Click here for more photos of the Mass.

Coyanosa is a small community in the desert of Pecos County. The only church of any denomination in town is St. Isidore Catholic Mission. From the corner where the church sits, you can see the headquarters of the volunteer fire department, the public library, and the community center, all within half a block or so. The population of Coyanosa is about 150. In a standing-room-only Mass on the evening of Saturday, Aug. 24, it seemed the whole town and more had gathered to worship at the church and later feast in the new Pecos County Coyanosa Community Center.

St. Isidore in Coyanosa is served by pastor Father Kumar Jujjuvarapu, who also serves three other communities: those of Good Shepherd Parish in Crane, Sacred Heart Parish in McCamey, and Our Lady of Lourdes Mission in Imperial. Faithful from all four churches in this pastoral cluster, and relatives even from outside the state, were in town for the Mass of dedication of a new altar. In fact, the altar is not all that’s new in the parish, which has seen some upgrades lately. While he was in town to consecrate the altar for worship by anointing it with sacred chrism, Bishop Michael Sis also blessed several new fixtures in the sacred space: a new baptismal font, a new tabernacle stand, a new ambry (the enclosure holding holy oils), statues of Mary and Joseph, and beautiful wooden doors at the entrance to the church. There was even a new member of the church, and the bishop baptized this child during the Mass while he was at it.

The story of how this altar came to sit at the front of St. Isidore Church also involves people of goodwill from around the state and beyond. It started with St.Isidore parishioner Ubelia Olivas, who was working on a completely different project for a completely different church. As Olivas describes it, she was “remodeling the little church in Mexico where I was born and raised.” The church needed new pews, and Olivas took to the internet to search.

After finding an ad on Facebook, Olivas traveled to nearby Monahans to meet a woman at a Protestant church. There were 14 pews for sale, and the asking price was $1,000. When the seller heard what the plan was for the pews, though, the price changed to free, and the pews were donated to the church of Olivas’ youth.

The conversation between the two continued, and it led to another part of the Monahans church, where the woman who had just offered the free pews asked another question: “Do you want this altar?” The Protestant church had no need for it and was planning to get rid of it. Olivas took the offer. “It was nice of them to [donate] it,” she said. “They’re expensive!”

While the offered altar was retrieved and brought back to Coyanosa, it didn’t see any use right away. “It was there for more than two years,” Olivas said. “It needed a little work.” Though it had changed locations and now sat in storage in a Catholic church, still nobody had a plan for what to do with the altar.

After sitting dormant for years, the real plan for the altar became apparent after more help from afar. Enter Gregory and Juan, young adult missionaries associated with the Missionary Servants of the Word (MSP) order, based in Mexico. Coming from Idaho most recently, the two were serving under the direction of MSP Father Ángel Alfredo Castro González, the pastor of Holy Redeemer Parish in Odessa. Father Castro sent them to see how they could help in Coyanosa. Juan, as it happened, knew some carpentry and asked what the plan was for the well-used altar. If he wanted to fix it, Olivas told him, “It’s yours.”

After that, while missionary Gregory did some remodeling and fix-up work at the mission church, Juan set to work on the altar at Olivas’ house, with the help of her husband, Javier Aldaz. Once repairs were complete and the altar was deemed finished by the men working on it, everyone agreed it was beautiful. But it still didn’t technically have a home.

The altar had begun in a Protestant church in another town, was adopted for preservation’s sake by the people of St. Isidore Mission, and had been entrusted to the care of missionaries for repairs with the understanding that its future use would be determined by the missionary group who effected its repairs. The missionaries surprised the people of Coyanosa by returning the altar to St. Isidore.

Relics of the martyrs St. Simplicia and St. Vincent, the same that were in the church’s previous altar, were installed underneath the new altar. For the top of the altar, parishioners Beto and Veronica Mandujano donated black granite of the same type they use for countertops in housing for the migrant farm laborers at their melon farm.

“It turned out to be nice,” Olivas said of the altar. “We’re happy.” The beautiful altar, with its unique history of love, care, and restoration, now sits amid the other newly blessed objects at St. Isidore Mission in Coyanosa, ready to serve the people of God for years to come.