Practicing Resurrection: A Shelter Donut Operation 🍩

*Story, personal details, and photos shared with explicit permission. Usually we avoid using photos that include faces, but in this case, the couple wanted these photos to be used along with their story. *

the last few weeks we had been hearing about regular food sales happening at a migrant shelter near downtown Juárez. Coworkers and other ngo partners were casually mentioning that they were planning on going by for a plate. I (Clara) had something to give to Pastor R, who runs this particular shelter, so I met him at our shared office in Juárez, interested to hear about the food sales.

“You wouldn’t believe what’s been happening at the shelter if I told you…” he said to me in Spanish, “God’s been doing things I can’t believe…”

“What’s going on?” I asked, obviously curious. “Well, they’re making the shelter self-sustainable,” he said, pulling out his phone to show me pictures. “They’re selling several hundred donuts every day, and they are using what they earn to help me with the bills!”

I knew I wanted to interview the people behind something like that. So often in stories about the border, the focus is on the charity of the shelter leaders, or on the desperate situations that migrants face. And those two things are present, everywhere–they naturally take the spotlight. But I could tell that this story had something different to offer – ingenuity, energy, collective action, resilience. And donas.

A young couple was working on the masa, or dough, when Lyn and I arrived at the shelter on a Tuesday afternoon.The four large globs lying there on the table would become hundreds of donuts by that evening. The young man oiled them by hand and covered them with a trash bag. “They have to stay warm for the yeast to activate,” he explained.

When they’d finished and sat down for our interview, a woman who’d been sitting to the side immediately handed the young man his baby daughter. He was breathing heavily. “It’s exhausting, isn’t it?” asked Lyn. He smiled and nodded.

Luis and Guadalupe grew up in the same town near Cuernavaca. He started working at Guadalupe’s family’s bakery when he was 16…she’d been working there since even younger.

Guadalupe explained, “Como era de mi papá, pues desde cero me metí con él…empezamos a aprender a hacer pan, hornearlo, ya después poco a poco le fue metiendo pasteles, y aprendí a decorar pasteles…” (Because he was my father, from the very beginning I was working with him…we learned to make bread, to bake it, and after that little by little we started incorporating cakes, I learned to decorate cakes…)

“Pues fue creciendo este negocio…(gente de otras ciudades) bajaban a vacacionar y pasaban y se llevaban sus 50, 60 panes porque ya nos conocían.” (The business was growing, and people from other cities who came to us on vacation, came by and bought 50 or 60 pieces of bread, because they already knew us.)

Why leave something like that?

Guadalupe explained, “por lo mismo de que empezamos a crecer, pues la delincuencia llegó y nos pidió cobro de piso.” (Because we were growing so much, those in our city who were involved in organized crime came and asked us for their piece…)

The couple thought they were going to be able to negotiate with them and keep going. But when the knock at the door came, Luis and Guadalupe were given 3 hours to pay the Mexican equivalent of 30,000 dollars, or one hour to leave everything.

“It was extortion,” she said, matter of factly. We’d seen the bullet holes in the businesses that hadn’t paid. We’d seen the buildings burned down.

Because of the threat and the extortion, Guadalupe’s parents encouraged them to come to the

US / México border to seek asylum. The family didn’t know anyone who had done this before.

They have two young daughters. The girls were with Guadalupe in the bakery the day they received the threat.

Having met in their teens at the bakery, Luis and Guadalupe were novios for 10 years – both studying and slowly paying for their classes through their work in the bakery. Luis studied Accounting and Finance. Guadalupe has her nursing degree. (Now in the shelter, she cares for the other guests who get sick or have medical questions.) The couple serves as leaders in the shelter, having chosen to support the Pastor with their gifts— not only leadership but in cooking and baking as well. Before they sold donuts, they sold full plates of food, using the profits to pay for utility bills, or buy needed supplies. That’s still the arrangement with the donuts.

Las donas only require a few ingredients: Harina, Manteca, Azucar, Huevo. (Flour, Lard, Sugar, Egg)

They see the donut sales and donating the profits as a way to express their gratitude for the hospitality they’ve received.

Wendell Berry writes in his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”  that we must “practice resurrection.” Coming off of Easter Weekend, it’s beautiful to see some of those resurrection themes play out in a story like Luis and Guadalupe’s. Broken things can be filled with new life. Stolen things can be returned to us. Humans who have been mistreated can turn around and care for and uplift others.

The donuts are selling out every day they make them. The other shelter guests help to sell around the neighborhood, in the line for the bridge to the US a few blocks away, and in the bars. The sales are helping the shelter’s doors to stay open for more people on the move. And Guadalupe and Luis, when they receive their CBP1 appointment and cross into the US–they’re planning to apply for their work visas, to open another panadería, or bakery.

Guadalupe and Luis were interviewed by Lyn McKinley and

Clara Duffy on Tuesday, March 26th and the story was written by Clara.