Eleven Mennonites/Anabaptists walked 75 miles in the Migrant Trail from Sásabe, Sonora, to Tucson, Ariz., May 25-31. This was the 12th annual walk.
The Migrant Trail is a multicultural and spiritually diverse group that walks to remember people who have died while crossing the border. Since the 1990s, more than 6,000 men, women and children have lost their lives crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a press release.
“We make this sacred journey as a community, in defiance of the borders that attempt to divide us, committed to working together for the human dignity of all peoples,” according to the Migrant Trail website.
Some of the Mennonite walkers were also participants in the Learning Tour led by Saulo Padilla of Mennonite Central Committee U.S. The group met with migrants about to cross the border in Mexico before the Migrant Trail.
“We had faces on our minds of people crossing through the desert,” Padilla said on May 26.
The Learning Tour participants also spent time with Jack and Linda Knox in Douglas, Ariz., and went to pray at the U.S.-Mexico border wall every day.
Padilla said the journey is a physical and spiritual challenge. The militarization of the border and the reality that the desert is a graveyard is on the minds of the walkers, he said.
“Somewhere in Latin America, a grandmother is wondering where her grandchild is,” he said.
On May 26, members and attendees of Shalom Mennonite Fellowship in Tucson served dinner to the participants.
The Mennonite participants this year were (in order from left, back row first, in the photo):
- Ingrid Moser and David Friesen Moser of South Side Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Ind.
- Saulo Padilla, immigration education coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee U.S.
- Linda and Jack Knox, Shalom Mennonite Fellowship, working at immigration issues in Douglas
- Jordan Fazio of Circle of Hope (Brethren in Christ), N.J.
- Jodi Dueck-Read of Hope Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba
- Jennifer Metzler of Shalom Mennonite Fellowship
- Orlando Vasquez of Lendrum Mennonite Brethren Church in Edmonton, Alberta
- Kathy Weber Janzen of Abbeydale Christian Fellowship (Evangelical Mennonite Conference) in Calgary, Alberta
- Tricia Elgersma of Mennonite Central Committee Alberta
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