Lead pastor, St. Paul’s-San Pablo Lutheran Church, Minneapolis
When he was called to serve a bilingual church in a neighborhood with a visible unhoused population, Hierald Osorto initially resisted. He had imagined leading a more affluent English-speaking congregation, and as a Latino pastor, he worried about being pigeonholed.
The son of an immigrant who fled El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s, Hierald grew up attending a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal church in Newark, New Jersey. “It was never quite the easiest,” he says of the poverty and injustice that surrounded him. “But the community always showed up for one another. And it was always done, they said, because ‘we believe in God, and this is what our calling should be.’”
He saw that same spirit when he visited San Pablo, and came aboard in 2021.
Lead pastor, St. Paul’s-San Pablo Lutheran Church, Minneapolis
After the 2024 national election, San Pablo’s members took stock of President Trump’s campaign promise to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” They understood that they might need to provide sanctuary—physical refuge for undocumented immigrants—and decided to restore a bathroom and create a shower and laundry facility.
The new accommodations soon became necessary, but for a different reason than they anticipated. In January 2025, an explosion destroyed a nearby encampment. It was Epiphany, which marks the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus. San Pablo had never hosted its unhoused neighbors before, but the congregation took the cushions from the pews and crafted a makeshift shelter.
That spring, San Pablo turned its attention to the emerging threat to immigrants. It hired a lawyer. It discussed emergency preparedness.
“The one thing that came out of those conversations was the sense of defiant joy,” Hierald says. “If we give in to the rhetoric of fear, we’re not going to be able to sustain whatever might be coming.” The church hosted quarterly dance parties. And, after agents arrived in South Minneapolis for Operation Metro Surge, 200 people showed up with candles and lanterns for a Christmastime procession called a posada.
“Everyone would look at us dumbfounded, like, ‘What are you doing? We’re under a surge,’” he says. “But we didn’t reflect that fear.”
San Pablo tightened security and developed a transportation network. Attendance at Sunday worship grew. The weekend after Renée Good’s killing, they put up a sign that asserted their rightful place.
“Aquí estamos y no nos vamos,” it says. Here we are, and we’re not leaving.
On the hidden impacts of the surge:
“I don’t think I ever imagined the kind of clandestine practice that needed to happen to ever occur at the level that it did in this country in my lifetime. I’ve seen it in other countries. My family is from El Salvador. We come with that history.
“But the coordinating of getting someone to a medical visit, the way that food was distributed, the changing of cars to do one thing so that you wouldn’t be followed―it’s hard to name it in its intensity. We were just living our lives. But in order to live our lives, we had to do 30 times more work to just do the simple things.
“As a pastor, I don’t think I ever imagined needing to spend hours looking at video footage to identify these unmarked cars that were casing our building at 1, 2 in the morning. Having to have a security detail and not drive for 22 days: I lost my agency and I lost my ability to have choice in how I was able to move.
“That doesn’t compare at all to the ways that some of our families had to live. But I got a taste of that intensity. I don’t know that I have fully processed its impact.”
“If we give in to the rhetoric of fear, we’re not going to be able to sustain whatever might be coming.”
On a moment when San Pablo was defined by its strength, not its vulnerability:
“The day of the big march here in Minneapolis, on that frigid January day, we hosted a session where over 200 clergy from around the country came to learn about this community. That was really invigorating: to be surrounded by people that I knew had my back and had our community’s back.
“And then something interesting happened.
“There was a group that had gone out to visit Renée Good’s site and to pay tribute to Renée’s life. On their way back, there was an observer that was following the bus. And there was an altercation where the ICE agent got out of their vehicle and hit the driver’s window and smashed it and injured the observer.
“We had to put the building in lockdown because we didn’t know what would follow. We also were able to care for the observer who had been hurt; we have a clinic here. Meanwhile, all of these folks from out of town are like, ‘Wait, why can’t we leave?’ Like it was registering with them what we were living.
“The leaders of the church that had shown up to volunteer were concerned that they hadn’t eaten. And so they said, ‘We’ll make them lunch.’ And they served over 200 people lunch that afternoon with ingredients that we had here in the church.
“The clergy that were here―many of them still talk about that experience, that moment of shifting the script, where this congregation literally did the miracle that we read in our sacred texts of the multiplying of fishes and loaves. That’s an important moment in the life of this community, because it not only showed the support and the people that were committed to having our back, but that we also could show up for them.”
On the church’s signage:
“Early on, when spaces were thinking about how to protect themselves from federal activity, signs on your doors was one of suggested practices. This church building has never had a sign that says federal agents are not welcomed. And the reason this community made that decision was we are a place that starts from welcome. And so that’s how we’re going to lead. And we will figure this out. And we did.
“We were heavily targeted during the surge. But I think it’s this community’s faith that shows up in ways that, for others, sometimes might be difficult to even believe that could be possible.”
From John:
This work is built on relationships.
I once moved into a neighborhood and an old timer invited me to a block party. “You need to come,” he said, but I might not have responded with the conviction he had hoped for. “Look,” he went on, “some day something difficult is going to happen, and when it does…I don’t want that to be the first time that I meet you.”
If we take the time to build relationships in the good times, we have the network and the capacity to act when things go sideways.
I’ve known and worked with Hierald for almost a decade. First, when he was director of religious and spiritual life at Ithaca College. And then, on various projects at St. Paul’s-San Pablo Lutheran Church. Hierald serves on the board for A Peace of My Mind.
With an existing relationship, that first call on the hard days does not have to be, “Hi, my name is John…I’d like to help.” It can be, “Hey, friend, how are you? What do you need?”
To read the introduction to this series, follow this link.
North Star Way: Minnesota navigates a harsh winter
To listen to our podcast series, follow this link or find us on the platform of your choice.
A Peace of My Mind on Buzzsprout
Credits:
Interviews and text: Barry Yeoman
Photos: John Noltner
Editing and production: Razik Saifullah
Music: Dan Rodriguez
Beautiful. Just beautiful. I love hearing these stories of community resilience from Minneapolis.