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Margarita Romo outside the tiny mission house where we used to hold church. |
Resurrection House began life in 1987 as a project of Farmworkers Self-Help in Dade City Florida. The real Rez House story actually predates FSH by several years. The organization essentially began in 1970 as our director, Margarita Romo, would visit migrant farmworker camps to teach the gospel. Later in the mid 1970’s Margarita took her son Bruce and a Christian band that he had put together with her to bring God’s word through music to the children in the camps. The living conditions and immigration issues that she saw led her to form an organization called Farmworkers Self Help in 1982. Farmworkers Self Help has been an instrument for social change, helping farmworkers state wide.
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Margarita Romo outside the tiny mission house where we used to hold church. |
In 1987 Resurrection House Mission became a project of Farmworkers Self Help and operated as the spiritual arm of that organization. Now as a separate entity, Resurrection House Mission adds one more voice calling for social change and an end to social injustice through our various programs. The director, being Lutheran, wanted continuity for this little mission that was called to serve the children of the small third world community on the north end of Dade City known as Tommy Town. The majority of these children are of Mexican descent but there are also children from both the black and white cultures as well, all of them poor. Bishop Franzen appointed Margarita Romo as the Lay Director of the mission. We have now seen the third Bishop installed since then.
We have created an atmosphere where the children take an active part in our church services. They read the scriptures, take up the offering and help lead in song. We see leaders rising up out of our tiny congregation helping to light the way for the rest all the while encouraging others to come as they organize themselves.
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Our congregation in 2003 |
Our children also are very active in social justice issues. They have marched with us and other farmworker organizations on a 22-mile trek to the state capitol. They have created a drama entitled, “An Immigrants Journey”, in which they wrote, acted and created props & costumes as well. They have written poetry that speaks to the farmworker community. Our cultural center will make the arts much more accessible to more children and will allow them to make even stronger stands for justice.
We now have enough church moms that can take turns cooking the food needed to feed the children on Sundays after church. Resurrection House provides the food to be cooked. This allows us a partnership with the parents of our children. Moms also read scriptures, lead prayer, translate bible readings and announcements and help to clean the mission after services.
As of April 2003, Resurrection House was able to raise the monies needed to buy the property where we will build the children’s church. Much of the $75,000 needed was raised by our youth chorus by singing in churches and also through a few generous benefactors. We began to clear the land, a very wooded dumping ground, then on February 14th, 108 people came from the Congregational Church of New Canaan, CT. They were ready to spend 5 days on specific projects that they had raised the money to create. They built a $10,000 playground, laid sod on two acres, built a mini soccer field, a building for what will become our new arts center and scraped and painted the existing 3 bedroom dwelling that houses a farmworker family and the churches temporary one room office. They also finished the roof of our pavilion. They raised over $50,000 that was needed to fund their projects and we raised $20,000 for the pavilion itself. So far, nearly $170,000 has been invested on this property that has been aptly named Resurrection Park, not so much for Resurrection House Mission, but for the resurrection that the property is going through and for the personal spiritual resurrections that many of our staff and volunteers have experienced since joining the Rez House team. Resurrection Park has already hosted two concerts, the Cinco de Mayo festivities, several graduation celebrations and we recently helped another church pass out back to school supplies to its congregation and others in the neighborhood. Recently a basketball court was completed
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Our congregation in 2007 |
We have been blessed with several men and women who are dedicated to helping Rez House achieve its goal of building a church and cultural arts center. In the years that Rez House was connected to Farmworkers Self-Help, it built a complete 16-track analog and 24-track digital recording studio and has added the ability to capture, edit and produce digital video and DVD’s as well. This equipment alone is valued at $100,000 and each of the two men charged with the running of the studios has extensive Radio, Television and Audio production experience.
In April of 2002 Resurrection House Mission was incorporated as its own entity with the permission of Farmworkers Self-Help’s Board of Directors. They also gave us $150,000 to begin the infrastructure of the new organization. We immediately acquired $40,000 in music equipment to complete our audio & video projects. Since the beginning we have had our share of ups and downs but we have done some great things and the end is nowhere in sight.
Resurrection Park is now a reality. It serves the poorest of the poor children in Tommy Town. They now have a safe place to play and celebrate their youth. There has never been an accessible place for the children to play in the history of Tommy Town.
Our youth leadership consists of ten teenagers, some who have been with us since the beginning and then we have the over fifty children ranging in age from 2 to 13 that attend church each Sunday. Our church bus seats 30 children.
Resurrection House through the assistance of many churches, Lutheran and others, has seen to the children’s needs at Christmas, Easter and at back-to-school time with shoes and supplies. We also sponsor at least one trip each year to Disney for the older children and a pizza party at Chuck E. Cheese for the younger ones as well as swimming parties and other events help by other churches especially for our children.
Our future is being written every day and while our plans are often superseded by God’s plan we are always careful to remember to put the children first as they are not just our future, but the future of the world.