I didn’t want to leave my home, I didn’t want to leave Mexico, but now I’m grateful to be in Kansas and I thank God for the wonderful people I’ve met here.
I grew up in Durango and graduated from college in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree. Programs to help farmers with agricultural science were declining, and I had a dream of helping farmers who depend on erratic rains in semi-desert areas to grow more beans. In places like the U.S., when crops fail, the government writes a check. When crops fail in Mexico, people migrate to the U.S.
I wanted to develop irrigation projects and restore the extension services typically offered in university programs in the U.S. It took me six years to convince banks to back my venture, and I secured funding to help 1,000 farmers and ranchers.
But the same year I graduated, Mexico, the United States, and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA created the opportunity for subsidized U.S. crops to enter the same markets as unsubsidized Mexican crops. We managed to get by until 2002, when the U.S. Farm Bill of that year expanded subsidies for export crops, making U.S.-grown beans significantly cheaper.
Mexican farmers couldn’t compete. I lost my job and my home. I could no longer provide for my family. The farmers couldn’t pay the banks back. In 2005, I left my wife, Brenda, and our two children in Mexico City and came to the United States on a tourist visa in search of a better life for my family.
I was doing manual labor in Michigan, but within three months of arriving, the recession hit. I had no job and no prospects, and out of the blue, I got a call from a cousin in Wichita, Kansas. He knew I had a degree and that a Mexican grocery store chain needed accounting help. That job didn’t work out either. I didn’t grow up in a very religious household, but later I realized God was at work.
From there, he had friends in Newton who knew about job options, and with little English, he got a job welding on ethanol machines, which was a bit ironic, since government-subsidized ethanol had driven up the price of corn, which in turn had driven up the price of tortillas back home.
My wife and children began attending a Pentecostal church in Newton, and I attended occasionally as well. Although I often had work and other commitments, attending church helped ease the trauma of losing everything.
One day, we happened to meet a kind man named Fremont Regier at church. He helped us find a Bible verse during the service. Apparently, he liked to randomly visit churches around town. That evening, he and his wife Sarah came to visit us, and it was like they brought Jesus into our home. We felt at ease with them and asked if we could visit their church.
Faith Mennonite Church has been our spiritual home ever since. We were baptized at Camp Menoska in 2008. The people taught us English. They never gave up when it seemed like it would be hard to find work without papers to support our family. Mike Schmidt trained me as a carpenter. Now I’ve had my own carpentry shop for over 10 years. What Faith Mennonite built, other churches can do too. With the help of Wayne Schrag and Tom Geddert, we were even able to buy a house with a personal loan.
“I met Fremont and Sarah, and I got connected with Faith Mennonite, and my cousin called me. That was something special. It’s how we see God and how He’s always present and working and the angels are around.”
My family loves the way the church helps the community. I didn’t grow up in that environment in Mexico. We fell in love with helping out by volunteering at the Etcetera thrift store, the local Mennonite Central Committee office, or through church outreach.
My daughter graduated from Bethel University and is working on her Master’s degree, my son attended classes there and is married, and he has become a U.S. citizen and is sponsoring my wife and I to eventually become U.S. citizens. [Green Card] Permanent residency.
I have never been back to my hometown. My mother is there, my brother is there, and I have other relatives. But I applied about six months ago, and now I have hope that I will be able to see them again, because it has increased my chances of seeing them again.
I once spoke about my experience at a Mennonite Economic Development Association conference in Wichita. I met with some farmers there who told me that they had written a letter to the president asking him to export pinto beans to Mexico because they couldn’t sell them in the United States. They didn’t know about the damage, so I wanted to help them understand the impact.
I sometimes wonder how different my life would have been without NAFTA. I would probably continue doing farm extension work. That was my job and I miss it sometimes. But I’m happy to be where I am and I’m glad I’ve met good people here.
Jesus Martinez is the owner of Midwest General Contractors, a construction company in Newton, Kansas.
