Deb Hensen's Journey: From Privilege to Purpose at the Border - Pt 2

Join us for a heart-stirring journey in this episode of the Transforming Lives podcast, where we sit down with Deb Henson, a compassionate disruptor redefining what it means to serve at the US-Mexico border. Deb's transformative experiences at a shelter have given her profound insights into the resilience of those fleeing unimaginable hardships. Get ready to hear incredible stories of courage and survival that will leave you inspired and motivated to take action.

In this episode, you’ll learn how community support can make a world of difference in times of crisis, as Deb shares her strategies for preventing burnout while holding space for trauma. Discover the power of listening and amplifying voices that often go unheard, and see how you can make a tangible impact in your own community. With practical advice on volunteering and supporting those in need, you’ll walk away with actionable steps to help create change. Tune in now and let Deb’s wisdom ignite your passion for service and transformation!

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, Charmin, 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. Thank you for your service to humanity at the border.

Speaker 1
(03:50) Thank you very much.

Speaker 3
(03:52) But in both Detroit and at the border, you're working with persons in deep crisis, persons with complex trauma, because the example you give to someone from the Congo to South America, because you said he was in Brazil, am I correct? And then he made that path with asthma to the US-Mexico border. So there is complex trauma. How do you hold space for suffering without being consumed?

(04:43) And as in the clinical term, conferences. How do you prevent counter-transference?

Speaker 1
(05:01) Yes. What I would say is that this only works to do the work in community. I mentioned communities of care earlier, El Paso is, it has all the warmth that I love about the Mexican culture. It's a bicultural city.

(05:28) It's a bilingual city. It's one of the safest cities actually in the United States. People see the headlines and they have a different idea of what El Paso is. And so as a volunteer community, we support each other.

(05:45) And it's interesting how it works that If I'm having a bad day, somebody else isn't having a bad day. Or I can take a break and go for a walk at times or support one of the other volunteers. When I was living in the shelter the first two years, working six days a week, I don't do that anymore. I live outside.

(06:09) We would get together, each house, each shelter would get together about once a month. And just have a day of going out and either doing something fun, something educational, something on the land. There would be a reflection every morning where somebody would bring a reading or a little art project. We have a Larger reflection once a week when all the volunteers from all the houses get together.

(06:41) So all of those things create a sense of community and care. And it goes well beyond the community or the, the houses that people are always stopping by with donations of food. There might have been a wedding if they'll bring any extras from the reception over. So it's just a really generous community.

(07:06) That way the school system is incredible for these kids. Most of our people are just with us for a day or two. They've been released from authorities, border patrol, or ICE. Most of them have sponsors, usually family members somewhere in the United States.

(07:26) They have immigration papers that allows them to travel to their family. Their sponsor gets the ticket for them. And these people are remarkably resilient. And at the same time, three days in the Darien jungle, walking, seeing bodies, parents shield their children's eyes from what they're seeing going through these places.

(08:04) Many women are sexually assaulted on the journey north. Um, we had a family a couple of years ago, um, where the wife had died. Uh, the husband brought the two teenagers up with him. They were turned over to a cartel by a police officer and held there the way that He was beaten every day.

(08:39) The kids were not harmed. They were using the kids who were bilingual to translate for them. But the gentleman had to turn over his password to his bank account to be freed. And they cleaned him out.

(08:55) He was a small business owner where he lived before. But the stories are just really incredible. And so the secondary trauma that you mentioned, you know, is something that needs to be addressed. Sometimes people need to get some professional help beyond that.

(09:21) This past year, there was a Catholic organization that was offering some support for people in a circle who were perhaps minimizing what they were actually holding on to, which is easy to do. Oh, I'm strong. I'm just fine. But I wanted to respond just quickly to one of the things you said, you know, yes, it is service.

(09:53) Yes, I'm proud of the work. And it is also medicine for me. How so? I can travel the world in a bubble of privilege.

(10:12) And a friend of mine from Detroit calls it Disneyland. Stuff happens, but I can live in a series of curated experiences on vacation, at work, in town, and a lot of that falls away at the border in a shelter. And you're left, just as I was left in the hospital, with a real and raw experience of what it means to be human. but particularly with people who've had a very different life experience than I have had.

(10:54) And that just has been a huge blessing in my life. And I think that's one of the reasons why I keep going back in addition to feeling held in that community. It's really wonderful.

Speaker 3
(11:10) Thank you for raising that because Honestly, it would have been uncomfortable for me to ask you, how does your privilege play a role in your activism at the border? If it does. I

Speaker 1
(11:40) would say in general, in my life, at the border would be one place, but not just there. It is learning to create space for others. It's been a gradual process to learn that many times people like me take up a lot of space in a room without intending to, without realizing we are, and that other people have had an experience where they have learned to step back, and that taking up space is not welcome.

(12:24) So just to give you a very specific example, you mentioned the book. I've been doing quite a few book talks, and one of the ones I did this winter was at the University of Texas, El Paso. And I had some friends who came to support me in addition to the students who were there. And there's a couple I just love very much and they have made their life's work.

(12:50) They're both Latino people or Latinx people. And they have made a lifelong vocation of supporting agricultural workers. people usually from Northern Mexico who come over to do the hard labor in the fields. So another friend of mine was there who's very involved in the community.

(13:19) And when we got into conversation at the end, people wanted to linger. They liked the conversation. They were comfortable. And we had a little time, so I asked her to share a little bit about her work because she shared with the group that she was sexually assaulted as a young person in the fields and what that was like.

(13:49) And my other friend was organizing an event and said, you know, we never get enough people whose voices are not often heard. And that gives space for her to share her voice in a way that was very warmly received. But she also got an invitation from my other friend to be a speaker in an event. So that's what really brings me life is connecting people who might not be connecting otherwise, and to lift up those voices, not just to speak on behalf for somebody else, you know, some other individual or some group's life experience, to actually give them the microphone to say, let's

(14:43) hear from you directly. And that is, can be life-changing and transformative. So exciting. Huge.

(14:53) I was going

Speaker 2
(14:56) to say, helping them find their voice and get their story told and heard. I would imagine when you've gone through such an experience like that, in some ways, it's such a gift for them to be able to tell the story and to learn and get their voice. What can our listeners do to help and to support people who are going through these experiences, to help and support people like yourself who are doing this amazing work? What can our listeners do to make a difference?

Speaker 1
(15:42) I've heard a saying that there's only one way to make bread. And first you have to want to, and then you need flour and sugar, not sugar, but flour and yeast and water and all those things. So for me, it's been when the intention is there to find something, to open up to some different experience that might feel a little scary. At first, it's you know when you want to, and once you want to you start acting like a magnet and opportunities just start showing up.

(16:24) We always need volunteers at the border. There are shelters. It's a 2,000-mile border. There are shelters and other organizations along the way.

(16:36) People can come down for as little as two weeks and see for themselves what this is like. But in many ways, I have friends who right now there's not a lot of movement, or at least There's movement, but not the way that we're used to seeing it. But it used to be where people who lived near a bus hub in a large city, might be San Antonio, might be Denver, Chicago, and there would be a cadre of people who would meet people at the bus and bring a soup or a hot drink or something like that, particularly if it was cold weather.

(17:20) Yeah, there's work all over the place. There's groups in major cities trying to help people who don't have sponsors get settled. There's groups here in Michigan, Detroit, Ann Arbor, you know, just so much, so much good work that actually is really rich and rewarding.

Speaker 3
(17:46) Before we close, I I just have these rapid fire questions that I'll ask you. So we can lighten it up before we end. What is one item you keep in your bag working at the shelter? Because I work at the shelter.

(18:08) What is that one important item that you must have in your bag?

Speaker 1
(18:32) Yeah, not physical, but just an honoring of the other person is I would want to be honored. My people all came from Europe. We are not indigenous to this land. And the work at the border has made me reflect and wonder about what the experiences of my people were like as they came over.

(19:07) I have some really old families, and I have some that are a little bit more recent in the mid-1800s. So I think that thing I would always carry in my backpack or my bag is the Golden Rule.

Speaker 3
(19:25) Finish this sentence. Cooperate America with IBM. Prepared me for activism by...

Speaker 1
(19:40) By challenging me, helping me step into leadership and creativity.

Speaker 3
(19:56) What tool as a chaplain, you cannot do without

Speaker 1
(20:13) being open to the blessing of communion with another living human document, as we like to call it.

Speaker 3
(20:27) What's the most fascinating? Should I say, use the word fascinating or unexpected act of resilience you have witnessed at that border?

Speaker 1
(20:53) all the stories come to mind of all the people. We had a young dad with six children and a wife at home who was chased onto a highway and hit, and he lost his leg above the knee, and it took many months of recuperation with wound care, getting fit with a prosthesis, And just to be in awe, as I was as a hospital chaplain, of the strength and also the beautiful vulnerability of the human spirit. And that somehow our commonality makes us a global human family.

(21:52) In my experience, we come from different cultures, different languages, different foods, and that's all beautiful, but we have families, we have losses, we have joys, we have dreams. Those are common experiences.

Speaker 3
(22:10) Coffee or tea before a hard day.

Speaker 1
(22:15) And a cup of tea after a

Speaker 3
(22:16) hard

Speaker 1
(22:16) day.

Speaker 3
(22:17) Coffee

Speaker 1
(22:18) or tea before a hard day. Yeah, we all have a hangout room at the shelters where people can keep some food, some snacks, they can play DVDs, and there's books there, there's a couch, they can take a nap, but just those little things. But even gathering is a group of two or three or four in the evening, maybe watching a video, having a dish of ice cream, unwinding, laughing. That laughter is just such good medicine.

Speaker 3
(23:00) You know, Deb, we've interviewed so many people on this podcast. I have worked in the shelter system. I've worked with veterans. I don't like to say work, but I've served vulnerable populations.

(23:18) And your level of humility, your level of compassion and resilience, there is a piece that is coming from deep within that is translated on the screen that if I close this podcast and not mention it, I'll feel guilty. So I wanted to say that and also ask, where does that come from?

Speaker 1
(24:06) Oh, Sharmin, you ask such good questions, Mitzi too. And thank you. That was really a gift to me. Because humility has come to me later in life.

(24:22) And it does bring me tremendous peace. And it also brings me human connection that was not available to me earlier in life, when I were a little bit more armor, the heart was a little bit more shielded and. Yeah, it's Vandana Shiva, who's one of my sheroes from India, physicist, activist. And she's like human, comes from humus, the soil, the earth.

(25:03) And so that humility grounds me deeply, and I feel a deeper sense of belonging. to this project, this adventure called life than I've probably ever had before. And I'm truly grateful for it. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2
(25:32) Thank you so much for sharing so openly, warmly, and inspirationally for our listeners, because I think, trying to find the right words, the depth of the connection with other humans and the respect and the wanting to help lift people up to better opportunities. I mean, that's what, everybody should be doing, but so few are. And it's such a gift for us to get to spend time with and learn from you and the example that you're setting so that we can share it with others who will also hopefully do the same. So we thank you very, very much for

Speaker 1
(26:34) spending your

Speaker 2
(26:35) time with us today.

Speaker 1
(26:37) Thank you. An honor and a pleasure. Thank you.