HIDALGO, Texas (Border Report) — The well-worn white van owned by West Side Baptist Church has made dozens of trips to South Texas and across the border to Mexico over the past few years.

On Wednesday, it was filled with red upholstered chairs, donated clothes and toys to be given to migrant shelters and for a children’s ministry that missionaries from that church are starting in the Mexican border town of Reynosa.

Pastor Jim Howard, who has been coming to the border for 35 years, brought three parishioners on the 12-hour drive from his church in Atlanta, Texas, to do missionary work south of the border this week.

For years he has brushed off criticisms about why he helps the asylum-seekers, but admits that lately the outcries are getting louder and louder.

“Some of them think they’re taking their jobs up here,” Howard said as he stopped at the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge to talk with Border Report before crossing into Reynosa.

“They just can’t understand anyone who would want to come from up there down here to help people down here, especially if they’re migrants and from other countries. So I do get pushback. And of course, you know, I tell them this, I’m am a man of the Lord, and I’m going to do what He tells me to,” he said. “And I’m going to keep coming.”

He says he is worried for the asylum-seekers as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20 with a promise of mass deportations from the United States. He says those waiting south of the border are uncertain whether they’ll get an opportunity to claim asylum in the U.S., and whether the CBP One app, which allows them to make asylum appointments, will even be operational.

“They’re afraid,” Howard said. “Donald Trump has guaranteed that some of them are going back across the border. So they’re very concerned. They don’t know what’s going to happen, so they’re concerned about it. We try to stabilize them and say, ‘Look, you just have to trust the Lord. He’s going to end you up somewhere. So just, just be calm and trust Him.'”

Joe McCoart is a professional truck driver from Atlanta, Texas, who often drives Howard to the border and Mexican towns.

On Wednesday, the group was trying to set up a children’s ministry in Reynosa to help young families.

“It’s a neighborhood with a lot of children in it, but the parents are all single parents, and the ones that are there work all the time, so these kids are left to fend for their self all day,” McCoart said.

His wife, Brenda McCoart, came on the trip with him.

Reynosa is in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas that the U.S. State Department warns Americans not to go to due to crime and kidnappings.

When asked if she worries about her husband making so many trips south of the border she said she has faith that God will protect them.

“I know that when you pray and seek the Lord and you’re obedient to what He says, He will take care of you,” she said.

Joe McCoart said he and Howard were in Reynosa two weeks ago and the number of migrants in two shelters barely numbered 100. A year ago, they said there were upwards of 1,000 migrants in those two facilities.

Now, they say the facility staff are clearing out the shelters, removing tables and electric wires and making room for what they expect to be an influx of migrants deported after Trump takes office.

“They’re expecting after the first of the year now here shortly to have a big rush and fill back up. So they’re trying to make room for what’s coming, or what they think is coming,” he said.

Both Howard and Joe McCoart say they believe the asylum-seekers need to be vetted and those who do not meet standards, or have criminal backgrounds, should not be allowed into the United States. But they believe there needs to be legal pathways to allow for those who qualify to come.

“Well, my hopes are just like Joe’s, that it gets orderly and the people coming in, we need them here, but they need to be vetted. We need to know who they are, but we hope that they will speed this up some for those people,” Howard said.

McCoart defends their ministry to Mexico and says they also help locals in North Texas by operating a food pantry and food giveaway to students from their church, which is near the Arkansas state line.

“We have some people ask us, why we go that far. They say why don’t we help people where we’re at our church does? We’ve got a backpack ministry for the schools there. We take food to the schools, for the kids that are going home for the weekends, that don’t have anything. We’ve got a food pantry. We pass food out once a week there too. So we do it all. God takes care of us, and He provides. We just do what He leads us to do. And this is it,” Joe McCoart said.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.