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Sister Joyce Blum offers ministry without borders
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“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” Matthew 25:35-36
From the U.S./Mexico border, to Central America, to Arizona prisons and to
America’s Heartland, Sister Joyce Blum has ministered to Hispanic people
wherever the need has arisen. Today, constantly on the move in her service to
three different parishes in Iowa, the immigrant heart seems to beat within her.
“I have no border—there’s no map—this whole thing is just
one big planet to me and I don’t have any state rules, regulations or borders,”
she explains. “Wherever these people come from they’re mine. The world
has become very small, actually.”
Nationally, Hispanic/Latino people comprise 12.5 percent of the total United
States population (2000 U.S. Census), and while much of the population is located
near the Mexican border, the growth in this ethnic minority population can also
be felt in middle America, even in Iowa. According to the State Data Center
of Iowa and the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs, the estimated Latino population
in the state is nearly 110,000 (2005), making people of Latino origin the state’s
largest race or ethnic minority at 3.7 percent and growing. For Sister Joyce,
a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration who is dedicated to helping this
population, there is much work to do.
She started in her ministry as an elementary teacher in the La Crosse Diocese
for five years before fulfilling her dream and traveling to Central America
as a missionary for 13 years. There she taught grade school and adult education,
and learned how to speak fluent Spanish herself. Upon her return, the skills
she’d gained allowed her to work with Spanish-speaking immigrants in Phoenix,
Ariz., and Lake Wales Central Diocese in Florida. From 1993-2000, Sister Joyce
served as a chaplain in an Arizona state prison, ministering to thousands, including
youth, women and inmates on death row. There she saw firsthand the effects of
immigration without education. The number of Hispanic immigrants within the
prison system shocked her, yet the experience helped her discover a deeper meaning
within her ministry. In July of 1995 she wrote, “As I walk through the
yards, the cells, etc. here at the state prison, I found the central message
of the Gospel to be ever so alive . . . that God loves everyone without discrimination.
Yes, it is true. In God’s eyes there are no second class citizens.”
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Her work beneath the razor wire was as much a spiritual journey for her as
it was for the inmates to whom she ministered, and the lessons she gleaned from
the experience laid groundwork for her future. She wrote on August 17, 1997,
“The challenge of any commitment to the poor of the Gospels, the imprisoned
poor of the jails and prisons is to love unconditionally.” It’s a
challenge that has put her on the front lines of the immigration issue since
it flared up in the United States as American foreign policymakers tightened
border control under the umbrella of counterterrorism. So while Sister Joyce
recognized that her ministry within the prison walls was a gift to her, she
felt pulled toward work with the immigrants at the border between the U.S. and
Mexico. “We were close to the border and I was becoming more aware. And
I thought why are all these Spanish-speaking people getting caught in the prisons?”
She explains, “two years it took me to say I want to leave the prison ministry
and go to the border. If I could keep one family from crossing the border with
their eyes closed,” she explains, she felt she could make a difference
in their lives.
She began a volunteer ministry, assisting immigrants who crossed through the
desert. “We would just be vigilant and help anyone in need of water, or
whatever. We’d help them without breaking any rules and regulations. That’s
very Gospel, it’s just very moving to do that.” People were typically
walking on federal land, unaware of their actual location. According to Sister
Joyce, the border crossers often thought they were in New York, but they’d
be half an hour walk from the border itself, and at serious risk for dehydration.
Her interest primarily laid in offering comfort and necessities to individuals,
including food, water, blankets and spiritual support. She wrote, in January
of 2002, “In the Arizona prison ministry and on the Arizona borders, I
share hope and focus on the tiny acts of goodness that are shown in word and
action daily. There is a new togetherness that can build relationships that
can grow into flames and sparks of hope.” She fanned additional flames
of hope among orphans near the border, fulfilling at last her childhood dream.
More than small acts of goodness, because she’d witnessed the end product
of inadequate education in the Arizona prison system, Sister Joyce focused on
providing education to the immigrants, a ministry she continues to embrace even
today. “I’m a revolutionary as much as Jesus or Mary was,” she
explained in a recent interview. “I’m going the slow process of education.
You just have to do it to let people be invited to think and make their own
decisions. They have all the answers inside themselves they need if we are just
wise enough to ask the questions.”
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Just last year, Sister Joyce began her ministry with the Spanish-speaking people
in the Sioux City Diocese, after the community called those in foreign ministry
to consider the needs within the United States. Sister Joyce spent time reconnecting
with the FSPA legacy in Iowa, and drove the small communities in the diocese
to “pick up the Holy Spirit” in those towns. She learned that 46 FSPA
are buried in Carroll alone, and she took that as a sign that the move was right
for her. To Sister Joyce, it seemed all work up to that point had prepared her
for her newest ministry. But one thing changed for her. While working at the
border, she had avoided asking people where they’d come from and what their
story was, as it seemed intrusive, even rude. But in the heartland, it suddenly
seemed rude not to ask. “Now what I tell people is we have to find those
stories—those people came across the desert or the river in their struggle
to get to better human adventure and they’ve come through hell and high
water and there’s a lot of pain there. Until we can hear those stories
and look them in their eyeballs, we won’t understand their struggle.”
Today the educational aspect of her ministry continues and includes everything
from teaching English as a second language, helping people with their taxes,
assisting them in their quest to earn a high school diploma, demystifying banking,
budgeting, U.S. housing and more. One group she helped form is The Faces Committee
in Denison, Iowa. The committee believes that the new multicultural reality
in the town is a blessing. “The reality is that we are an immigrant society
and have worked together with many cultures to build a wonderful place for our
children. We hope that this positive venture continues,” wrote Sister Joyce
in a committee announcement.
The Faces program is one of many with which Sister Joyce works on a regular
basis in her ministry in Denison, Storm Lake and Carroll, Iowa. “I don’t
have any answers on immigration. I just think that education is everything.
I think everyone needs to speak English and they will. It’s going to take
a while.”
Driving to three Iowa communities, spearheading initiatives to address the needs
of the immigrants and securing grants for programs is all in a week’s work
for Sister Joyce. The problems she’s helping address are anything but small:
destroying cultural misconceptions; ministering to an often-marginalized population;
forging connections to strengthen family units; and building bridges to solutions
for problems like sickness, poverty and ignorance. She’s taking on challenges
that often operate under the radar of the issue of immigration, far outside
of the heated governmental debates. She does this by focusing on the people
at the heart of a complicated issue and holding them paramount. “The only
thing I’m doing is building Christ community—that seems very simplistic,
but that’s what I’m doing.”
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