TRAIL OF HEALING DAY 5: Laredo: A Culture "Cut Off" From The Rest of Texas

03 February 2011

Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Lanny Hall describes drug trafficking on this road leading into Laredo on the U.S.-Mexico border. "They're looking for the dope," Hall said after observing several Department of Public Safety vehicles speeding by in the opposite direction. "We know we can't stop all drugs from coming into the country. What we're trying to do here is keep the lid from blowing completely off."
                                                                                                                              Photo By Patrick Butler

EDITOR'S NOTE: ResonateNews.com Editor Patrick Butler is on the road with the Trail of Healing — a prayer-based convoy composed of people from Louisiana and Texas ministry organizations. The group is traveling El Camino Real de los Tejas in hopes of leaving in there wake peace and restoration from historical transgressions. The trail has six key stops and ended in Roma, Texas, on Wednesday. Read the story this weekend on ResonateNews.com.

By PATRICK BUTLER
ResonateNews.com

LAREDO, Texas — Lanny Hall, 55, deals with what he calls the spirit of death and manipulation on a daily basis. Hall is a Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory special agent stationed in Laredo, Texas, and the situation on the border is more than sad, he said on the road to Laredo on Tuesday afternoon.

As a huge, bright Texas sun set on Interstate 35 south and an endless Texas prairie, an equally endless line of trucks make its way north from the South Texas town of Laredo. The January air is biting cold, and Hall is animated as he talks about the city he’s been living in for seven years.

Some of the trucks are undoubtedly involved, he said, in activities that Hall has made a focus of his career as a special agent and his spiritual calling as a Christian — the war against the unique darkness associated with international drug cartels.

“In our line of work, it’s hard to find anyone in the city who has not been affected by drugs in some way, trafficking,” he said. “Everybody seems vulnerable in some way to the threats and violence of retribution, punishment or the manipulation of drug runners.”

Laredo is a town of about 200,000, said Hall, who has lived in Mexico City, Guatemala, and worked as a DEA pilot in Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and throughout South America. He was comfortably assigned by the DEA to San Antonio for six years, he said, before coming to the hot spot of Laredo. San Antonio was the longest assignment of his career Columbia until now.

And Laredo is mess, Hall said, describing it as a “cut-off culture, that does not have a single dedicated book store,” such as a Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks or Hastings. The city could use some outside help to overcome its problems.”

Problems include widespread human and drug trafficking. But help from ministries in Texas that could help end the problems are seldom forthcoming, Hall said.

“It almost seems that Laredo does not exist to the outside world,” he said. “Any kind of prayer or ministry help — something that showed the power of the body of Christ working together — would be much appreciated.”

To make matters worse, he said, even churches in Laredo don’t seem too interested in uniting to address the common causes of suffering in the city. With the Trail of Healing coming to Laredo — made up of Christians from across Texas and from different dominations — and then on to Roma about 40 miles away, Hall said he hopes for a spark that might start a spiritual fire.

“I would hope that churches wake up and be aware they are not just individual islands to themselves,” Hall said. “I hope they corporately take responsibly for the entire area. We need to work as a team to reach goals for the Kingdom of God, rather than building individual goals.”

The Trail of Healing meets at the Miracle Center in Laredo before reaching the final destination in Roma, Texas.