. We had to constantly run away, hiding under the bed or in our rooms.”

After leaving Honduras, she has lived in Michigan and Phoenixville before finding a place in Norristown. She works as a dishwasher at a local restaurant to support herself and her two daughters, ages 7 and 12, and son, age 4.

 As it turns out, Calderón knew the woman from her previous work in Norristown.

 “I have been working on similar things — not in the same thing, but similar things — since I came to the States,” Calderón says. “So God has blessed me in many ways in order for me to be able to help and to make that difference, even if it's only one person.

“I met her as a domestic violence victim; I know her for a long time. You know, look what a coincidence everything is — which is not a coincidence, right? It's God. God is guiding us in some ways. It's a blessing being here and doing this.”

In addition to going over all the rules and expectations to stay at the church, Calderón gave the mother of three a list of three things she needed to do:

1. Enroll her children in a local school.

2. Contact ACLAMO, an organization that provides educational programs, social services, and access to health and wellness programs to Latinos and other community members to empower them to fully achieve their life potential.

3. Contact a lawyer she recommended who will provide pro bono services to help her apply for a U Visa that will give her legal status in the U.S. as a victim of domestic abuse.

 “We try to foresee the entire map of the things that are happening in order to help them to become better,” Calderón says.

 As the church started preparations to get a room ready for the woman and her three children to stay for two months so she can save money and find a new home, she was asked what her first impression was of St. Jude and the Nativity.

 “The first impression was feeling peace and calm,” she replies, with Calderón translating. “When I came here, I just said, ‘Thank you, God.’ I haven't been sleeping at all after I knew I had to leave that place [in Norristown], and I was worried. And after I came here on Saturday, I was able to sleep very well. I woke up on Sunday to go to work, happy, happy, happy.

 “I felt hope.”