Illinois Man, Ministry Build Homes, Set Up Job Training In Juarez

Early on a Monday morning in June, Jerry Quick steers a pickup truck to a job site in Ciudad Jurez, Mexico, just south of El Paso, Texas. The seven volunteers with him, all of them from Illinois, are here in this region of desert and mountains to build on a property for the poor, according to a report in the Christian Science Monitor.

They’re joking and optimistic. They range from a former state police colonel to a high school student who first began traveling to Jurez last year. If it were 2005, or even 2000, when Quick first arrived on a trip to build homes for the poor, eight American volunteers in Jurez would have been a welcome but customary sight.

Quick has made more than 40 visits to this city in 10 years. But his commitment now holds a new importance: Jurez suffers a reputation as the deadliest city in the world, with some reports counting 5,000 people killed since 2008. Many foreign volunteer groups have reduced their travel to this home of 1.3 million people, frightened away by accounts of public massacres and nightly executions.

The instability has exacerbated youth crime and poverty in Jurez and has left thousands exposed to extortionists – including, some say, police and soldiers who collude with criminal organizations.

“It’s clear that I have to do more here than build homes,” Quick says. “These people need help now more than ever.”

So Quick, from Springfield, Ill., travels to Jurez several times a year to develop the small ministry he incorporated in 2008, Amigos en Cristo. AEC offers spiritual and educational programs to residents while expanding its centerpiece, the Amistad Community Center, in the stark Anapra area on the city’s western outskirts.

In a quiet voice, Quick concedes he’s an odd match for his work. In Illinois, he works as a financial adviser. He jokes that he’s clumsy with tools and that the energy of children can unsettle him. He knows only a few words of Spanish.

But by drawing on volunteers from Cherry Hills Baptist Church in Springfield and working with a staff of Jurez locals, Quick maintains a helpful presence motivated by his deep Christian beliefs.

“God has chosen to use me as I am,” he says. “I’ve got friends who have hobbies to fill their spare time; I go to Mexico.”

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