Father Tobi Guerrero, pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Laredo, Barrio Los Cuatros in Southwest Laredo, the most neglected neighborhood in Laredo, has initiated a parish development process in his parish. He began with six two-hour training sessions on evangelization based on the great commissioning: to make disciples, understood as creating relationships of solidarity with the people of the community, especially the most isolated, such as undocumented people; to baptize, understood as inviting all the people of the neighborhood to be one community that stands together to work together to address the issues that everyone faces; and teaching them all things, understood as identifying and training new leaders for the neighborhood.
The training sessions have prepared 36 leaders who are divided up into 18 teams that will go out and engage the community around issues that affect the common welfare. These 18 teams have committed to meeting with the families of 90 city blocks (5 blocks per team). The evangelization teams went out to meet the people of the community on the first of two Saturdays on October 3, to find out who is living in the community, to ask people about the issues they face in their neighborhood, and to invite them to participate in small group meetings at the church to develop a comprehensive community agenda on which they can take collective action.