Celebrating ‘the priest with the boots’

Which is why, on April 16, for the 31st consecutive year, there were judges, civil engineers, teachers, longshoremen, city attorneys, and school principals, among other professionals, gathering at Point Fermin Park at the south end of San Pedro to reminisce. And, to their great pleasure, to be joined by their beloved leader, Oblate of Immaculate Mary Father Patrick Thompson.

“Father Patrick always supported us, he was always present and making sure we were there doing our best,” said Jerry Amalfitano, while walking a two-mile walk next to his old friend and fellow civil engineer Maury Williams.

“He has always been trustworthy, a guy you can relate to,” Williams added.

The civil engineers reunite each spring at Point Fermin Park with at least 250 fellow alumni of Lasuen High, closed in 1971 and later converted into the Jeanne Jugan Residence for the elderly operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor in San Pedro.

The April 16 event included the chance to breathe the cool morning fresh air, to exercise together, and to eat Italian sausage, carne asada and marinated chicken tacos with beans and rice on the side, all covered with the “killer” hot salsa, all carefully prepared by alum John Nieto and his family.

But most importantly, the event offered an opportunity to celebrate their contributions to a cause that Father Thompson and his congregation started in Mexicali in 1988 together with local parishioners. (Mexicali is the capital city of the Mexican state of Baja California, adjacent to Calexico, California.)

Every year the Fermin Lasuen alumni and friends collect more than $12,000 from the event and the proceeds go to support Edusec, an acronym in Spanish for Education and Community Services, a nonprofit that develops educational programs for poor communities, families and at-risk children.

The initial contribution of $2,500 in 1982 went to the Oblates’ missions in Mexicali and contributors and donations have increased steadily.

Since 2005, the Lasuen alumni have raised more than $12,000 annually, bringing the total to an estimated $190,000.

Additional financial assistance is generated through “generous” contributions by supporters, which are sent directly to Edusec during Christmas season.

“People have been very generous,” said Judge Peter Mirich, a Lasuen alum and former chemistry, sociology and history teacher at Mary Star of the Sea High School and longtime Holy Trinity Church member.

Meeting the needs
Teaching at Lasuen High School was Father Thompson’s first assignment as an ordained priest in 1961. He taught religion, Latin and Spanish (which he learned while at the Oblate seminary in San Antonio). Soon after he became Lasuen’s athletic director and junior varsity and basketball coach.

After the school closed he was assigned to the OMI’s mission in Mexicali, where he arrived on July 8, 1971. “The local diocese was growing and they needed priests,” Father Thompson commented. They had also started building three chapels, but none of them were complete.

He was assigned to start a mission in the south part of the city, where about half of the 10,000 parishioners did not have basic services such as running water, electricity or sewage. He stayed there for the next 24 years, as the Oblates built 12 chapels that later became parishes and founded an educational center.

Year after year, more people with limited means arrived at the border city from other parts of Mexico looking to cross the border to the United States. When they could not cross or were deported they settled on the city’s outskirts working as “maquila” factory workers, in construction or carpentry.

Among the parishioners was María Contreras (aka “Doña María”), a single mother with limited resources who had had a rough past. But when “the ‘gringo’ missionaries” arrived at their parish, Santa Teresita, Doña María told her 8-year-old daughter Belia Molina that, “with their arrival our life would change,” recalled Molina, now 48 and the director and co-founder of Edusec.

The missionaries “helped her mother live her life with greater dignity,” she told The Tidings. “The OMI brought the Christian message to our community; they had a great love for our poor families and gave them a great hope based on their own will, abilities and skills.”

Years later Doña María became the rectory’s cook and then the cleaning lady. She brought Belia along with her to help her with the duties. The priests’ house “was a very simple house, but very warm,” Belia recalled.

At the age of 13, she became a catechist, which ignited her passion for community service that led her to enroll in college, pursuing a career in sociology.

By then, an urban grassroots movement was growing in the city. About 5,000 migrant families who lacked housing invaded private lands to put pressure on the local government to grant them homes.

Finally, the government ceded. The families got the land, with the caveat that they were not provided any public services. This gave way to “very complex [social and economic] problems,” according to Molina.

‘The priest with the boots’
The land was inside the limits of the parish led by the Oblate missionaries, who welcomed the “squatters,” giving them hope for a better future.

Since Molina was a catechist and soon-to-be sociologist, Father Thompson (known in Mexicali as Padre Patricio or el Padre con botas --- the priest with the boots because he always wore cowboy boots) thought she was the best fit for the priests’ plans for a pastoral response to the “marginalized” families.

She invited several of her classmates and together they started advising the parish regarding property title regularization, establishment of schools and sports facilities and installation of public services. In one of the parish small rooms they installed an old computer and a copier donated by someone in the U.S. together with books. Everybody was enthusiastic because they knew this meant a real difference for the families who lacked all kinds of material resources.

Father Thompson had already talked to the group of donors in California and put into place a way to channel the contributions, and in October 1988 Edusec was established.

Throughout the years, the families’ needs changed and other problems surged, including family relationship problems, gangbanging, alcoholism, drug addiction, teen pregnancy and school dropout.

Material scarcity still prevailed, with many dysfunctional families with single parents working long hours for very slim salaries, leaving their children on their own.

“This is when Padre Patricio got me a scholarship to go back to school to earn a master degree in human development,” said Molina, who earned her degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana of Tijuana, operated by the Jesuits.

With increased knowledge, Molina and her team, including her husband Juan Salvador Báez Y Teutli, a philosopher who is the organization’s legal representative, started diversifying the center’s services and programs. They include “Re-activa” (Re-activate), a combination of psychological assistance and teaching to help school-age children who have suffered the consequences of domestic violence, family drug addiction or gangbanging.

Another program helps grandmothers in charge of their grandchildren to develop skills and abilities. Through the program Network of friends in interpersonal relationships, catechists, teachers, youth and community coordinators learn how to engage in “conversations that help” promote better human relationships and to pinpoint problems that are treated by qualified professionals.

At the Casa Patricio Thompson (Patrick Thompson House), low income families receive psychological assistance, women can find help from support groups, and educational workshops are provided to children. Conferences are also held in the facility, as are cultural and recreational activities and medical and dental assistance is provided. Future projects include a day care program for kids.

Continuing education for youth is provided at the Eugenio de Mazenod House, inaugurated in 2004. Here the younger generations have access to resources for informal education with new material and technological media.

Plenty of challenges
The whole experience has not been easy, admitted Molina, who teaches at two local universities to help support her family of four, including two teenagers.

In her role as Edusec’s director, Molina is the jack-of-all-trades. She develops new projects, seeks financial aid (local donors, fundraisers, selling services, renting classrooms, among others), trains personnel, oversees finances, pays bills, cleans offices, answers phones and even takes out the trash.

“It was from Father Thompson that I learned to work like this,” she said. “And I think that everyone who walks through our doors also learns this working style and they really value it.”

The center’s estimated annual budget is $200,000, which limits its ability to pay better salaries or to employ more personnel. But Molina has immense gratitude for the Oblates and U.S. donors.

“If someone would ask me what the main contribution of the Oblate missionaries is, I’d say it’s their trust in the people,” she said. “They thought their contribution was to open spaces and seek support for us in order to help us grow as persons and as Christians.”

She recalled the first time she came in contact --- at a distance --- with the Fermin Lasuen alumni.

“We had these metallic chairs with Lasuen written on the back. I didn’t know what Lasuen meant, but those chairs were witnesses of the numerous courses, celebrations, business meetings and other activities we held and that slowly helped forge the ecclesial community that we are today.”

With the outsiders’ support, Santa Teresita Church was one of the first Mexicali parishes to offer medical and dental services to poor families.

“How Padre Patricio used those resources is exemplary,” Molina continued. “He wanted families to have a quality of life, the only way to see the fruitfulness of the Gospel. He really applied Saint Eugene of Mazenod’s phrase, ‘first people, then Christians, and then saints.’”

For his part, Father Thompson shares the credit with others, notably Joe Bird, a former Lasuen swimming coach, math teacher and dean of discipline, and his wife Linda. Throughout the 31 years, the couple have been the “sparkplugs” who “spearheaded” the Lasuen Reunion Run/Walk Picnic.

As Judge Mirich summarized: “Father Thompson, Joe, Linda, their wonderful family and Lasuen supporters form a backbone for an annual gathering of friends who embody the Christian ideal.”

For more information about Edusec or the Oblate of Mary Immaculate Missions in Mexicali, call Father Patrick Thompson, (818) 361-4429.