Day 1 of moderator’s tour: sew stirring

Andrews hurriedly surveys ‘beautiful’ expressions of the gospel

by John Filiatreau

Moderator Susan Andrews visited the Southwest Creations Collaborative, which provides full-time employment for 29 Hispanic women.
Photos by David P. Young

      Andrews, who before last summer’s 215th General Assembly was “merely” a pastor in Bethesda, MD, calls herself an “ambassador, storyteller and peacemaker" for the denomination. She was in this dusty brown city last week to kick off the moderator’s annual tour of U.S. missions, which this year made its way to Albuquerque; Austin, TX; Fort Myers, FL; Immokalee, FL; and Miami.

      Everywhere she went, Andrews met Presbyterians serving the gospel in steadily “browning,” multicultural, multilingual communities — where she saw examples of the “incredibly creative and chaotic” work and worship that she says have renewed her hopes for the denomination during her traveling year.

      Five days, five cities, five airports, seven flights, 15 appearances, one sermon, a dozen off-the-cuff speeches, a thousand handshakes, and a smile that communicates in any language.

      One gospel.

      The unofficial theme seemed to be from John 10:10, where Jesus the good shepherd says, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”

      The tour, on which Andrews was accompanied by the Rev. Curtis Kearns, director of the PC(USA)’s National Ministries Division, began on April 26 at the Southwestern Creations Collaborative (SCC), where a group of impoverished Hispanic women have parlayed a 1994 grant from the PC(USA)’s Self Development of People (SDOP) program into a $400,000-a-year business and a vastly more abundant life.

      In a quonset hut on a sun-scrubbed industrial lot in Albuquerque, a dozen women sat behind industrial sewing machines and expansive tables, cutting, stitching, gluing, embroidering, labeling, packaging, assembling. SCC, which specializes in small-batch manufacturing, rules its niche, one worker said, because “we have incredible quality here.”

Andrews spoke with Program Director Andrea Plaza at Southwest Creations Collaborative.

     “It is really about dignity,” said Susan Matteucci, SCC’s founder and executive director. “It has always been about that. ... We started by talking about what were some of women’s values as women, as mothers, as community members.”

      “No health benefits,” said Andrea Plaza, director of operations. “Not yet.”

      The enterprise began when Matteucci, a community organizer from Chicago newly arrived in New Mexico, announced at San Jose Catholic Church that she was looking for women interested in learning to sew or improving their skills. She expected about five women. Sixty-five showed up. Ten of that original group still work at SCC; two others have left and started small businesses of their own.

      “I don’t know how to sew,” confessed Matteucci, who said she has learned through experience “to let these women figure out what to do, and have high expectations,” and stay out of the way. “I’m the only one here who doesn’t know how to do anything.”

      SCC started by setting up its sewing machines and cutting boards in the Catholic church’s parish hall, taking the tables apart and storing the equipment on the weekends so others could share the space. The collaborative moved into its current cramped quarters in 1996, and now needs a larger home. (When it landed a contract to produce thousands of hand puppets, it barely had room for the new “eyeball machine.”) The adjacent day care center is in an old trailer whose white paint is chipping off under the baking desert sun.

      “We’re growing,” Plaza said.  “I mean, we’re growing growing growing. ... In the past week, we’ve taken on six more people — and we’ll probably retain three of them. And lately we’ve even had a little bit of overtime.”

      It’s a full-tilt, year-round operation these days, and that’s good for morale. “Actually, people are happiest when there is almost too much work to do, when we are totally slammed and busy,” Plaza said.

      She displayed a small box containing three neatly ribbon-tied sachets of sweet-smelling herbs, which she said cost $1.92 to make and sell in high-end stores for $14.

      “I’ll bet $7 goes to the CEO of that corporation,” Andrews muttered.   

      Matteucci, who describes herself as a “cultural Catholic,” said SCC is “a spiritual project.”

      “Our guiding principles and values are spiritual,” she told Andrews. “I’m always amazed at the faith of the women here.”

Executive Director Susan Matteucci

       One of the women told Andrews: “In the past, I didn’t have confidence in me and my abilities. I thought I could only work in caring for kids. This has been amazing for me. I’m a single mother with five kids, and I’m very happy to be here, because I can learn more. I can have my kids here. I have more money, because we have good salaries here. And all these people around us are like our family.”

        The collaborative’s board of directors is composed of employees.

      “The whole thing brings tears to my eyes,” Andrews said. “It’s such a beautiful story. ... Thank you for the work you’re doing.”

      Later, the moderator visited Albuquerque’s La Mesa Presbyterian Church, whose pastor, the Rev. Trey Hammond, is among the leaders of Albuquerque Interfaith, a non-profit coalition of faith groups, unions and schools active in justice and development issues. Albuquerque Interfaith is funded through the Presbyterian Hunger Program.

      The night before Andrews’ visit, Hammond, a former director of urban ministries on the PC(USA) national staff, had had about 300 people at his church for a forum on the city budget. They demanded higher wages for public employees, better public schools, and development policies that help the city’s older neighborhoods.

      Hammond said his congregation’s activism is an attempt to “put legs on what we believe,” and reflects the congregation’s commitment to its neighborhood, where 80 percent of residents are in families headed by first-generation Spanish-speaking immigrants. When other congregations moved to the suburbs, La Mesa held fast.

      “When the opportunity came to relocate, we didn’t do it,” Hammond said with pride. “And we’re not principally professional people who come with big bank accounts. People here took their retirement savings and loaned them to the church.”

      In 1988, La Mesa set out to provide full-time care for the children in its impoverished, multi-ethnic neighborhood, creating the tuition-free La Mesa Early Childhood Center for kids 6 weeks to 3 years old and forming a partnership with the elementary school across the street. The church renovated some of its facilities with a grant from the PC(USA)’s Bicentennial Fund, and installed a sprinkler system and built a playground with money from the Presbyterian Women’s Thank Offering.

      On Thanksgiving, when the church serves about 2,000 meals through its Feast of Hope program, Hammond said, “We try not to have a serving side of the table and a dining side.”

      La Mesa Presbyterian is also the site of a truancy prevention program and “homework club,” Building Healing Communities for Children (BHCC), in which high-school students serve as mentors to younger children with chronic school-attendance problems.

      “The teen-agers are able to have a job, basically, that is very compelling, and these kids, one of the things that inspired me from the beginning was their love and their eagerness to work,” said Manuel Ruiz, BHCC’s director. “Often what the younger kids need is someone to listen, to show some interest and care about them. Some of (the program’s success) is just the older kids’ behavior being modeled by the children. ...

      “A lot of our kids know no other world than what they call the ‘war zone.’ ... This program gives them inspiration, and something to shoot for.”

      The four-day-a-week after-school program also offers exercises in team-building and conflict resolution, recreation, and lots of what Ruiz calls “empathic listening.”

      Andrews listened empathically as Ruiz went on: “Our major funding is running out this summer. The (New Mexico) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention gave us one-third of what we asked for.”

      BHCC is looking for other sources of funding.

        “There’s incredible caring within our church family,” Hammond said. “We’re small enough to really get to know people — all of the people. We try to focus on serious issues of the day. ... We believe we really can shape public policy.”

      Andrews also visited the not-yet-open-for-business Albuquerque Opportunity Center, a brand-new, 10,000-square-foot, 110-bed multi-purpose shelter for homeless men.