Pastor John Fanestil has performed communion every Sunday at Friendship Park for more than seven years to support families separated at the border. People who visit the park often have no other place to see their loved ones.
Fanestil said it was easier to celebrate communion at the border when he first started. Increasingly, stringent immigration and border policies heightened the need for loved ones to convene but also changed the way Fanestil performs the sacraments.
“Back then I was able to give communion through the gate,” Fanestil said. “Border Patrol agents do not let us do that anymore.”
Friendship Park straddles the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego and Tijuana. Visitors come from either side to meet and speak to their love ones through the fence separating the two countries.
Guillermo Navarrete, a pastor from Mexico, joined Fanestil seven years ago to celebrate communion on the other side of the border.
“I’m here because I have obeyed the ordinance of God, and by preaching the word of God with the families here you bring peace to them,” Navarrete said. “The situation does not change, but there is still hope.”
The community solidarity and practice of faith is an act of political resistance, Fanestil said.
“Our goal is to protect the space here,” he said. “By celebrating communion we thought we were able to bring a little spiritual authority and also representation of the church that would make it harder for the government to completely close it down.”
Fanestil has years of experience ministering in Calexico and San Diego and said faith is an integral part of both regions.
“To talk about life along the border without faith is to tear things apart that are not meant to be torn apart,” he said. “Work of solidarity with people along the border has to engage the life of faith, if we are to be honest and authentic.”
The non-profit organization, Friends of Friendship Park is working to make it into a binational park similar to the Peace Arch Park on the U.S. – Canada border. The peace Arch Park has entrances in Blaine, Washington and Surrey, British Columbia and visitors are free to explore all areas of the park on both sides of the border.
“The real idea was to have a pier instead of the wall,” Fanestil said. “Imagine people walking in and out. Having to be a federal decision, it would be complicated. It would have to be a different [U.S] Congress. A lot of things would have to change at the national level before that project can go any further.”
Maria Teresa Fernandez, 65-year-old former SWC student and friend of Fanestil, spent the last 10 years documenting events for Friends of Friendship Park and watched how life along the border has changed.
“I do this for them so that they know that they are not alone and that there are people who care about this situation,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez said Fanestil’s activism inspired her to join Friends of Friendship Park.
“I was an outsider at first.” Fernandez. “I would just document (the park) by taking pictures. But I’ve seen John every Sunday and I saw how responsible and committed he is to this. I just got in the organization little by little.”
Fernandez said Fanestil’s work provides a sense of community for families in need.
“Fanestil’s job, aside from having families in the service, is to make them feel supported by the group,” she said. “It is to make sure that they do not feel alone and that there is someone else there behind them, supporting them. That is very admirable of John becasue it makes the families feel like they aren’t just at the hands of Border Patrol.”
