Eulalio Navidad is pastor of the Spanish-language congregation at New Life Outreach Church. (Photo by Jay Paul)
It’s Sunday afternoon, and most church services have ended. But inside an expansive room at the New Life Outreach Church in Chesterfield County, worshipers are singing in Spanish of the freedom to be found in the “house of God’ — hay libertad en la casa de Dios.
Eulalio Navidad, lead pastor of the nondenominational Spanish-language congregation, says that leaving El Salvador and coming to the United States was the first step in his journey toward spiritual freedom. When Navidad moved to the U.S. in 1999 at age 24, he expected the country to resemble scenes of pretty houses and snow he had seen in movies.
But the reality was more challenging.
“Basically, what I learned here is I have to start from the bottom,” Navidad says. “I thought if in my country I was able to achieve my goals, I don’t see why over here I wouldn’t be able to do it. But it was a hard process. It was a lot of physical work.”
The language barrier and finding a job were two of the biggest challenges he encountered. Members of his congregation, many of whom have arrived to the U.S. recently, face these same difficulties, he says. Navidad and his wife, Sonia — who is also a pastor at the church — provide guidance to newcomers who are still finding their footing in what can be an inhospitable environment. The Navidads and the church also form a support system for those facing precarious situations such as domestic abuse, mental illness and addiction. The couple prays with those whose family’s immigration status is in peril — because of uncertainty about the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program or the termination of temporary protected status, or other circumstances.
Here, in this room, everyone is welcome. Everyone belongs. Even strangers are greeted with hugs and handshakes.
Upon entering the large, carpeted room, many attendees gather in circles, saying prayers before sitting down, only to rise again for a better part of the two-hour service. Boxes of tissues are placed along the stage for speakers and musicians who are moved to tears by the songs and messages.
Pastor Eulalio Navidad prays with one of the families attending the Spanish-language service at New Life Outreach Church. (Photo by Tina Eshleman)
Before stepping onto the stage to deliver his sermon, Navidad prays for several minutes, kneeling on the ground against his front-row chair.
It wasn’t always like this. His wife once prayed that he would just set foot in the building. Sonia Navidad, who is also from El Salvador, grew up in a devout evangelical household, the daughter of a pastor. But when they began their relationship, Eulalio had little interest in attending church.
“It was difficult. One wants to be in church with family,” she says. “[During] the prayers at every Sunday service, I walked to the front and I asked the Lord to touch his heart.”
Like Sonia, Eulalio Navidad spent a lot of his childhood attending church, though his was Catholic, not evangelical.
“I always liked being there,” he says. “As a child, they don’t force [church] onto you. So, the child who wants to go is the child that goes.”
But when he became an adult, that changed. He started working, eventually obtaining a job in a Fruit of the Loom factory, and enrolled in an electrical engineering program. To unwind, he used to go out drinking with friends.
He traveled to the United States a couple of times to visit his sister, and when his mother died in the late 1990s, he decided to stay. After moving to the Richmond area, he wasn’t able to continue his electrical engineering career, so he did construction work and took classes at the Chesterfield Technical Center to earn certification as a journeyman electrician.
Whenever he saw a church offering an English class, Navidad made sure to attend. Learning English, he says, frees immigrants to go about everyday interactions more easily, such as asking for correct change at the grocery store. This month, New Life Outreach began hosting an eight-week English as a Second Language course through the Libre Institute, a national group that serves the Hispanic community.
Eulalio and Sonia Navidad, center, and Sonia's daughters, Elizabeth, left, and Hazel Ponce-Magana (Photo by Jay Paul)
Throughout his years of working and studying, Navidad still went to church occasionally, but his personal relationship with God suffered, he says, because he didn’t prioritize it.
He describes Sonia as a “strong pillar” beside him. The two met through his sister, who was Sonia’s co-worker. One day during the time they were dating, he suggested going to the beach, the park or the movies on a Sunday, saying they deserved time to relax and enjoy themselves. He recalls Sonia saying, yes, they could do all of those things — after church.
One experience in particular pushed him toward New Life Outreach. Eulalio Navidad says he became aware of an internal voice asking why he wasn’t in church with his family instead of sitting on the sofa watching TV.
“It made me feel awful as a man, as the head of the house. Since then, I decided not to stay home,” Navidad says. “I wasn’t prepared to say ‘Oh, yes, this is God’s voice.’ But I knew it was a voice … that had spoken to me.”
After studying in New Life Outreach’s discipleship program for four years, Sonia and Eulalio became pastors together, serving on a volunteer basis while holding other jobs. Eulalio Navidad recalls the sense of responsibility he felt when he obtained his pastoral license.
“One understands that his life has changed profoundly, that it’s a very big commitment, and one has to work very hard to be an example,” he says.
New Life Outreach regular Patricia Morales began attending the Spanish-language service five years ago, shortly after she moved to the U.S. from Guatemala. At the time, she was experiencing severe depression, anxiety and panic attacks that she says stemmed from childhood trauma. At church, she found a sense of community that aided in her recovery.
“I remember one time, I was having such a terrible panic attack, it was a prayer day and I was pregnant,” Morales says in Spanish. “[The Navidads] embraced me — and I didn’t eat during that time, I didn’t have any appetite, it was horrible — they said to me, ‘We’re going to help you,’ but I didn’t believe it after so many years of being like that.”
The Navidads hosted Morales in their home and helped her take care of her children and seek therapy.
“When you want to cry, they give you a shoulder ... not just to cry but also to tell you, ‘Now you have to be strong, you have to accept this and rise up,’ ” Morales says. “Thanks to [them], there are people like me who have been able to see a difference and escape a lot of difficult situations.”
In immigrant communities, sometimes undocumented victims of crime don’t call authorities for fear of revealing their status. Language barriers also make it difficult to seek aid, as many organizations dedicated to helping abuse victims don’t offer bilingual services. Navidad says the church provides spiritual support so women experiencing abuse can be liberated from their situations.
“There are a lot of things that [women] go through that until now, when I’m a pastor, I didn’t know about,” he says.
Limited English-speaking ability also inhibits access to services to help treat drug and alcohol addiction. Navidad, who stopped drinking when he became active in the church, says immigrant men sometimes experience depression, leading to alcohol abuse. New Life Outreach, which holds its main services in English, offers two addiction rehabilitation programs, one for women and one for men, and this year added translators so Spanish speakers can participate.
Eulalio Navidad delivers a sermon based on Judges 7, in which God enables Gideon to lead a pared-down army of 300 Israelites to victory over the Midianites. (Photo by Tina Eshleman)
Sonia Navidad brought her children to the U.S. — where she met Eulalio — a few years after she left El Salvador. Hazel Ponce-Magana, Sonia’s 23-year-old daughter, arrived here 13 years ago, two years after her mother. She considers Eulalio Navidad to be her father.
The worsening state of gang violence in El Salvador prompted her move, Ponce-Magana says; young girls are often targeted for sexual violence and coerced relationships. “My parents didn’t want to run the risk of that happening to us, so that’s why they brought us here,” she says.
Ponce-Magana, who used to attend an evangelical church in El Salvador with her grandmother “almost every day,” witnessed Eulalio’s spiritual evolution and says he slowly became more engaged with the church between 2006 and 2009. He started managing the service’s sound system, something Ponce-Magana does now. When Eulalio and Sonia started volunteering more and eventually became pastors, Ponce-Magana says she felt her family “come together.”
She applied for DACA around the time the program was established under the Obama administration and attended John Tyler Community College before transferring to Virginia Commonwealth University, where she studied information systems. “[Without DACA] I wouldn’t have the opportunity that I had, attending college,” she says. A December 2017 graduate, Ponce-Magana works at a law firm and is active in the church — the phrase “Princess of God” is printed on one of her graduation photos displayed in the family’s living room.
DACA, which protects about 800,000 young, undocumented immigrants from deportation, is in limbo now — the Trump administration announced an end to it last year and challenged Congress to come up with a legislative solution. Meanwhile, federal court orders are keeping DACA in effect. Sometimes, Ponce-Magana says, she worries about the uncertainty regarding the program’s continuation, but most days she “leaves it in God’s hands.”
A desire for divine guidance in the face of difficult immigration circumstances has brought more than a few people to the Spanish service at New Life Outreach, Eulalio Navidad says. It’s how David Lopez first arrived at the church four years ago, at the urging of his now-wife — Sonia Navidad’s sister — when he faced deportation for a 5-year-old drunken driving charge. He dressed sloppily, thinking his appearance might spark a comment that would give him an excuse to leave. He liked the fact that no one judged him on the way he looked.
The hugs that members of the congregation give to newcomers are especially important, he says. “Believe me, that’s changed the lives of a lot of people,” Lopez says. “A lot of people have said, ‘I stayed here because of the hug that a brother gave me.’ ”
Lopez says he fled Guatemala in 2005 to escape the notorious 18th Street gang, which persecuted him for his refusal to become involved with the group.
Seven months after he began attending the church, he was able to obtain a driver’s license, work permit and other documents, with a lawyer’s help. He has a court date scheduled for November 2020, at which point he’ll learn if he can stay in the U.S. He says he believes God “has something big” planned for him.
Lopez admires the Navidads’ dedication to helping the congregation. He says they’re constantly available for those needing support.
“They’re very good people. As a family, they’re a good family. As friends, they’re excellent friends,” Lopez says. “As pastors, they’re loving pastors who love everyone, all the people around them.”
Eulalio Navidad has faced his own challenges in obtaining residency in the U.S. After being granted temporary protected status — which was given to Salvadorans after the country’s 2001 earthquake — he tried unsuccessfully to apply for residency through his construction job. Later, he attempted to gain residency through his sister, who is a U.S. citizen, in a process that has lasted a decade. He expects to obtain his residency in September.
The church tries to alleviate the stress of those situations through faith, praying that authorities act fairly, he says. For young adults such as Ponce-Magana, Navidad says he has faith that “God will open a door.” This is, after all, a nation that immigrants built, he says.
“Being here in the United States has given me the opportunity to know God deeply, and it’s the best thing that could happen to me in my life,” Navidad says. “I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I’m ready to keep working for God’s word.”
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