Bridging Borders and Healing Hearts: Deb Hensen's Work at the US-Mexico Border - Pt 1

Welcome to the Transforming Lives panel podcast, where hosts Sharmin Prince and Mitzy Dadoun engage in a profound conversation with Deb Hensen, a compassionate disruptor and spiritual guide. Deb's journey from corporate marketing at IBM to becoming an interfaith chaplain and border activist is nothing short of inspiring. As the author of "Borderlines, Stories from an El Paso Shelter," Deb shares her experiences from the US-Mexico border, where she offers refuge and radical hospitality to those fleeing violence, poverty, and climate devastation. In this episode, Deb discusses her transition from the corporate world to chaplaincy, her work with diverse communities, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Join us as we explore Deb's dedication to transformation, resilience, and the power of presence in healing fractured systems and people.

Speaker 3
(00:03) Welcome to the Transforming Lives panel podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Sharmin Prince.

Speaker 2
(00:11) And I'm your other host, Mitzi Dadoun.

Speaker 3
(00:14) And together we are here with a guest. But before I introduce you to our guest, just join me in a brief grounding and centered exercise so that we can be cohesive as we continue for the next 30, to 45 minutes. Take a deep inhale, hold it, and let it go slowly. Again, deep inhale, hold it, and let it go slowly.

(00:56) And this time, take a deep inhale, Hold it and as you exhale, let go of everything that can be a distraction for the next 30 to 45 minutes. Again, deep inhale and let it go. Thank you so much for taking those breaths with us. Our guest today is Deb Henson, who is a compassionate disruptor, a spiritual guide, and lifelong border crosser, bridging cultures, faiths, and injustices to help humanity heal and renew itself.

(02:01) As the author of Borderlines, Stories from an El Paso Shelter, she spent five winters on the front lines of the US-Mexico border, offering refuge and radical hospitality to those fleeing violence, poverty, and climate devastation, an interfaith chaplain, and trauma-informed mentor. Deb is obsessed with transformation, both personal and collective, and the resilience that allows broken systems and people to build and rebuild with courage. Her work is a living testament to the power of presence, showing up where the world is fractured, and helping others cross into new possibilities. Join me in welcoming Deb Henson.

(03:13) Deb, thank you for being on the Transforming Lives panel podcast. And is there anything you would like to add to your bio?

Speaker 1
(03:24) You know, Sharmin, as you were reading that and that was washing over me, I just was thinking what a gift it is to have somebody else kind of play your life back to you. Thank you. It was really wonderful.

Speaker 3
(03:40) You're so welcome. And I love what you do. Of course, we'll have a million questions for you that will not fit into the four to five minutes. And hopefully we'll have to invite you back to talk about the book because we want to talk about your life and what you've done, the collective trauma that you've seen and how healing took place.

(04:05) But before we continue, when I read your bio, It said that you made a great shift from being in corporate marketing at IBM to chaplaincy and board activism, which I found profound. Now, how did that shift came about?

Speaker 1
(04:39) Oh my goodness. Well, Starman and Mitzi, it came about even earlier. I thought I would be making a life teaching French in higher ed, and there was absolutely no work at the time. So it was a time I was in my 20s, really confused about where my life was heading.

(05:03) And the computer field was growing by leaps and bounds. I had never had a business class other than accounting, and had never had a computer class. But at the time, VM was really one of the most respected companies in the world. And once I interviewed with them, I really wanted that position as a systems engineer, starting out working with our customers in the field.

(05:35) And I finally got the job and the first year was all training. I didn't think I'd survive the first year. I really felt out of my element. But I've met such wonderful people, had work where I could be really creative.

(05:52) I got to actually live and work in Paris for several years. And that was really a mystery about how these parts of my life came back together. So although it was a great experience and a lot of work, it was never quite fully me. So every day was just a little drip, drip, drip of life energy.

(06:19) And I had always had an intention of leaving early and being able to use my time as I saw fit. And I actually made that happen in my mid 40s. It was scary at the time. And actually, I was living on the East Coast.

(06:44) describe to people that I want to work with healthy people going through challenging times. And I didn't know that coaching existed as a profession. So I had lunch with somebody from the New School for Leadership, and I'm just kind of anxious. And she said, Oh, Oh, that's coaching.

(07:04) There are these training companies. And here are some people you can talk to. It's my jaw dropped open. So I went through one of those programs and actually had a small life and leadership coaching practice for about 10 years.

(07:19) And my work with people kept gradually drifting to deeper levels, deeper spiritual levels. Things Who am I in this moment? What is mine? to do right now, not as much from a career standpoint to make a living, but what is my real heart and soul work?

(07:41) Where is the life energy? Where's the river of life wanting to take me? And if you had asked my friends and family, what's the last thing you'd think Deb Hansel would ever do, they would say, be ordained and become an interfaith minister chaplain. And it was really surprising, shocking to get that call.

(08:07) And I went to a very creative school on the West Coast in Berkeley, a lot of emphasis on the arts and ritual at the time. And it was just like studying the world's different wisdom traditions. It's like sipping a fine wine. Just the beauty is as a member of the human family, that's our common heritage.

(08:34) That's our common heritage to the degree that we feel we want to take advantage of it and really find things to love and respect in another tradition that was not a tradition we were raised in. One thing led to another. I wish I had gotten into hospital chaplaincy earlier in life when I had a little bit more stamina and energy. I was a chaplain in Detroit.

(09:01) My hospital was a trauma hospital. We had two trauma beds, and it was primarily an African American hospital. And I had already had a fair amount of relationships, contacts, but as a chaplain, it's some very intimate moments in people's lives. I wasn't sure if I'd be any good at it.

(09:23) I wasn't sure how I would be received. And I just learned so much from my patients and my families about how to face death, how to grieve, how to let a loved one go. It's just phenomenal experience. So I take that with me to the border when I'm there in the winter time.

(09:49) And the similarities for me, as a chaplain, you never know what's going to happen during the day, what's going to be needed, who you're going to see. And so it's this real practice of dancing in the moment with whatever shows up. And that's very similar to what we face at the border.

Speaker 2
(10:13) So as a chaplain, Like, what made you decide to work particularly with a hospital, like, and be the chaplain of a hospital? Or is that what a chaplain always is? Because maybe I just don't understand.

Speaker 1
(10:28) Yeah, thanks. That's a great question, actually, because there are some stereotypes there. And because of wounding, some people are just like, No, I don't even want to see a chaplain. But there are chaplains in hospice care, hospitals, there are even corporate chaplains.

(10:48) Now, there are military chaplains community chaplains, all kinds of things. And so to really finish getting your credentials, I did not get board certified myself. That's a pretty rigorous process, but we go through units of what's called clinical pastoral education or CPE. And that has to be done by an accredited organization.

(11:16) Often that's hospitals or hospice. And there's some really exciting opportunities opening up, and one of them that I don't feel is my call, but I'm just so excited to see people stepping into street chaplaincy. Huge

Speaker 3
(11:38) need.

Speaker 1
(11:39) Huge need, and there was a A program for CPE clinical pastoral education in the San Francisco Bay Area, and they would be out in the evenings and the tenderloin and some of those types of areas and just beautiful work. At the border, I met an Episcopal priest the first year I was there, and she did a lot of street chaplaincy across the border in Ciudad Juarez. And I got to go over one day just to see her in action a little bit. She ran a school for the kids, but just to see her meet people on the street who she knew who might have substance abuse issues, for example, and to see her honoring them and them being able to receive that care.

(12:36) Just a hugely beautiful thing and kind of a prayer, a promise, a prophecy for how we can be with each other and create what I would call communities of care. And that's one of the things I find really exciting right now.

Speaker 3
(12:55) That is so great. But how did your chaplaincy from the hospital lead you to border activism?

Speaker 1
(13:09) Well, Sharmin, my life has been like a labyrinth. a path of twists and turns. And just as I never saw myself in the corporate world, one day, it started coming to me this little nudge, you need to go to the border. And I'm like, what?

(13:30) I speak fluent French, my Spanish is barely rudimentary. I've never spent any time in Latin America, other than just to go across the border to Tijuana one time. So I've learned to really trust those messages in the bottle. I used to like for chaplaincy, I sat on it for a year and I've learned that when I get something that feels that way, it doesn't go away.

(14:01) I can fight it all I want. So that's what happened. And I happen to have had a seminary colleague. who appeared to be making his life there at the border.

(14:13) I wasn't even sure what state he was in. And I sent him an email and said, hey, Seb, I'm kind of getting this message that I need to go to the border. And I'm wondering if you could suggest a couple organizations to look into. And he just calmly said, you go to Annunciation House.

(14:36) End of story. I looked at the website, and it looked compelling. And I applied. I'd never been to El Paso in my life.

(14:46) And the rest is history, just to trust those calls and those intuitions. I don't know what other people's experiences about that, but that's been mine of really, a lot of times these things, you have to do this, you have to do that, it's like, it makes no sense at all, but it does make sense in hindsight.

Speaker 2
(15:10) So how long have you been in El Paso and doing the role that you're currently doing?

Speaker 1
(15:16) I'm there in the winter because I can't do Michigan winters anymore with the gray and the cold and the snow. I miss the water when I'm down there. It was my fifth winter this year. Started out 2019 to 2020 was my first winter there and skip the year that COVID was so bad and there weren't vaccine really reliable tests.

(15:42) And I've been back every year since and things happen here.

Speaker 3
(15:50) Deb, what are some things you had to unlearn from the corporate world, chaplaincy, to succeed as an activist on the border? And my follow-up question to that, what were the most important lesson for you personally that you learned during that transition.

Speaker 1
(16:21) Yeah, I think, Sharmin, in my experience, it was less about leaving things behind and more finding opportunities to use the skills that I already had in a different setting. Can I give you an example? Of

Speaker 3
(16:44) course. A

Speaker 1
(16:46) couple of years ago, we had three men, each from a different African country. And one of these young men, in his instance, came from the Democratic Republic of Congo. And it's so interesting that the colonial languages are still the official languages. So his mother tongue was Lingala, and he spoke some Swahili.

(17:15) I was the only French speaker in the house, and we were able to communicate in French. He had an attorney who actually got him sprung from detention after three months. These two attorneys say it's not hard because there are medical conditions usually involved. And this individual actually had asthma, but he was an absolute delight.

(17:41) So I could translate between or interpret between him and his attorney, this law firm, which specializes in pro bono immigration work. They have an interpretation service and it's done by phone. but it's not very personal. It's not very fast.

(18:02) It works, but it's strange. So it's not like medical interpreting where every word has to be precise and exact. So yeah, it was just delightful to get to know him, to get to know his situation. He had lived for a while in Brazil and then had come up from there and just an absolute delight of a young person.

(18:25) So that would be one specific example. I know, after the corporate world, when I got back to Michigan from the East Coast, you know, people kept telling me, you need to take a chill pill because the pace of life in the Big Apple is very different from the Midwest, for example. So part of it was slowing down, but the I think my experience in Paris working for IBM's European headquarters, we had people coming from European countries, we had people, employees coming from the Middle East, some from different African countries, even, yeah, lots of diversity. So being able to navigate different cultures, different backgrounds, different perspectives, it was another way to practice those skills.

(19:22) But the other thing I would add is that I am really finding a taste for what I would call humble work these days. where I don't have a big plan, a big goal. It's just to show up, see what's needed, fill those needs, help do dishes after a meal, get diapers for the babies. It's a joy that my Spanish is fluent enough now to be able to not understand every word, but to really understand the stories that people want to share.

(20:03) It's always their choice. But the first two winners, you know, it was really all I could just do to manage a transactional exchange when the phone would ring and it would be a Spanish speaker, you know, my stomach would just kind of start to get tied in a knot. But also just things like, you know, I need a toothbrush or I need, a new sheet or whatever. A lot of similarities to my chaplaincy.

(20:36) The Shelter Annunciation House is a network of shelters, and I've worked in all three of them. I keep going back to the Annunciation House shelter, which is the name of the organization, but also a specific shelter. Because we're the only one that is wheelchair accessible. So we get the people who need some attention for injuries or illness.

(21:05) They have to be ambulatory. We don't have a nursing staff, for example, but that shelter gets the people who've come over the border wall. People come over the border wall and don't make it. We had a young woman, I think it was last winter, who was found by border patrol and they actually left her for dead.

(21:33) and she was very badly injured, but very much alive. Some people don't make it. It's really a sign of desperation that people would do that. Some people come over unharmed and scamper away to a life in the shadows.

(21:51) But at times, this isn't as much the case anymore as things have changed over time. It's always changing, constantly changing at the border. We could have, anywhere from four to six people at any given time, who usually they would come to us having had a first surgery in what they call an external fixator, which is metal rods pressing into your flesh to hold the bones in place as they heal. And then a second surgery to remove that fixator.

(22:34) So is it

Speaker 2
(22:34) that they got injured while trying to cross over into the United States? Is that

Speaker 1
(22:39) coming over the border wall, which is at least in El Paso, I think I'm correct in saying it's about 30 feet high. There's nothing to hold on to, you know, people, I think, usually get help scaling the wall. But then once they're over, it's a question of landing on your feet after that big of a drop.

Speaker 3
(23:04) I know people say, what I'm about to say, to veterans, um, thank you for your service. But I'm saying this to you, Deb, thank you for your service. Thank you for what you do as a human being, firstly, and then as a chaplain and as an activist for those persons fleeing situations such as poverty and all the other things that they are fleeing. So thank you for your service to humanity at the border.

Speaker 1
(23:49) Thank

Speaker 2
(23:52) you very much. As you said, when somebody is making that journey, they are in such a state of desperation. Because as you say, it's not an easy thing to go over a 30 foot wall and to get there and to start in a new country when you don't know the language and, you know, people are trying to get you to it. So I would imagine a lot of what you deal with too is like, just, I mean, the emotional

Speaker 1
(24:19) aspect,

Speaker 2
(24:20) there's the physical, but I mean, the emotional aspect you know, and if they make it, then, you know, they may never see their family again, as well, right? Like, so all of those dynamics, and as Sharmin said, like, I just think it's so amazing what you do. And there's such a huge need for kindness and helping and what's going on. And what we see at high levels these days is anything but So it's just me making your work so much harder, but so much more valuable and necessary.

Speaker 3
(25:03) So once again, thank you,

Speaker 2
(25:05) Deb. So we thank you very, very much for spending your time with us today.

Speaker 3
(25:12) Thank you. An honor

Speaker 1
(25:13) and a pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 3
(25:16) Thank you.