Featured Articles from Our Newletter

From New York to Nairobi, Just In Time

The following article appeared in the February 2021 issue of Encounter. 

For Br. Dennis Lee, if his 20 years in Nairobi, Kenya, feel like less than that, it might be because it’s really been more like seven, counting the long sojourns back in the States. But if you measure time the way the heart does, it’s a different story, and one he is glad to share.
 
A De La Salle Christian Brother of the District of Eastern North America (DENA), headquartered in Eatontown, New Jersey, Br. Dennis has held many roles in life: elementary and high school teacher, campus minister at Manhattan College in the Bronx, assistant provincial (thrice), and, until last August, provincial. 

But it is at Christ the Teacher Institute for Education (CTIE)—historically one of seven Institutes at Tangaza College, a consortium of seven Institutes owned by 23 religious congregations—that he seems to feel the most at home. His affection for the school (now officially the School of Education of Tangaza University College) is palpable during a late night (Eastern Time) Zoom call—early morning for him. Already dressed and ready for 7 a.m. Mass, Br. Dennis is full of good cheer and eager to share CTIE’s story. 

It was while planning student service trips at Manhattan College to sites such as Camden, N.J., and Appalachia that Br. Dennis was called to consider something very different, forever changing the course of his ministry. 

“A 6’8” Senegalese basketball player asked me why we don’t ever go to Africa, and I said I never thought about it,” Br. Dennis recounts. “The next year, we were in South Africa.”

There, he was offered a job that didn’t end up working out. Instead, the Queens, New York native landed in Kenya, where he lives on CTIE’s campus with 35 students in formation as Christian Brothers. 
“I just like being here an awful lot,” he says, an impish smile on his face. He describes the February weather as San Diego-like. “It’s 80 and sunny here every day! And we have malls. I can get anything here that I can get in New York.”

He turns serious and notes that the Kibera slum—an “informal settlement”—that is home to an estimated 1 million people is only 10 minutes away. 

“Those are the students that compel me to be there,” Br. Dennis says. “To offer them the possibility of getting a college education to become excellent teachers and transform their lives and the lives of future generations is very rewarding.”

His role at CTIE has been a mix of teaching, campus ministry, formation work, and fundraising to support the school’s current population of 550 students. Many receive partial financial scholarships, either from the government or funding agencies and networks. Tuition is roughly $1,600 U.S. per year in a place where the average rent is $30 per month, he says. 

Br. Dennis says that students might walk 90 minutes to two hours to campus, then some go to an overnight job as a guard (“askari” in Swahili) or sell pound cake or milk, receiving one penny per container sold. 

A CTIE scholarship student, Robert Mwai, recently shared some of his story with Br. Dennis. He had dropped out of public university because he couldn’t afford the fees and lived on and off the streets or paid $3 per month for rent, managing a pool hall and a video game shop. 

“I have never experienced such generosity and love in my life,” Robert wrote of the scholarship and emotional support he received three years ago. “I will do teaching practice this year and graduate this year. I will be a great teacher and will do as our Institute motto states—Touching Hearts, Teaching Minds and Transforming Lives—just as mine has been transformed.”

He concluded: “To all who contribute so that all the students like me can become teachers, may God continue to bless you. I am so humbly grateful.”

For Br. Dennis, mission is, at heart, about connecting, which can’t truly be done over a few weeks, dropping into a country to paint walls or buy mosquito nets. Not that those things are bad, but mission is more. 

“To listen and learn the needs and the culture,” Br. Dennis says, are the true priorities. And that can take seven years, or 20, or longer, but he’s in no hurry. “I think it takes time to build relationships.”

For more information about Christ the Teacher Institute for Education/School of Education at Tangaza University College or the missionary activities of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, contact Brother Dennis directly at [email protected]. 
 

The Right Mission Trip for You

The following article appeared in the January 2021 issue of Encounter. 

For those who have never been there or don’t know any better, Brazil is a world apart from the everyday—sun-baked, exotic, a year-round Carnival. But it is so much more, not just for Brazilians, but for those who have experienced the beauty of the country and its people by taking part in a mission trip. 

With the four values of missionary formation, spirit of evangelization, service, and sustainability, Mission Brazil works with young Brazilians, in-country partner organizations (for instance, schools and parishes in poor or distant areas), and young guests from abroad who form a “triangle” of sustainable projects. 

Its website calls it “a program of multiple experiences of learning, service, commitment, and adventure.”
“It’s formation in action,” says coordinator Júlio Egrejas, who founded Mission Brazil in 2015. “It’s not only about reading books and having lectures, but also about going into the field and doing evangelization.”

As a member of the Christian Life Movement (CLM), which he joined more than 25 years ago, after discerning a missionary vocation at age 18, Júlio lived and served in community with men and women religious for almost 20 years in Peru, Colombia, and Italy before returning to Brazil in 2012. That was shortly before World Youth Day 2013, when Pope Francis visited Brazil and Julio saw firsthand his impact on youth. 

“That was a big light for me, because I saw how young people reacted to serving,” said Júlio, who also has degrees in theology and canon law and leads the group’s youth formation work. “That struck me very intensely.” 

Two years later, Mission Brazil was born. Two years after that, Júlio met Andrea Drewanz and invited her to be one of the group’s coordinators; the third is Cankin Ma, from Ecuador, who is in formation to become a priest. The group also has two interns, young Brazilians who are taking part in the mission formation program. 

A native of Brazil, Andrea has a background in tourism and communications. 

“My experience and background were not with mission. I speak English and can guide people,” says Andrea, who had a conversion experience with CLM in 2015. That, in turn, helps her to see what might await participants who engage with Mission Brazil.

“We are a service that people can come and do their best in volunteer activities, learn how to be in solidarity, and how to be more human. You establish so many relationships with people, I think it’s a good way to show how they can see God every day in their lives,” she says. “And it’s also something that changes them. People go back to their homes saying how different they are, how it changed their lives, their perspective, their vision.”

What participants get out of their experience depends, at least in part, on what they’re looking for to begin with, says Júlio. 

“For every group, for every guest that is willing to come, we will go through a process of defining the partner we’re going to visit and the program,” he says. “We can have a medical mission trip, a work improvement mission trip, an English teaching mission trip, one dedicated to catechesis/praying/Mass, and one to put people in touch with creation.”

The catchphrase, “We have the right mission trip for you,” is accurate, says Júlio.
Like the rest of the world, Mission Brazil’s plans have been upended repeatedly by the global pandemic, causing them to cancel most of their trips in 2020 and 2021. In response, they organized a monthly program to collect food and personal hygiene products for those in need.

The group did lead a three-day medical mission trip in July 2021, with Brazilian medical students. Other groups—from England, Italy, and the United States—cancelled, either because of concerns about Covid or, more recently, because foreign participants did not meet strict vaccine requirements to enter the country. 

In the year ahead, Mission Brazil has trips planned for March and July. One trip in July will be to the interior Amazon region, to work with Fr. Alex, a local priest who pastors more than a dozen small churches and is one of their Brazilian partners. There will also be a variety of components to the trip, including catechesis and work improvement.

“Even if they did not make anything to get improved, but they establish relationships with the community, with each other, I think this is one of the most important things we can offer for them,” says Andrea. “They spend time together, they face realities different from their lives. This is a way they can grow in their faiths, in their lives, in maturity.”

For more information about Mission Brazil, visit their website at www.mission-brazil.org. 

 

An Interview with Bishop Mark J. Seitz

The following article appeared in the December 2021 issue of Encounter. 

Bishop Mark J. Seitz was appointed the sixth bishop of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, by Pope Francis in 2013. A former pastor of parishes in Garland, Waxahachie and Dallas, Texas, Bishop Seitz has taught liturgy and sacramental theology at the University of Dallas and served as vice-rector and director of liturgy at Holy Trinity Seminary. He will serve as chairman of the Committee on Migration and Refugee Services for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) beginning in November 2022. 

The following conversation with Bishop Seitz has been edited for clarity and length. 

What is it about working with migrants and refugees that calls to you so deeply? 
The Gospel is the simple answer. It’s just so easily found in those pages, and in the roots of Jesus himself—about the care for our neighbor, about a special love for the poor, the way that he always challenged his listeners by placing those who were looked down upon by the society of his time in the position of the ones who did it right. Take the parables of the Good Samaritan and the 10 lepers, for instance.

In my ministry, I’ve always been drawn to try to serve those in need. In my early years as a priest, that meant being involved in the pro-life movement. Mother Teresa gave us guidance on this: The unborn child was among the poorest of the poor, the ones who had no voice. 

When I was named bishop of El Paso in 2013, I moved from dealing with the border between the womb and the world, to the border between our country and other nations. To me it was a very natural transition to consider these borders, as well. 


Talk about the work of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration and Refugee Services, of which you are now chairman-elect. 
Certainly, I hope to continue the very good work already being done. Its staff are responsible not only for policy work but for managing contracts with the U.S. government for resettling a certain number of refugees every year who come here after living in refugee camps and being carefully vetted. The U.S. government has found the Catholic Church to be one of the most effective agencies doing that work. 

On the policy side, we try to speak to the government in terms of what our faith tells us about care for the stranger. We believe that people have a certain human dignity they carry with them. Just as our Declaration of Independence states, they’re not bestowed those rights and that dignity by any government—they have it before they come here. And while the government has the right to and ought to manage its borders, it must be done in a way that respects the dignity and the human rights of those who come. 

The Church has always had an interest in serving immigrants. We’re both an immigrant nation and an immigrant Church—that is who we are.  

How do we educate Catholics to understand the Church’s historic role in caring for migrants and refugees? 
That’s a huge challenge. Our responsibility is not only to speak to the civil authorities, but our responsibility as a Church is to catechize our own people. I think we’re always fighting this fallen human tendency to look at the person we don’t know, who might speak a different language or come from a different culture, with suspicion. That’s something that is deeply rooted within us. So it will always be part of the work of the Church to seek to give people a different way of looking at the person they don’t know. It’s really a simple work, in a sense—allowing our communities to be so open and broad in our welcome that they have an opportunity to encounter people who are different, and to recognize the common humanity we share, and even to go further than that and to recognize the face of Jesus Christ. 


Tell us about your two pastoral letters. 
The first [Sorrow and Mourning Flee Away, July 2017] was focused on immigration, which is very much our reality here in El Paso. Our cities, Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, are so closely knit, you can’t see where one ends and the other begins. Our families are intertwined. We have relatives on both sides, we go to school on one side or the other, we’re mostly bilingual, and we are probably the largest binational community in the world. But as we replace bridges with fences and barbed wire, a message on the part of the Church to the people of my community was very important. 

The second [Night Will Be No More] came after the August 3, 2019, mass shooting at Walmart. A young man filled with hatred towards people of other races and colors, especially Mexicans, a young man filled with white supremacist ideology, showed that that ideology is not harmless. He picked up that gun as a logical consequence of that thinking. To a certain extent, he brought to great relief the real-life consequences of that thinking, the racism that’s involved and the kind of harm it can cause to innocent people who are just out on a Saturday morning buying school supplies. 

We might be inclined to see that as an isolated incident, with one mentally ill person. But when you step back and look at it from a broader perspective, you see it’s growing in our society, and it has a history. When I spoke to people after, I found that it had opened past wounds about how they had been treated in their lifetimes, because their skin color was darker than others, because they spoke a different language. It’s not a distant past—people still have to live with the consequences of those deeply rooted tendencies and structures in our society.


What would you like to say to pastors?
First, I would say, I understand, in so many ways. Pastors tend to be happy in relationship with people, and like any of us, they want to be loved. And so we can tend to avoid contentious issues. I would say, don’t be afraid. Don’t just look for peace, because there are some kinds of peace that aren’t really peace. You will be rewarded in so many ways if you reach out to and welcome those in your community whom most people might not even see. 

It isn’t simply a matter of holding up a protest sign on the pulpit. The work of overcoming these kinds of exclusion is not a matter of an ideological confrontation. It’s a matter of allowing those faces and those voices to be heard in your community. Let the people we do not know or understand tell their stories. It’s that simple. And if you want to get people together so that their stories can be told, celebrate the feasts together—share food, and music and dancing. Make it fun, and do mission, do service. These are the activities that ultimately change hearts. 

Any words of wisdom for missionaries? 
I’m just so inspired to see people, and especially young people, living the Gospel in such a clear and beautiful way. There’s nothing that can impact change and growth in the faith better than seeing people living the faith. I would tell them not to see their work as something on the fringe of the life of the Church. Realize that your work is at the heart of the life of the Church because it’s at the heart of the life of Jesus lived out in our time. It’s what he would be doing. 

We don’t evangelize in the same way we have in the past. We’ve come to realize the primary way to evangelize is to love our brothers and sisters and to do it in the name of Jesus Christ. It’s really that simple. It’s loving and serving and recognizing the human dignity that is shared by people whose goodness and dignity is often overlooked in our time.

I’m very grateful for their work.
 

Coming Full Circle to Serve Migrants and Refugees in El Paso

This article first appeared in the November 2021 issue of Encounter.

Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, Inc. (DMRS) handles every type of immigration law case, from providing education to ensure people understand their rights and what to expect when they encounter immigration authorities, to filing applications so migrants have lawful status, to working with asylum seekers to prevent their deportation. 

As a ministry of the Diocese of El Paso, on the U.S.-Mexico border, the office of nearly 80 staff members is constantly busy. They have served an average of 25,000 people per year in the last five years, although that dipped to about 20,000 during the pandemic and surged to 29,000 the year before.
“We see the realities of immigration here very differently from other people,” says Melissa Lopez, DMRS executive director for the last nine years and an El Paso native whose parents came from Mexico. “In the interior, you might see the changes and hear about them, but we live them.”

Keeping up with the news and federal immigration policy, especially during the last administration, so that they can better serve their clients, has been tough for Melissa and her staff. 

“The constant barrage of changes that were designed to make people suffer was really difficult to understand, especially as a Catholic,” she says. “To see people suffering because of policies created to make them suffer felt extraordinarily cruel.”

She adds, “It was very emotionally draining, but we can’t give up because if we give up, who is here fighting?”

In addition to those migrants DMRS typically serves, they have also responded within the last few months to Haitians fleeing earthquakes and political instability and to Afghans who were evacuated at the end of August when the U.S. removed the last of its troops from the country. 

An untold number of Afghan men, women and children—including some U.S. citizens and lawful residents—have been resettled temporarily at Fort Bliss in El Paso. DMRS staff members and paid temporary workers hired by DMRS—perhaps 100 in total—have been giving “know your rights” presentations; distributing donations of clothing, toothbrushes, and other necessities; and setting up recreation centers so children will have age-appropriate entertainment, such as arts and crafts, sports, and board games. 

It’s not clear how long the facility will remain open or how long the Afghans will stay there, but DMRS is committed to serving for as long as they are needed.

Julia Regalbuto is a volunteer doing a year of service with DMRS through the Sisters of Loretto. This is her third service experience, after two years with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, in Los Angeles and New Jersey.

She’s working in the general legal services unit, with people seeking residency, citizenship, or DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status. Julia has been with DMRS since August, but because of COVID restrictions, most of her work has been over the telephone or via email. 

She’s looking forward to having face-to-face encounters with the people they serve and feels sure she wants to continue working with marginalized communities. 

“For me, I’m still trying to understand what faith in action looks like. What it means to really be walking alongside the marginalized and do everything possible to live within our means and support people who need to be supported,” she says. 

Melissa’s faith is a mainstay of her work and why she continues to do it, as hard as it is. When asked what brought her to this office 14 years ago, she doesn’t hesitate. 
“I have to say, God did.” 

She had planned to attend law school out of state, but when circumstances changed mere weeks before the semester began, she secured a spot closer to home, at the UT Austin School of Law. At that point, only one law clinic was still open: immigration. Upon graduation, when her job at Legal Aid fell through, her immigration professor told her about another job—at DMRS. 

Later, Melissa learned that her father had been a DMRS client in the 1980s, when it went by another name; her mother hadn’t made the connection when Melissa first got the job. 

“Then it really felt like God brought me full circle and was bringing me back to the place that had helped our family years before. So, I kind of see it as my opportunity to pay forward the benefits we received,” she says. “Had I planned it, it wouldn’t have happened.” 

For more information about Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, Inc. of the Diocese of El Paso, visit their website at http://www.dmrs-ep.org/.  


Serving Migrants in El Paso

This article first appeared in the October 2021 issue of Encounter.
 
The people of El Paso, Texas, are understandably proud of the city’s reputation as a welcoming place—and not just to visitors, but to migrants and refugees, as well. Whenever the latter have arrived, no matter the state or federal government response, residents—many of them church-affiliated volunteers—respond with compassion, as well as with hot meals, warm beds and clean clothes.  

“These people, they are giving of themselves one hundred percent, and doing all of this amazing stuff,” says Marco Raposo, director of the Peace and Justice Ministry of the Diocese of El Paso. He says their actions inspire others to give, having a ripple effect. “Their generosity is just beyond belief. It’s like a pebble in a lake.”

Although he says not every one of the diocese’s 56 parishes has a migrant ministry—some might work with the St. Vincent de Paul Society or other organized ministries, for instance—many do, and they mobilize when called upon. 

“By and large, all parishes respond at their capacity—smaller, larger, wealthiest, poorest,” he says. “They all respond, and sometimes the poorer ones give a hundredfold of what they have, which is amazing.”

In September, when tens of thousands of Haitian refugees arrived at the U.S-Mexico border, with about 2,000 of them ending up in El Paso, Marco was given one night’s notice that 600 would be coming to the city over the span of a week. The threat of imminent deportation hung over their heads, so Marco started calling his most dependable volunteers to help at a hotel-turned-shelter.

“Marco knows we always go whenever he needs us. And as soon as I send the list, in less than 30 minutes, everyone responds,” says Lorena Bencomo who, with her husband, is part of the migrant ministry—she’s the director—at their parish, Mother Cabrini. 

“We can’t say no,” she adds, laughing, “because Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of migrants!” 
Her group regularly serves food at shelters to migrants awaiting travel to their family or sponsors in other parts of the country. Even during the pandemic, Lorena says, when they couldn’t actually serve the food, they still provided it. They also regularly collect and sort clothing and children’s toys. 
Robert and Eva Salinas are parishioners at San Antonio de Padua and active with their migrant ministry, which received a pre-pandemic request from Ruben Garcia of Annunciation House to sponsor a migrant hospitality center. It took just a few weeks to recruit about 100 volunteers—some from other parishes, some not even Catholic—and get up and running. 

“If it’s a calling from God, it’s doable,” says Robert. They were among those whom Marco called to aid the Haitians in uniting with their sponsors, and to send volunteers to play with Afghan children refugees housed on a military base in September. “We just reached out and the Lord provided.”
When the pandemic hit, Robert says, their group found new ways to engage. Their parish center has provided weekly free breakfasts and social activities for neighborhood seniors. They’ve also worked with local businesses and nonprofits to rehab the trailer of a prospective adoptive parent and to convert a garage into a suitable bedroom for a 5-year-old disabled foster child. 

Their work has involved many unexpected blessings. “We call on anybody who comes across our paths,” he says with enthusiasm. “You know, people are good! They say, ‘yes, I’ll help you!’ And the Lord’s work gets done.”

El Paso native and Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio Becky Perez is a member of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish as well as a longtime teacher. She notes that five Catholic schools and one Christian school recently collected brand new toys for more than 3,000 Afghan children refugees, a word she uses deliberately. 

“I don’t even call them migrants anymore. Anyone seeking a better life in the United States is a refugee,” she says of the people they encounter only briefly before entrusting them to God and sending them on their way. “They’re our brothers and sisters, and we’re going to keep helping them.”
Sister Becky credits the laity for doing so much to support this ministry.

“I keep telling them, you’re writing history, because the Church does belong to you, it belongs to all of us,” she says of the many lay volunteers she works with. “I try to help out, and if I can’t, I find people who can.”

She adds, with the pride of a native, “El Paso is a warm and friendly place. The people I’m surrounded by really know how to live the Gospel.”


My Life is a Mission

This article is from the September 2021 edition of our newsletter.

“It’s a tiny little school on a tiny little island that is doing so much good.”

Hannah Klein spent only seven months of the two years she signed up for with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) living in Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia, and teaching in-person at the Akoyikoyi School—that “tiny little school”—but it made an enormous impression on her. So great, in fact, that after being recalled with only about 72 hours’ notice at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Hannah continued independently as a volunteer teacher for the rest of the 2020 school year. 

The 2019 University of Dayton graduate is still leading 8th grade classes from her family’s home in Centennial, Colorado, although she’s been drawing a small salary since August 2020.

“Technically, I’m a paid teacher now,” she says with a laugh, before adding, “I just wanted to continue teaching.” 

JVC had not resumed the program yet at the time of this interview. 

It was during her final semester at U Dayton, when Hannah was studying in Ecuador, volunteering as a teacher and improving her Spanish, that someone mentioned JVC. She’d applied to two other programs that would have kept her in Ecuador when JVC came through with an offer—for Micronesia. 

“It was quite a whirlwind—a lot of discernment and figuring out where I was supposed to be. Was it my own seeking to come back to Ecuador?” she asks. “JVC just fell into place.” 

She was one of two Jesuit volunteers at Akoyikoyi, while four others were at Xavier High School. Some were returning volunteers, and there were local teachers at Akoyikoyi, as well. During her seven months, Hannah threw herself into learning the Chuukese language and embracing a culture vastly different from the one back home. The pace of living and sense of time is slower in Micronesia, she says—“Island time is very real!”—and people speak more softly. “We sometimes talk very loudly,” she says of Americans, in a diplomatic bit of understatement. 

While on the island, Hannah tried not just to live in the culture, she says, but “to be in the culture.” That included her commitment to the JVC value of living simply—for her, not solely merely in the material sense. 

“It was more the mindset of, how do I live simply in my job, mentally? How do I make that less complicated, less filled with unnecessary things? Taking away the distraction of things,” she says. “A lot of that growth happened very subconsciously. I would realize, wait, I’m doing this differently than I would have in the United States.”

And then, the pandemic, and a return to home on such short notice, she hardly had time to say goodbye to her students. It was devastating. 
“Not just in my mind, but in my heart and my soul, I had dedicated these two years to the place, to the people, to my teaching and to my students,” Hannah recalls. “And having to drop all that, I don’t even know how to describe all that in words. I had put all my being into this trajectory of two years.”

Given that her heart was back on the island with her students, it didn’t take too long to decide that while the pandemic might keep her physically out of Akoyikoyi, through the wonders of the internet—and the purchase of 20 Chromebooks, engineered by the school’s director and principal—Hannah could, and would, continue teaching. In 2020, she saw her class through the final months of the academic year to become the second graduating class that had started the school as kindergarteners. 

“Hannah has been an example of what it means to be a servant leader. She is dedicated to her students and the school community,” says her friend and mentor Therese “Tess” Hart, program manager for Catholic Relief Services, Chuuk. “Through her positive energy, creativity, and concern for others, Hannah contributes not only to her students’ educational progress, but models the idea of being a source of light for others.”

Asked about what she sees for herself in the future, Hannah will only say that she’s committed through the end of this school year, probably virtually, unless it’s possible to safely return to in-person teaching. After that, she’s not sure, but she does believe that God will show her the path. 

“I think God guides us in different ways, to highlight our strengths, challenge us, point out things we can work on to be better,” she says. “And I believe that my whole life is a mission, filled with various adventure and various journeys.”

 

 

Living, and Receiving, Mission in Everyday Life

This article is from our July 2021 issue of Encounter.

Tiny Belcourt, North Dakota, lies near the Canadian border, in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. Home to about 2,000 residents, it’s the site of St. Ann’s Indian Mission, which has served the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and Metis Indians since 1885. 

It’s also the home of missionary volunteers from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), which staffs three parishes in the Belcourt area, as well as missions throughout the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

USCMA caught up with four SOLT missionary volunteers enroute to Corpus Christi, Texas, to the annual SOLT assembly, a gathering of laity, priests, sisters, and brothers the week of their Foundation Day, July 16. It’s a 1,600-mile drive that took them several days and included at least one speeding ticket!

Hannah Weinewuth is starting her second year at St. Ann’s Elementary School. A graduate of Benedictine College, she studied art therapy and arrived in August 2020 to teach art but was assigned instead to the first grade.

“I didn’t come in anticipating that,” she said with a laugh. “They needed more help, but it ended up being a big blessing.”

The volunteers were immediately quarantined, leading to another blessing.

“You’re going on mission, and your idea is that you’re here to serve. But we were quarantined and almost helpless,” said Hannah, recalling how the community welcomed them. “To receive like that—if you’re going to give, you have to be able to receive first. The people have really adopted us and taken care of us.”

With a year of teaching now under her belt, Hannah feels she was led to the place where she was meant to be.

“I was very much out of my comfort zone and relying on prayer and Jesus. How do I deal with four little souls?” she remembers asking herself. “It was jumping in and being willing to be led.”

Which is really what brought her and the other volunteers—nine in Belcourt last year, six of whom are staying for a second year—to mission in the first place.

Hannah, 24, a native of Naperville, Illinois, grew up Catholic but wasn’t especially engaged in her faith until her junior year of college. That’s when the Holy Spirit “lit my heart with a desire to grow,” she said. But that led to some difficult choices: How did she want to live? Whom did she want to surround herself with?

“I had to say no to a lot of things that I had previously said yes to,” she said. “To seek God and to seek the goodness—I had almost a desperate desire for this, and that is when I sought out the mission. I knew I was being called to grow deeper through him.”

Abbey Roberts, 20, from St. Louis, Missouri, also attended Benedictine. She went on a mission trip the fall of her freshman year to serve the poor in her hometown, and it was there that it hit her: the desire to do more.

“I just felt so on fire and knew this was what I wanted to do. That was a surprise,” said Abbey. “It was, okay, Lord, I don’t know what you’re doing. But now that I’m here, I feel like this is what I’m made for.”

Clarissa Fierro, 26, was joining the others for retreat. She’d served as a SOLT missionary in Belize from 2017 to 2019, then entered the convent in Seattle for 18 months—throughout the pandemic—discerning a vocation to religious life. She is still discerning whether she is called to become a sister. “I experienced many, many of God’s graces and blessings, for sure,” said Clarissa of the time in Seattle. “It was a unique experience.”

Clarissa will return home to Kansas City next to begin teaching Spanish at a Catholic grade school in suburban Olathe, Kansas.

The last of the driving foursome was Mary Kain, from McCook, Nebraska. At only 22, she’s taken part in Missionaries of Charity summer camps in New Mexico and Hope of the Poor in Mexico City. While traveling in Ireland, Mary met a woman who had been a SOLT missionary in Belize, “and said it was the best year of her life,” she recalled, adding, “Just working a job wasn’t fulfilling. I knew there was something more.”

Mary was originally set to minister in Belize but was sent to Belcourt, instead, and like the others, believes that’s where she was meant to be all along.

“I found a lot more peace,” she said. “When you first get on mission, you’re not used to it, but I learned how mission can be part of your everyday life, because we are living with Christ and with the sacraments.”



Immigration Work Mixes Justice and Empathy

The work of the Migrant Team at Holy Trinity, a Jesuit parish in Washington, D.C., is rooted in Catholic Social Teaching and founded on the principles of accompaniment and solidarity. The group was founded only five years ago, in response to then-President Trump’s Muslim travel ban, and continues to nurture a faith-filled commitment to their migrant brothers and sisters.

The parish has been sponsoring immersion trips—so parishioners might gain some sense of what it’s like to walk in the shoes of migrants—in partnership with Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which operates the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas; the Kino Border Initiative, a Jesuit program in Nogales, Arizona; and the Jesuit Encuentro Project, in El Paso, Texas.

After taking part in one of those immersion trips in 2018, Jeanne Rossomme—who with her husband Bruce Cohen has been a parishioner at Holy Trinity for about eight years—found herself wondering what came next.
Encounter 2021
“We have a lot of immigrants in the community who need our help. Is there more that we could be doing?” Jeanne, now the Migrant Team’s lead parishioner, recalls asking herself. She was profoundly affected by the immersion trip. “You know, your heart is just broken wide open.”

As luck—or the Holy Spirit—would have it, they didn’t have to wait long to find out. The couple received a call the night they returned to Washington asking if they would be willing to mentor—be the lead contact—for Mario, a 39-year-old asylum seeker from Nicaragua, who needed a place to stay and some help getting settled. Two parishioners are always asked to serve in this mentor role for any new migrant the parish engages with.

Mario, who has a tech background and was already an English speaker, ended up living with Jeanne and Bruce and other parishioners for a few months before settling into an independent rental. He has quickly become an integral member of the Migrant Team. While he awaits his asylum hearing in 2024 (the wheels of justice turn slowly in immigration work), Mario joins all team planning calls and meets with every new arrival, sharing tips and information to help smooth the transition to their new lives.   

Members of the team might be called upon to help a migrant find housing, apply for an ID card, set up English classes, or get to doctor’s visits. In addition to connecting migrants to resources, the parish may also provide financial support through donations—asylum seekers, for example, cannot legally work for at least six months after filing for asylum.

An advocacy component to the team’s mission includes working for structural change to immigration laws and the condition of detention centers and addressing the root causes that lead to migration. Partners in that work include the Ignatian Solidarity Network, Washington Interfaith Network, Jesuit Refugee Service, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Contrary to popular perception, those coming across the U.S.-Mexico border are not all from Latin America; many are from Africa and have made an arduous, months-long journey in search of a better life. For all of the migrants, the life they envision is one free from the threat of civil war, extreme gang violence, narcoterrorism, political persecution and other life-threatening situations—the “root causes” of migration.

Mary Gibbons joined the team after the 2016 election. “I saw in a new light how fragile some of our civic assumptions were,” she said, and went on a border trip to Nogales. “That’s how I got started.”

For more than a year, Mary has been mentoring Bernadette, a migrant from Gabon who came to the U.S. with her now six-year-old daughter in 2018. With representation by the Georgetown Law’s Center for Applied Legal Studies, Bernadette won her asylum case in August 2020 and can apply for her Green Card (permanent resident card) this coming August.

Now, Bernadette, like Mario and the eight other families the Migrant Team is accompanying, has found not just assistance but community—the solidarity piece. Families and volunteers gather to celebrate birthdays, weddings, and other occasions, and the French-speaking African families have a group text chain that sprang up organically, without anyone from the team’s intervention.

“It’s helped me understand that while you can’t walk in somebody else’s shoes, you can slow down your pace and walk alongside, share their field of vision and stories,” said Mary of the experience. “Worrying about larger issues in the world is always going to be there, but in the long run, justice is always downstream from empathy.”

For more information or to contact a member of the Migrant Team, visit Holy Trinity’s webpage here.


Training for Resilience in the Global South

For healthcare providers around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t just been a medical crisis but a mental health crisis, for themselves as well as for the communities they serve.

Recognizing this, the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB)—which serves communities in Haiti, Kenya, Peru, South Sudan, and Zambia, with a special emphasis on the health of women and children—created a volunteer-led effort to equip their teams on the ground with the skills to build resilience, deal with grief, and care for self and others under these most extraordinary of circumstances.  

One of those volunteers—it’s a team of five—is M. Therese Lysaught, a theologian and ethicist and professor in the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics & Healthcare Leadership
in the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago. Her work focuses on domestic and international health care and issues of social justice. 

At COVID-19 began to spread globally, Therese reached out to the former CEO of CMMB and asked if there was some way she could help with their work. 
 
“Prior to the pandemic, frontline health workers were already under a lot of stress,” said Therese. “Once the pandemic hit, there was a lot of coverage on the levels of anxiety and trauma among frontline workers, internationally. And one of the great things about this project is CMMB wanted to get out in front of that, to do preemptive, preventative work.”

The result is the Building Resilience Program, a virtual, ongoing educational effort to develop resources and programming to address an unanticipated dimension of the pandemic: the spiritual, emotional, and moral toll on in-country healthcare workers and communities. 

An immediate challenge was that much of the emerging literature and resources on the mental health toll of COVID-19 is informed by the healthcare realities of wealthier countries, while little exists for use in globally diverse, resource-challenged settings.  
 
Once CMMB leadership decided on strategies to implement resiliency programs for in-country directors, the expert volunteers began pulling together or creating resources to develop a train-the-trainer program for in-country staff, adapting materials for the cultural context.  

For instance, Therese said, Peru was hit by the pandemic earlier than Africa and has a fairly well-developed mental health system. The country directors there were asking for tools to support grieving families and communities, including the community of caregivers; the expert volunteers are now creating a series of six sessions built around grief support and post-traumatic growth. For Kenya, Zambia, and South Sudan, they created five sessions on self-care for caregivers.  
 
Once they have fully developed these sessions, Therese and her team will continue to work with core resiliency team members in the various countries as they take the learnings down the line to community healthcare workers, who will then take them into local communities.  
 
“Both programs are resilience-based, content-wise,” Therese said, “but with a slightly different emphasis.” 

The sessions have been conducted via Zoom thus far, and all sessions are recorded, but technology is definitely more of an issue for participants with each degree of separation beyond the country directors.  
 
An impetus for resiliency training in the first place, Therese said, was the knowledge that healthcare workers are not trained to care for themselves, but rather, she said, to “be stoic, which is counterproductive to good health care. A key piece of this has been to say, you have permission to take care of yourselves. You’re a priority, and this is going to make you a more effective care provider.” 

Mary Beth Powers, CMMB president and CEO, agreed. “Nobody could quite be prepared for what health workers around the world have experienced in the past year, and the challenges continue,” she said. “Taught to save lives, they have often lacked the resources to properly care for patients and have seen lonely deaths that could have been prevented.” 
 
There is also the reality that the global South had been dealing with trauma for years before COVID-19 hit.  

“The resiliency training was timely and important against the backdrop of decades of political and communal conflicts in South Sudan that have eroded trust and left most people living on the edge, in terms of mental health,” said Jacqueline George, CMMB country director for South Sudan. “Getting health staff to open up and support each other during the pandemic requires trust building, and this training reminded us of why building resilience should be given priority, if we are to maintain the level of services demanded.”

Added Mary Beth, “It is our Christian duty to care for those who are giving care and to lift them up in their times of stress, exhaustion and suffering.”

Click here to learn about volunteering remotely with CMMB. 

Empowering Haitian Communities to Empower Themselves

It’s been just about three years since Unlocking Communities was founded, but already their work in Haiti—which is based in part on the premise that community members know their own needs best—is helping Haitians to help themselves though access to clean water, clean-burning stoves, and training in hygiene and entrepreneurship. By the end of 2022, the organization projects it will have impacted more than 135,000 people.

“I really see this fitting into mission work. It’s so much about accompanying communities,” said founder Josh Goralski, a Chicago native who was exposed to Haiti as a child through his parish’s twinning relationship with a church there. A Haitian priest stayed with his family when he was 8 years old, and Josh later went to Haiti on a high school mission trip.

“On that trip, I learned that the best thing we can do as foreigners is not do any kind of manual labor,” he said. “I learned that it’s being in the relationships that’s key. Those relationships are so powerful and lead to so many moments of solidarity and transformation and community.”

Now 29, Josh decided to pursue studies in social justice and nonprofit management, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at Loyola University Chicago before returning to Haiti in 2012 to study economic empowerment “and make a difference,” he said. “I found a calling to make this a lifelong purpose.”

As one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is frequently the recipient of other nations’ largesse and is descended upon by NGOs and volunteers who mean well but don’t always leave things better than when they found them. Giving things to and doing things for communities—the white savior model—is often their MO, but it’s not the missionary model.

Unlocking Communities seeks to promote sustainable growth that is not reliant on outsiders to keep the work going. So it was key that the Haitians, themselves, identify their greatest needs, which turned out to be water filtration and clean-burning stoves. The reasons for that are apparent:

• An estimated 5,600 Haitians die each year because they lack access to clean water.
• Clean water is inaccessible or unavailable in 45% of rural communities.
• Charcoal, which makes up 70% of the country’s energy use, contributes significantly to deforestation. Haiti is 98% deforested now.

The water filtration systems are made in Guatemala (plans are to ultimately make them in Haiti) and the stoves are made in Haiti.

Before the team establishes a relationship with a community, Josh said, they interview leaders such as pastors, priests, and heads of organizations, to determine if the community is a good fit. If it is, then 20 people are identified to participate in an entrepreneur training program that covers business, water, sanitation, and hygiene; a manager, assistant manager, and secretary are picked; and the community receives a loan of 50 water filtration systems which they sell for about $43 each on no-interest microloans. The loans must be paid back within six months.

A family with a water filtration system will save about $150 per year on bottled water (which reduces plastic waste) and visits to the doctor caused by water-borne illnesses. So far, Unlocking Communities has sold 1,500 water filtration systems and 500 stoves, and made over $20,000 in microloans for locals to start businesses, which have included fish farms and plantain farms.

Just as important, the people who have participated in the entrepreneur training program have gained transferrable skills, including learning to understand supply and demand, craft a business plan, and market a business. Ernso Sylvian, the Haitian country director, leads the trainings and is supported by four interns, all from the local communities.

“We work to empower Haitians with the business skills they need,” said Julia Holmertz, who started as a volunteer and is now the director of operations for Unlocking Communities. Like Josh, she is based in Chicago. “Then they can make their own decisions. For instance, do they want to buy a goat? Or something that’s less of a long-term investment? Your sense of self comes from being able to make your own decisions. It’s very empowering.”

Josh said the group hopes to expand into India or East Africa in 2022 and is currently working with Deloitte to make sure their model—which he believes can help eliminate poverty—is replicable.

“This is an opportunity to show through our business that we can spread Christian love,” he said. “’They will know we are Christian by our love’ is a phrase that has always stuck with me.”

For more information: To learn more about Josh and his work, listen to the podcast of him with Megan Mio, from the Archdiocese of Chicago, on a recent episode of Mission Matters Life. https://unlockingcommunities.org/mission-matters-live-catalysts -for-change-in-mission/. You can also visit Josh’s website - https:// unlockingcommunities.org/ - to learn more about their work and their model for mission.

Keeping Mission Alive through Fair Trade

It’s hard to imagine that there was a time, not that long ago, when American consumers didn’t know what the term “Fair Trade” meant. In the early 2000s, Pattye Pece was one of those people. Always more of a contemplative Catholic, Pattye had no idea what Fair Trade was, or how it was about to change her life.

“Missionary work and Fair Trade were the furthest things from my mind in those early days,” said Pattye with a laugh. She laughs often when she speaks. “I was a person on the journey of mysticism and monasticism. My husband and I are like monks. We love prayer, we love the quiet, we love reading. Contemplative prayer was my direction.”

But it seems that God had other plans, as became apparent when Pattye met the late Fr. Patrick Fitzgerald, an English priest with the Missionaries of Africa who spoke at her parish in Long Island about his missionary work. This was around the year 2000, and Pattye, who worked in parishes as a music director or at Catholic schools as a music teacher, was about to move to England for five years while her husband worked on his doctoral degree.

What Fr. Fitzgerald shared with the congregation—and later with Pattye and her prayer group at her home—about Fair Trade, the debt cancellation movement, and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, was a revelation to her.

“This was like another planet for a person like me! It was new, it was exciting, it was invigorating,” she said. She began asking herself, “How come my priests never talk about poverty and the distribution of goods? That 20 percent of the world’s people are using 80 percent of its resources?”

In England, Pattye discovered the Oxfam “charity shop,” as they’re called there: part thrift shop, part Fair Trade. And she started to think that maybe there should be a Fair-Trade store back home. When she returned to Long Island, she broached the idea with her prayer group, called Sobornost. They liked the idea, but Pattye still wasn’t sure whether it was too much of a stretch. After all, she’d never operated a business before.

Then, driving home from noon Mass one day, she heard what she describes as “a little voice in my heart” telling her to do it, and to call it Sobornost, which she defines as meaning “unity of heart, mind and soul of a group working for the common good.”

Things happened pretty quickly then. Fr. Fitzgerald returned to Long Island, Pattye opened up the World Village Fair Trade Market storefront, and, in 2003, founded a nonprofit called Sobornost for the World Foundation. Its mission was two-fold: to provide handcrafted Fair-Trade products from artisans in 30 developing world countries and to provide support to orphans in Zambia and Kenya in the form of school fees, shoes, books, and bookbags, and to build schools, kitchens, bathrooms, and provide goats and chickens.

Although the brick and mortar store closed in 2014—the victim of a changing economy, Pattye said—their products are still sold online and at churches. The group is currently working with a missionary priest in South Sudan and another in Tanzania, as well as a Mennonite group in Haiti that runs three medical clinics.

Fr. Augustine “Gus” Fernando, a priest who came to their diocese from India, now serves on the board, and Pattye traveled to his home country with him in 2014. The woman who was once terrified of flying has now been to Zambia for a firsthand look at the ministries Sobornost is supporting.

Sara Ray first became involved with the ministry in 2009 and worked at the store for years along with her daughters.

“We wanted to live our faith,” Sara said, and have their eyes opened to suffering around the world and even here at home in the States. “It is also gratifying to see the generosity of parishioners and others who respond to our message and support our organization by purchasing our Fair-Trade products with such enthusiasm.”

For Pattye, all of this work is another means of living out our missionary call as Catholics, albeit in a way she never expected.

“The missionary call has changed dramatically, from going and building schools and buildings and large development projects to maintaining relationships and encounters with people,” she said. “Our work supports people on the ground, but it helps me encounter and build relationship here around the concept of mission. It keeps the missionary need alive.”

Click here to watch a short video interview of Pattye Pece talking about the Sobornost for the World Foundation on the Catholic Faith Network.


Maryknoll’s Young Adult Communities of Purpose

The middle of a pandemic might seem like a strange time to begin a new missionary initiative, but not to Maryknoll, which launched five Young Adult Empowerment Communities this past fall in Chicago, New York/East coast, Seattle, Los Angeles and Northern California/San Francisco. Hopes are high that the program might expand beyond those cities soon.

About 50 young men and women, ages 18 to 39, have made a two-year commitment to a process of discernment and serving those at the margins. The program is an intentional effort to build small communities of young adults committed to making the world a better place with opportunities for leadership development, social justice engagement, and discernment to find their calling, rooted in prophetic welcome and authenticity.

Because of the pandemic, the program is largely virtual and members don’t live together, although they will meet in person when it is safe to do so.

Before founding the initiative, Maryknoll spent three to four years conducting interviews and listening sessions with young adults, those practicing their Catholic faith as well as those who identify as “nones.” They found that many of those they spoke with felt that faith is not tangible and the church is not involved enough in social change.

“They were looking for a safe place for authenticity, where they could feel like themselves, and they were looking for community,” says Brenda Noriega, who works with the Young Adult Empowerment Community in Los Angeles, as well as with Maryknoll’s outreach to Hispanic youth in the region. “They weren’t finding it in their parishes or local churches.”

To help them find that authenticity, Maryknoll fathers and brothers act as chaplains for the communities, telling their stories of mission—experiences that stretch back more than 40 or 50 years for some of them—and leading discernment and theological reflections.

“Discernment helps them to find the image of God in love and helps them see those places where God’s love is not breaking through,” Brenda says. It’s also a baptismal call, as Pope Francis says.

“Pope Francis tells us that the question is not who you are, but for whom you are? And of course, you are for God, but God has created you to be for others,” says Brenda, who has been in her position for just under one year. “I believe that is what we are doing with the Maryknoll communities.”

In addition to discernment, community members will focus on advocacy and global solidarity and engage in service work in a marginalized community, engaging in the “see-judge-act” process.

“They’ll be asking what are the social and political structures that are not permitting people to flourish and live in dignity?” says Brenda. At the same time, they’ll be exploring their own margins.

In a way, that’s what Brenda herself has been doing.

A native of Guanajuato, Mexico, Brenda, 31, studied Latin American literature and non-profit organizational management at California State University, Fresno. She also did an internship at the Diocese of Fresno and learned about faith-based community organizing, later becoming Hispanic ministry coordinator for the diocese. This led her to pursue a master’s degree in pastoral theology.

After taking part in the 2018 V Encuentro and representing the U.S. at a luncheon during World Youth Day Panama in 2019—and meeting Pope Francis—Brenda felt called to respond as a young Hispanic leader in the Church. Her participation in the Postsynodal Youth Day Forum in Rome in 2019 sealed the deal for her, as it were. Her time with Maryknoll has been a time of walking with young people, she says, of unlearning things she thought she knew and of learning how to listen and accompany.

“There is a sense that sometimes young adult ministry has been a one-size-fits-all,” says Anna Johnson, the Young Adult Empowerment Team Leader and Maryknoll’s church engagement division mission formation unit manager. “I think what we’re offering won’t be attractive to everybody, but the need we’re meeting is a desire for authenticity and authentic experience, for living life the way Christ did.”

The church engagement division’s purpose is to help grow a culture of mission formation in the United States. Both Anna and Brenda believe that Maryknoll has much to offer in this regard, and that young adults in the Catholic church are hungry for it.

“Maryknoll is an incredibly authentic message. And as we’re all walking together on this path, it’s been a process of people really deepening their faith,” says Anna. “There’s a lot of excitement and engagement around it for people who are looking for it.”

For more information on Maryknoll’s Young Adult Empowerment Communities, visit https://www.maryknoll.us/home/young-adult-empowerment-community.   



Working in Partnership with the People of Haiti 

In their twinning relationships with parishes in Haiti, the missioners at St. Margaret Mary in Winter Park, Florida, observe four pillars: self-determination for the Haitians, sustainability of any project, transparency in communication, and having a clear exit timeline. In the nearly 20 years they’ve been engaging in mission work with the island nation—which has long been considered one of the poorest in the Western hemisphere—parishioners have been guided by these pillars, and by the Gospel.  

“We have two goals,” said Ken Firling, one of the original members of the Haiti Outreach Ministry. “To try to do some good for the Haitians, but also to give parishioners here an opportunity to get involved in meaningful work.” 

Ken came to St. Margaret Mary about 18 years ago, after he retired as director of guidance at a high school in Alexandria, Virginia, and he and his wife, Cecelia moved to Winter Park. The Firlings, who volunteered together for the Peace Corps in Afghanistan in 1974, had been active in their Virginia parish with its Haiti ministry. They learned about Haiti through Theresa Patterson, co-founder of the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA), whose passion for the country is well-known. (Read about Theresa in the September 2018 issue of Encounter.) Ken was itching to continue in the Haiti ministry in their new home, even if it meant starting from scratch.  

“For me it’s been like malaria,” he joked of his desire to return to Haiti. “Once you have it, you can’t get rid of it.”  

From small beginnings, the ministry has grown to include five working groups: economic empowerment, education, faith sharing, health, and the peace program, which includes conflict resolution, mediation, and youth. In January, they began a relationship with a new parish, Our Lady of the Assumption, having completed their prior five-year relationship with Our Lady of Perpetual Help in December of last year. 

Anne Landrum has been involved with the ministry for about 10 years and currently leads the economic empowerment working group, which includes an agriculture program, livestock program, and the women’s empowerment bank, all of which are designed to improve the economic conditions of the entire community. Unlike Ken, who has traveled to Haiti repeatedly—including as recently as this month, his first visit since the pandemic began—Anne has not been there.  

She regrets not having gone when her health might have permitted it, but that hasn’t dimmed her enthusiasm for mission, or her high regard for their Haitian partners who carry out all of the work.  

“We’re very lucky working with the people of Haiti, who have very strong faith,” she said. “We don’t bring faith to them, that’s for sure. We help them with other things and share in their faith, which is very strong and very real.” 

Both Anne and Ken are clear when talking about the mission outreach that Haitian self-determination is key to any success they have had over the years.  

“We think rather than handing people money, we invest in their futures,” said Anne. “We make sure everybody gets educated in different fields and we give them the tools. And that changes their lives, really.” 

For instance, Ken said, they don’t pay teachers’ salaries, because when their five-year commitment is over, the salaries would go away. Instead, they purchased a cow for each teacher, something they did in the last parish they in which they worked, “and made a bull very happy,” he said with a laugh.  

They helped establish a commercial loan bank that lends money so couples can get married—which, in Haiti, must include rings, a dress, and a party, which are expensive. The bank has a 100 percent payback rate. The health program has established a committee that raises and sells livestock, which pays for the care of destitute seniors in the parish. 

“There’s an awful lot going on,” said Ken, who has helped other local parishes begin their own mission ministries in Haiti. He’s grateful that the pandemic hasn’t impacted Haiti as much as most other countries, one of the reasons he was able to visit this month and continue St. Margaret Mary’s ministry there.  

“I feel that it’s an excellent way to live out the Gospel, and of course with mission, you’re fulfilling a commission of going out and spreading the word,” he said. “You really get the idea that you’re fulfilling what Christ talked about.” 

For more information, visit https://stmargaretmary.org/ministries/haiti-mission/.  





 

From Ohio to Uganda and Back Again  

Before they’d even officially become twinning partners to St. Patrick’s Madera Parish in Soroti, Uganda, the parishioners at St. Maximilian Kolbe in Liberty Township, Ohio, were already giving generously to support the parish school.  
 

They’d come to know the former pastor of St. Patrick’s, Fr. Simon Peter Wankya, after he arrived at St. Max for a two-year sabbatical; that sabbatical was extended to five years, when he became
the church’s parochial vicar.  
 

“Fr. Simon Peter told us that 80 percent of the 30,000 people in the parish live in poverty,” said Dan Suer, a parishioner at St. Max who has been deeply involved in getting the twinning ministry underway. He was shocked at the statistic.  

Dan shared that, under Fr. Simon Peter’s leadership, St. Patrick’s had reopened Holy Angels, a private parish Catholic school for the economically disadvantaged. But because many of the children had to walk several miles to get there—a journey often fraught with physical danger, including the possibility of assault and rape—they were sleeping on the classroom floors at night to avoid the trip home and back again.  
 

“With Fr. Simon Peter’s encouragement, we thought, let’s build a dorm, a girls’ dorm,” Dan said, and the idea took root.  
 

The parishioners at St. Max raised $20,000 to build the dormitory, which was completed in November 2018. Three months later, in February 2019, the idea of twinning was formally introduced. By that summer, they had raised another $25,000 to construct a dormitory for the boys at Holy Angels.
  

But it was during Advent 2019 that something really special began to happen. That’s when the pastor at St. Max, Fr. Jim Riehle, started a pen pal program between the two parishes called Family Connections. Ultimately, 161 Ohio families were matched with Ugandan families. Photos were exchanged and relationships began to form.  
 

Relationship, of course, is at the heart of twinning, and shortly before the pandemic shut down international travel in the spring, members of St. Max traveled to Uganda to finally meet, face-to-face, their pen pals.  
 

“This is about building relationships. It’s not necessarily about going and telling somebody else how to do something,” said Lakmé Kodros, pastoral associate for outreach and stewardship at St. Max. “It’s about becoming prayer partners and building those relationships.” 
 

As the staff liaison to the twinning committee, Lakmé went on the immersion trip in March, which had to be cut short a couple days due to the pandemic but was still, she said, “the experience of a lifetime. We celebrated Mass every day. We met the children, we saw the school, we saw the dorms.” 
 

In fact, while they were visiting, the dorms were officially commissioned and named, one for Maximilian Kolbe and the other for Fr. Simon Peter. The parish is currently financing construction of a science building for Holy Angels School, to include space for studies in chemistry, physics, and biology.  
 

“You can ask for money and you might get some,” said Lakmé, putting on her stewardship hat, “but if you ask people to donate for something in particular—whether it be worship vessels, oxen or plows—anything material, it’s their love language here. It’s amazing.” 
 

For Lent 2020, St. Max parishioners aimed high and raised more than $90,000 to purchase a pair of oxen, a yoke and a plow—which would cost a Ugandan family about $500—for 161 catechists who minister to outstations/chapels within the enormous parish. Ultimately, St. Max raised enough money to provide for 25 additional, newer catechists.  
 

“What we didn’t know, oxen are like bank accounts,” said Dan, who noted that he and others on the twinning committee hold weekly WhatsApp calls with their counterparts in Uganda to discuss this and other matters. “They can plow their fields, sell their goods and share the oxen within the community.” 
 

The community at St. Max will have to be satisfied, for now, with hearing reports from the weekly phone calls—Dan calls them “the glue” of the twinning ministry—reading the monthly twinning newsletter (which has more than 150 subscribers) and using the parish conference room that was dedicated to the twinning ministry and is decorated with photos from the trip.  
 

And they finally got to see, during the first week of November, a presentation by those who’d gone to Uganda many months before.  
 

“I am passionate about the relationship, the friendships, and continuing to help them,” said Dan, who believes the Holy Spirit has been guiding them in the twinning ministry. “I hope other people can grasp what a difference they can make across the world.” 
 

For more information on the twinning ministry, visit saint-max.org/twinning. 

 

The Seeds of Mission, at Home and Far Away

Olympia, Washington, is more than 1,700 miles from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. But distance means very little to people on mission, who know you can be on mission across the world, the country or just across town.

 

In 1978, Leanne and John Bergford were a young married couple with four children and a desire to be of service to the church. At a conference in Olympia, John met the late Fr. Rick Thomas, a Jesuit priest who had been serving the colonia (neighborhood) surrounding the garbage dump in Juárez. The Holy Spirit Center, near the dump, was the site in 1972 of what many call the Christmas miracle, when food prepared that day for 150 people served more than 300.

Fr. Rick needed help locating and drilling a well, and with a background in geology, John believed he could be of assistance.

“Our first four kids were all little, so we figured we either do it now or wait until later,” he says. The family moved to El Paso and, John recalls, “that kind of got us hooked.”

 

The Bergfords remained on the border for a year before returning to Olympia, where their family eventually grew to nine children. During those years, John worked and was an active volunteer at their parish, St. Michael’s, becoming a deacon. Leanne was engaged with a house full of kids, but also earned a master’s degree in education with additional studies in theology and spent time teaching and serving as the parish’s steward for faith formation.

“That’s called mission at home,” she jokes. It would be about 20 years before they returned to the border, “but we didn’t lose the connection,” says John.

In 1999, John began joining parish mission trips for teenagers to Tijuana. The experience of the other chaperones struck a chord with him. “What I witnessed was also the transformation of the parents,” he says, “and I thought, this shouldn’t just be for the young people.”
 
The following year, he and Leanne returned to El Paso and Juárez for what would be the first of many parish mission trips there—at least two per year, and sometimes three or four, lasting seven days. Close to 700 parishioners have taken part.

“There is a beautiful community of people who live in that colonia who serve their neighbors in so many different ways. And our privilege has been to bring people from middle-class America to be with and serve with people at the center,” says Leanne. “The center has had a tremendous effect for peace and justice in the neighborhood and in the lives of those who have experienced short-term mission immersion there.”

 

And what of that transformation that John saw during that long-ago trip to Tijuana? “I can see it in the people’s eyes when they go on trips, and they’re so excited about meeting people,” he says. “It’s holy ground there. It’s our eyes being open to it. That’s our journey. That’s the journey of the heart.”
Most of those folks remain engaged in the Olympia community once they return—doing what Leanne still calls “mission at home.” Whether it’s at a homeless shelter, soup kitchen, in detention ministry, or setting up a clothing bank, “many of those people started in mission abroad and then discovered that they’re called to continue the same work at home.”

Pat McCarty has joined the mission to El Paso/Juárez several times. He’s active at St. Michael’s when he isn’t traveling to the border. The trips have touched him deeply.

 

“It’s a very spiritual experience, both from the standpoint of the loving people that you encounter along the way, which includes the children at the Holy Spirit Center, but more so the people who volunteer there,” he says. “The heart that those people have for the kids is amazing.”

Because of the pandemic, the spring trip to El Paso/Juárez was cancelled, and just recently, the fall trip was, as well, but the Bergfords remain busy, missioning at home.

“God helps us to see God’s people everywhere, and we’re called to really live our baptismal promises in a vibrant, active way,” says Leanne. “And the impetus for that, the seeds for many people, have been planted in their mission experience.”

Born into Mission

 For Antoinette Mensah, mission isn’t just something she does. It’s what she was born into—quite literally. In 1962, when she was only five months old, she and her mother left Ghana to join her father, who was studying at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on a scholarship from the Society of African Missions (SMA).

The family settled in Milwaukee, where Antoinette’s father became a public-school teacher and a permanent deacon in the Church. Through the Office for World Mission, he eventually spent three years as an instructor at Pedu Seminary in the Diocese of Cape Coast, Ghana.

She has lived life with her feet in two worlds: much of her family lives in Ghana but she was raised in the United States. For the last seven years, Antoinette has been the director of World Mission Ministries: Office for World Mission/Society for the Propagation of Faith in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The office’s goal is to build greater compassion and solidarity through education; manage a sister parish in the Dominican Republic; coordinate immersion trips; promote life-long missioners; and support the archdiocese’s 35 parish twinning efforts in Chile, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, Uganda, and Venezuela, to name a few.

The missionary spirit of the Church was ever-present in Antoinette’s home as each summer her uncle, a Benedictine priest, would visit from Ghana to make mission appeals to support a monastery he had founded. These visits turned out to be an early introduction to what it means to be on mission, both in the States and beyond.

“The mission activity of the church, through the Missionary Cooperation Plan, was sitting in my house every summer for at least a couple of weeks,” Antoinette recalls, but at the time, it didn’t occur to her that she, too, would end up on mission. It was just something her family did. “I thought, Uncle Anthony is coming, he’ll spend some time here and then he and Papa will travel around the state on mission appeals.”

Before she began working for the archdiocese, Antoinette worked in diversity and inclusion and also spent about 11 years at the YMCA, where she managed the international partnerships between the YMCAs in Senegal and Ghana. During those years, her connection to her Ghanaian heritage was heightened within her professional life, although her parents made sure to keep it alive when she was growing up. Her focus on diversity and inclusion allowed her to “observe how people connected across cultures,” she says. “I marvel at the ways people can find to connect.”

Actively involved with her parish, St. Martin de Porres, and the larger archdiocesan community, Antoinette coordinated a pilgrimage to Ghana with her father through the Office for World Mission in 2000. She was amazed at the way that faith and spirituality were “part of the lived experience” of the Ghanaian people. People seemed to openly value their faith with an enthusiasm she’s seldom seen in Milwaukee.

“We would see people walking to church, and they weren’t just walking across the street,” Antoinette remembers. “They were dressed and walking miles. And they weren’t rushing out of church after. They enjoyed and were fully present throughout the Mass.”

She came to the realization that she was seeing how truly present God could be in the lives of the faithful. “Wow, God is alive here,” she recalls thinking. “Jesus is present in the midst of the people. It just permeated everything they did.”

Robert Heger is the board chair for the Office of World Mission Ministries and has known Antoinette since they worked together at the YMCA. He praises her commitment to mission.

“Antoinette understands the world palette in a way that I can’t begin to fathom, and she’s equally comfortable moving from one set of cultural norms to another,” he says. “She brings experience and passion for using mission as a tool to evangelize. I look at her and see someone who lives our faith.”

Earlier this year, the archdiocese hosted the annual Lenten Pilgrimage to La Sagrada Familia, its sister parish in the Dominican Republic. A second planned pilgrimage to Ghana for the fall has been cancelled due to the pandemic. For now, World Mission Ministries is preparing to launch Virtual Mission Encounters until travel is allowed again.

But whether working internationally or in Milwaukee, Antoinette sees her office’s primary responsibility as helping people understand their baptismal call to share the “Good News” of Jesus Christ.

“We accomplish this through accompaniment and realizing that mission isn’t so much about doing as it is about being,” she says, “and asking the question, what does it look like to be in authentic solidarity?”

For more information about Antoinette’s ministries or to access their online resources, please visit: World Mission Ministries Homepage: http://www.archmil.org/offices/world-mission.htm La Sagrada Familia Homepage: http://www.archmil.org/parishes/Sagrada-Familia.htm
 

 

From Tennessee to Ecuador and Back Again,
A Year on Mission

Going on Mission with the Holy Spirit, and a Good Heart

by Julie Bourbon

As a young man, Gregory Mitchell thought about becoming a Franciscan priest or joining a missionary order. But that wasn’t until after his conversion, which happened during a high school CYO trip to Saltillo, Mexico.
 
“Before that, I was kind of apathetic about my faith. I think I was going to be a good pagan at that age, but God caught me,” says Gregory, with a laugh.
 
He grew up in Mississippi and went to Catholic school, but says, “I was kind of a black sheep. It’s funny, because I’m the one who really got converted and became a missionary.”
 
Now 50, Gregory has spent much of his adult life on mission—in Africa, Myanmar, Costa Rica, and now in Los Angeles, where he has been raising money and supplies since the pandemic began to minister to the city’s large homeless population.
 
For 10 years he lived in Costa Rica and ran St. Bryce Missions, building nine chapels and doing medical outreach and evangelization to the Cabécar people, an indigenous tribe there. With his family, a priest, and other volunteers who came for weeks or months at a time, they established St. Francis Emmaus Center, a 7,000 square foot maternity hostel that opened in 2013 and serves more than 400 women and children each year.
 
While volunteer nurses and doulas provided care at the maternity hostel, Gregory and the other male volunteers would go into the jungle to evangelize, which included preparing members of the tribe for baptism and developing a catechism for the island’s indigenous men and women.
 
“My form of evangelism is humble and missiology based,” he says of those years in Costa Rica. “I didn’t try to change their culture. I believe Christ is there to uplift what’s good in their culture. It was quite humbling. I just did it mostly through naivete and a good heart and the Holy Spirit.”
 
Although Gregory didn’t typically assist at the maternity hostel, that doesn’t mean he never delivered a baby—or two, in fact! But more typically, he drove the ambulance, cooked, and prepared a lot of baby bottles. He feels it changed him and made him more deeply aware of the kind of man he aspired to be.
 
“I learned how to be very sensitive,” he says. “It may sound funny, but when you’ve got 10 pregnant women you’re cooking for, you get to see the sensitivities and struggles of what women go through.”
 
In 2018, St. Bryce Missions turned the maternity hostel over to the diocese and Gregory and his family returned to the United States. He took a year-long sabbatical, and then the pandemic began, curtailing his travel plans, which included missionary work in England and Myanmar, a place he’d already visited to prepare for mission.
 
For now, he’s in Los Angeles, working among the homeless—something he’d done in New Orleans at one time—as well as putting together a new missionary venture that includes using sacred art and theological presentations to evangelize to people in the developed world.
 
“There are the pagans in the jungle and the modern pagans in society who are agnostic,” Gregory says.
 
One of his partners in this new work is a philosophy professor, Melissa Beth, a Secular Carmelite.
 
Melissa was on a spiritual pilgrimage in India, discerning whether she was called to religious life, when she had a profound prayer experience that sent her in another direction.
 
“At the last minute, the Lord spoke to me and said I was being called to a new evangelization,” she says. “Then I met Greg and said, ‘this is what it’s all about.’”
 
The two, along with a third partner who is a sacred artist, had hoped to be evangelizing in England by now and still plan to get there, when travel restrictions are eased.
 
Meantime, Gregory does the work he sees that needs to be done. And for now, that includes bringing the compassion of Christ, as well as food and water, to men and women experiencing homelessness during the pandemic.
 
“While I’m here, I’ll look for the good I can do rather than just being idle,” he says. “The way I look at it, I’m a missionary. Wherever I go, I can have an apostolate and do something.”
 
 
For more information about St. Bryce Missions, visit https://www.stbryce.org/.
 

DOWNLOAD JULY 2020 NEWSLETTER

Special Edition: The Call to Mission During a Pandemic

The global COVID-19 pandemic brought many parts of the world to a standstill this first half of 2020. As hospitals have struggled to keep up with the crush of patients and governments fumbled their responses to provide adequate supplies, including PPE (personal protective equipment) for healthcare workers, more than 7 million people have been infected and more than 400,000 have died; that number continues to grow as of this writing.

Unsurprisingly, the poor and communities of color have borne a disproportionate share of the burden for the rest of us, both in the numbers of sick and dead, and in the numbers of those considered “essential” workers who had to continue to work, and thus to expose themselves more often to the ravages of the virus.

Places often considered “traditional” missionary spots—Africa, India, Latin America—are seeing explosions in the numbers of COVID-19 cases. Yet in this time—perhaps especially in this time—the work of mission continues, albeit in modified form.

We touched base with a few of the missionaries who have been profiled previously in the Encounter newsletter, to ask how they have continued to be mission for others during this unprecedented situation. They shared thoughtful reflections with us about the experience. We hope to share more with you in the future.
 

Diane Huggins
Featured in the September 2018 issue of Encounter for her work as a board member of the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA). When we wrote that story, she had visited Haiti 23 times.
 
I am involved with Our Lady of the Lake (OLOL) Catholic Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. I am the co-chair of OLOL’s mission for St. Bertin, our twin parish in Haiti. We continue to support St. Bertin financially, but we are sad that we have been unable to visit recently. We had a trip planned in January that had to be cancelled due to violence and political unrest. We had another trip planned this spring but were unable to go because of COVID-19 travel restrictions. 
 
Now the coronavirus has made its way to Haiti. Not only do they face the crisis of the pandemic, but they also face severe food insecurity. We are praying for our brothers and sisters that God will protect them and keep them safe. 
 

The initial training session conducted via conference call by a Caris physician in Haiti. Ten community volunteers received training so that they could then reach out and educate members of the St. Bertin community in Petit Bourg de Port Margot.
 


During this stay-at-home time, I have been working with the PTPA as part of a consortium focused on providing training and education on preventing the spread of COVID-19 to people in rural Haitian villages. It is called Haiti-CPR (COVID-19 Preventative Response). A group of people at St. Bertin just received the training and will now spread the word in the community about the importance of social distancing and other protective measures.  
 
I am glad that I have been able to do a least a little something for the people of St. Bertin during this unprecedented, uncertain time. We are praying for one another and staying close in touch.
 
Note: The Haiti CPR program was organized by a consortium of organizations, including Raising Haiti Foundation (RHF), Smallholder Farmers Alliance (SFA), Caris Foundation and Parish Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA). RHF and SFA organized the project and PTPA connected U.S. and Haiti twin parishes to get them involved in the program. 
 
 
Gabe Hurrish
Featured in the August 2019 issue of Encounter for his work as a Maryknoll Lay Missioner for Solidarity with South Sudan. We reached him recently via email.

1 Peter 5:6–7 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.’

It was surprising that South Sudan did not record its first confirmed case of COVID-19 until April 5. The government had wisely taken preemptive measures to stop all international flights in and out of Juba very early on and also increased vigilance at border crossings. This was good, since the health system of this country is so fragile, and the people are at high risk. 

Through an unrelated occasion, I had been invited by Emeritus Bishop Paride Taban to spend Holy Week in retreat at his Kuron Peace Village in the far eastern region of South Sudan. Shortly after I arrived, the central government locked down the entire country and now no internal travel was allowed, either. I was suddenly and unexpectedly confined in this very remote and isolated area of the mostly traditional Toposa people. Although there is internet, there is no cell phone coverage, power comes from solar panels, meals are simple beans and rice, and life takes on an even and calm pace.

It is quite a change from living and working in the capital, Juba, to now living in the Holy Trinity Peace Village in Kuron, 150 miles from the nearest town. In Juba, I was doing mostly administrative work and seldom had time for any leisure. Work was hectic, demanding, and ever present.  

Now, by a quirk of Divine intercession, I find myself in a very rural and traditional African culture. For the really the first time since I arrived in South Sudan some two and a half years ago, I have time to reflect and meditate on my life. With fewer distractions and demands, I am able to calm my inner being. I can listen to the voice of God deep in my soul. I can contemplate how My Lord is using me for His Kingdom. 

My spirit has been revitalized as I walk for hours around the area greeting the Toposa with the few words that I have learned. This culture is interesting in that they have resisted the arrival of Western ideas and ways. They are pastoralists who prefer the way of life they have been blessed with. They are a proud and tough people who are very comfortable in their traditions.  


Bishop Paride has built up his vision since 1991 for a village that works with the people in this forgotten corner of South Sudan. The Peace Village project is quite impressive and has schools, a health clinic, peace initiatives, agriculture, vocational training, and pastoral care for the Toposa people. The project is very involved in peace and justice issues, for instance arbitrating in local conflicts to resolve sensitive issues.

There are now six confirmed cases in South Sudan [as of early June, there were nearly 1,700 cases]. At the moment, people in the Kuron area don’t feel the excitement of the worldwide pandemic. They are focused on daily survival. However, the last confirmed case in South Sudan seems to be from a town located in the eastern regions. The government has declared special lockdown measures in the entire eastern states. It might not be too long before COVID-19 works its way to even this most isolated of villages. In the meantime, it seems I will be in Kuron Peace Village for some time to come.

I came here for what I thought would be one week of renewal of my spirit. God has decided that more time is needed to open my heart. I have always found the movements of the Spirit to be enigmatic and hidden. Why I find myself in this situation is a mystery.    

Psalm 27:14. “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

I thank God that I have this opportunity to spend time with the good people of the Toposa lands. 
 

Jeffrey and Sharon Newell
Featured in the October 2019 issue of Encounter for their missionary work in Haiti. Their parish, Immaculate Conception in Lafayette, Indiana, is a member of the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA).
 
Typically, over the last 20 years, we have visited Haiti right after Christmas. With the unrest they had last year, it wasn’t safe enough to go. We had decided to send a smaller group in the middle of March for the Feast of St. Joseph, since our church is St. Joseph. That trip was cancelled, which in a way was fortunate, because if we had left on March 16 as planned, we would have gotten there but wouldn’t have been able to get out because the airport was subsequently shut down.

We’ve sent money. Obviously, a huge need right now is food—Haiti didn’t have good weather year last year for crops. The PTPA is putting together a COVID-19 educational program, getting materials in the hands of priests. There is a lot of misunderstanding about what it is and isn’t dangerous and about what to do to protect yourself. Most people have scarves, not face masks. They lack sanitizer, but they have soap. The nurse in the clinic there is doing a very good job. People were afraid they would get the virus if they took their babies for regular shots, but the nurse is allaying their fears and educating them.
 
The nurse has a 6-year-old child who is staying with her mother while she works for several weeks at a time. I told her if I had to do that, I wouldn’t be able to do it very long. Her answer was this is where I’m needed, this is what I’m supposed to do. She has a great outlook.
 
The priest also does a fabulous job of monitoring money and staying on top of things. We still have other projects we’re helping them do. About two years ago, there was an earthquake on the northern coast of Haiti that did a lot of damage. The rebuilding and repairing is ongoing. They’ve been having small Masses, with only 10 people, and the priest in Pondu visits six chapels. He does a lot of hiking!
 
We have often traveled outside of the country in the last number of years. I’m not sure when we’ll feel comfortable doing that again. Not sure when we’ll be comfortable traveling inside the country again.
 
 
Taylor and Katie Schmidt 
Featured in the November 2019 issue of Encounter for their work with Servants of the Good Help in Perú, where they live with their seven children.
 
It has been hard for the children to get adjusted to not going out to evangelize or teach. Thankfully, they are used to rolling with change and have adapted to working on the mission land during this time. 
 
We had coffee harvest and now we are planting 350 trees as a reforestation effort. We have also planted potatoes, onions and yuca. We are getting ready to plant vegetables next week in anticipation of the upcoming rains. Our plan was to open a soup kitchen this year to feed children and families in need, but the virus put a stop to that. Now, we are taking this opportunity to plant all of the vegetables we will need when we are finally able to open the soup kitchen. 

We also purchased two dairy cows because we were no longer able to get milk, butter or cheese. We are currently milking one cow while waiting for the other to calve. Once we can milk both, we will be able to give milk to the families with young children who no longer have government assistance. 
 
As of this writing, it is day 94 of our quarantine, which is scheduled to be complete at the end of June. In all honesty, though, the quarantine should be extended again because the hospital system has collapsed. I fear that if they lift the quarantine, we will end up like Brazil. We are not far off. 
 
Our local healthcare system has completely collapsed. Both state-run clinics are closed and not seeing patients. The only exception is for deliveries. One clinic is an hour away and the other is an hour and a half away. Our desire was to ask for financial support in the United States and in Spain this year to fund a private clinic. After this experience, it reaffirms our call to do just that.  
 
We have purchased infrared thermometers and are working to educate people on the disease. We are also looking for oxygen tanks for emergency transport but have been unable to find any. One oxygen tank supports one person for 24 hours. Unfortunately, there are no oxygen plants in our district, which makes it very difficult to fill the tanks when empty. It can take 50 days to refill an empty tank. This is one reason so many people are dying—because there is not enough oxygen for them. Another reason is families can’t afford to buy oxygen when it is available. Tanks are selling for $2,000 and cost from $200 to $1,000 to refill. We do not even have enough money set aside in our medical needs to pay for one. People are watching family members die because of the greed of others.
 
We are in a sad state right now. Please pray for us and for the people we love. 

DOWNLOAD JUNE 2020 SPECIAL EDITION NEWSLETTER

On Mission to Support the Children of Honduras

by Julie Bourbon

You’re never too old for mission. And if you don’t believe that, ask the members of the St. Matthew Catholic Church Mission Group in San Antonio, Texas. Many of the two dozen or so members are in their 50s and older, including some retirees. But age hasn’t dimmed their commitment or enthusiasm to acting on their faith and Gospel values.
 
The group was formed in 1997 and first ministered to Zapotec Indians and a children’s home in Oaxaca, Mexico. In 1998, after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America, killing more than 7,000 people in Honduras alone, the Archdiocese of San Antonio invited the mission group to travel there to aid survivors.
 
In Tegucigalpa, they met the sisters who run Casa de Niño, an orphanage for girls. The structure had survived the hurricane but was in serious need of repair.
 
“At that time, we were able to raise money to fix the roof and do some construction,” said Chris Rios, a retired nurse who wanted to join the Peace Corps in her youth. She and her husband Roberto, now a deacon at the parish, found they had the time to volunteer with the mission group once their children were grown. They made their first trip to Honduras in 2001.
 
The mission group provides ongoing financial support to Casa de Niño, speaking on the phone with the sisters several times each month and wiring money from parish donations for food and medicine.
 
“So far, the girls are doing very well. They’re getting an education, getting the sacraments, they’re well-nourished,” said Chris. “We support them financially but also spiritually and emotionally. We call them our girls, or our children. They call us the grandmothers.”
 
She added, “We’re helping to bring the love of Christ to them and letting them know how much God loves them. I would say that is what mission is about.”
 
The mission group also provides financial support to Casa Esperanza in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, across the border from Del Rio, Texas, and members visit several times each year to play with the children and offer religious activities.
 
Mary Baird has belonged to the group for about three years. She and her husband Raymond, also a member, joined St. Matthew’s parish—where one of their sons sings in the choir, which they’ve since joined—after years of moving about for his military career. Mary has taught CCD and adult education and been a DRE, and the couple has taken part in Marriage Encounter.
 
At the time the Bairds joined, the mission group had been sponsoring pilgrimages to Rome and the Holy Land as well as fundraising cruises. The group’s focus has shifted since to incorporate praying the rosary, days of reflection, local trips to religious shrines and guest speakers at meetings, as well as supporting the orphanage and other communities. Mary is currently the president.
 
The group raises money for people living in the colonias on both sides of the border in Piedras Negras, Mexico, and Eagle Pass, Texas. Members collect clothing, household goods, non-perishable food items, school supplies, medical supplies and equipment, toys and other items. Typically, they would deliver these supplies monthly, but those trips have been put on hold because of the pandemic.
 
The mission group also supports activities for the local Burmese community, which has about 200 families in St. Matthew’s parish. Deacon Roberto has assisted them with Sunday liturgies, weddings, First Communions and special Masses with visiting Burmese priests over the years. 
 
Mary, who has been missing singing in the choir during quarantine, said she prays for the children and the sisters in Honduras, especially now.
 
 “We support the mission with our prayers, our involvement, our engagement with people on the front lines,” she said. “Mission means going out, being involved.”
 
The mission group remains in close contact with the sisters in Honduras during the pandemic, although the annual visit this spring was cancelled.
 
“We haven’t had any word that anyone has gotten the virus so far,” said Chris. “The girls haven’t been going out at all, and the sisters only leave to get groceries. Thank God everybody is still well.”
 
The mission group is holding its meetings via zoom right now and plans to restart fundraising efforts as soon as it is able, said Chris. “We trust in God and wait to see what the ‘new normal’ will be after the pandemic.”
 
 
For more information, visit https://stmatts.org/social-service-outreach. 

DOWNLOAD MAY 2020 NEWSLETTER

 

On a Mission to Care for the Smile, and the Soul
by Julie Bourbon

Deciding what to do with the four weeks of annual leave Susana Scarlet Sandoval earns in her job as a dental assistant hasn’t been a problem since 2016. That’s when she founded Healthy Teeth Journey of Hope and dedicated herself to providing dental care to the poor in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and her home country of Guatemala.
 
Becoming a regular missionary was the furthest thing from her mind when she went on a trip with Helping Hands Medical Missions about a dozen years ago. She didn’t learn until they’d arrived in Guatemala that they didn’t also provide dental services.
 
“I realized that the medical is wonderful, but a lot of people were asking do we have any dentists there?” she recalled. She hadn’t brought any of her tools with her and couldn’t give the additional care that the people needed. It started her thinking about how she could use her skills and talents, as well as her deep Catholic faith, to give back some of the good fortune she’s experienced since coming to the United States half a lifetime ago.
 
The following year, Scarlet joined them again, but this time with her dental equipment. As a dental assistant, she’s able to provide cleanings and instructions about good dental hygiene but can’t do extractions. For that, she needed a dentist, so she brought one with her the next time. And she noticed something.
 
“A lot of the people also come for spiritual health. So I decided to pray with them during the missions, and I discovered they feel better after we pray,” she said. They asked her for rosaries and holy cards, but she didn’t have any. “I said when I come back next year, I will bring those things. I became inspired to do posters with pictures of the Blessed Mother, the Holy Family and the Lord. And I brought a Bible.”
 
After that, Scarlet decided to try a mission of her own. She began small, just herself, providing dental cleanings at orphanages and little villages. Friends made donations, and two churches near her home in Virginia began to do the same.
 
At the same time, Scarlet became friendly with a patient at the dental office where she works, and she helped Scarlet fill out the paperwork to become a recognized charity. The money she receives from donors covers the cost of her airline tickets and supplies. Sometimes she brings eyeglasses, as well, for adults who need corrective eyewear, and shoes for children in the orphanages she visits.
 
Each mission lasts one week, and she goes four times every year. She enlists the aid of a local dentist in each of the communities and engages in prayer and worship with the people she serves.
 
“It’s very hard for me to explain, but I love the poor. I always feel so attached to the poor, especially the children,” Scarlet said. “I feel like if I’m still healthy and I can do these missions, I want to help. Because I feel like they are a part of my life.”
 
Before she came to the United States, Scarlet was a nurse. Thinking it would be easy to transfer those skills to a job in the U.S., she followed her now ex-husband far from the only home she’d ever known. The reality, she soon understood, was quite different. She’d have to learn English first, and then take two more years of classes to become certified.
 
“I was very sad, because if I knew, I would never have come here,” she said.

And then she got a toothache, which led her to the dental practice of Drs. Joe Cusumano and David Stuver. She became a regular patient, and then the nanny to Dr. Cusumano’s children. Six months later, he urged her to study to become a dental assistant. She’s now worked for them for 20 years, and hopes to be joined by Dr. Stuver, who serves on her board, this coming fall on a mission to a new site in Tijuana.
 
One of the hygienists from their office has already gone on a mission trip with Scarlet, as has that hygienist’s sister, who is a nurse. Her Easter trip to Peru has been indefinitely postponed, to her disappointment, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
 
“She’s a special person. Avery giving person,” said David. “She’s a true believer in helping others and has said she was given a gift herself, coming to this country from Guatemala, not speaking English, and having no job. It’s now grown to beyond just dental care, to vision and shoes. And she spreads the message of Christ. It’s really great.”
 
For Scarlet, who has one adult son who also lives in the U.S., it’s all a matter of figuring out what you’re meant to do with what you’ve been given.
 
“I think the Lord has a purpose for me,” she said. “I truly believe that.”
 
Visit https://www.healthyteethjoh.com/ for more information about Healthy Teeth Journey of Hope.
 
 
DOWNLOAD APRIL 2020 NEWSLETTER

Doing the Work of God's Hand in Uganda
by Julie Bourbon

It’s been nearly two decades since Pam Kossan visited the site where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to pilgrims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her mother had a great devotion to Mary, which she passed along to her daughter. But still, it wasn’t until she’d been to see for herself that Pam really understood it.
 
“When I went to Medjugorje for the first time, I was a two-times-a-year Catholic,” she says, reflecting on the powerful conversion she experienced there in 2003. How things have changed in the years since.
 
“I always have a rosary in my purse, even then I did. And I always loved my Catholic faith. There was a time when I practiced, but not like I should have,” says Pam. “Medjugorje brought me back. It gave me my faith back and gave me such a pure and beautiful understanding, and that’s where I am today.”
 
Today, she’s the founder, along with her husband Jon, of Mary Mission, which has been providing for ultra-poor children and families in Uganda since they first visited on mission, in 2014. Since then, they’ve built four homes, two bathrooms, 14 classrooms, a latrine, and a kitchen in the village of Lwabikere. This year, 425 children will attend St. Philomena’s Nursery and Primary School, which the Kossans and other missioners helped build.
 
A trauma nurse from Bismarck, North Dakota, Pam also owns, with Jon, a small construction company, which has come in handy when it comes to having the skills necessary for building in Uganda. But more than that, they have faith, and they have been surrounded (literally and virtually) by generous, faithful people who believe in what they’re doing and have supported them with money, sweat, and prayer.
 
“I had never thought of going to Africa,” says Pam, who was retired from nursing and enjoying being a grandmother. But she could never forget the woman she met on her first visit: Maurice, who was living in a mud hut with 11 orphans. Pam recalls the children she saw playing in the mud while she and her guide, Stephen, who aspired to build a school for his village, were walking. She thought they were pretending to make what she called “mud pies.”
 
They were not.
 
“Stephen said to me, ‘They’re making cookies out of mud, so when they have hunger pains tonight, they have something to eat,’” Pam recalls, choking up. “And as a mother, a grandmother, and a nurse, I could not believe what he had just said to me.”
 
She promised Maurice and the children that she would return and build them a proper house. And she did exactly that, in less than one year, which is only part of the miracle. Upon returning to the U.S. from that first visit, Pam was offered a lucrative job traveling the region to work in understaffed hospitals in need of a trauma nurse. When she did the math and realized that the income from a mere eight shifts would allow her to fulfill her promise to Maurice in Uganda, Pam promptly came out of retirement and has never looked back.
 
“She’s just a little spark plug, but you talk about a go getter,” says Dave Wayman who, with his wife Kathy, has joined Mary Mission on several trips to Uganda, where he laughingly describes his role as “grunt,” doing whatever labor needs to be done. Dave now serves on the board of the nonprofit.
 
“She has just such compassion and love for other people,” he says, even using their own retirement money to keep promises made to their friends in Uganda when fundraising efforts have fallen short. 
 
The size of the mission group has grown each year and now includes a handful of medical professionals who provide basic care, such as first aid, deworming of children (1,200 in one visit), mouthcare, menstrual teaching, and prenatal examinations for pregnant women. Pam hopes they might one day be able to build and staff a clinic to provide year-round care, not just once-a-year care when the missioners come.
 
When she’s not in Uganda, Pam does fundraising for future mission trips and awareness-building of the needs of the people there. She’s also very happily still working as a traveling nurse. It pays their bills and helps to provide for their friends in Africa, and whenever they run a little short, something always happens to get them over the top.
 
“We are just vessels that I believe Jesus and Mary are using to help these children in Uganda. I really believe that,” says Pam, reflecting on all they’ve been able to accomplish in just under six years, through faith, prayer, and hard work. “How can the work we do not be of God’s hand?”
 
To learn more about Mary Mission or practice almsgiving this Lent by donating to their cause in Uganda, visit their website: https://marymission.com/

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Letting God Do the Talking in Cameroon
by Julie Bourbon
 

Grace Gonzales was married with three small children when she saw a flyer at work promoting a nursing program. At 30, she was working as a secretary at the Los Angeles County Hospital and thought she was “too old” to go back to school. But she applied anyway and was accepted. Little did she know that this decision would ultimately take her from L.A. to Honduras and Cameroon, where she taught nursing students and modeled a Christian life through her engagement with her students.
 
“I was crazy,” she says now, nearly 50 years later, of enrolling in school when she had so many responsibilities at home. “But back then, you could do anything!” She got her RN and started working day shifts at the maternity hospital next to her children’s school, then moved to another hospital’s neo-natal intensive care unit, where she worked for 19 years.
 
Once her children were grown, Grace found herself looking for another challenge. That’s when she learned about the Lay Mission-Helpers. Begun in 1954 in Los Angeles, the group was founded to help meet the needs of men and women religious serving in Africa who were lacking in some of the necessary skills — ranging from mechanics to medicine — to run their ministries.
 
“We were learning how to be a missionary, the formation of your church, your religion, how to be in touch with the church,” she recalled of the four-month orientation program before she was missioned to Africa in 2000. “They said, ‘Do you know anything about Cameroon?’ Before I knew it, there I was!”
 
Grace and two other missionaries, a husband and wife medical team, departed for Shisong, a village in the English-speaking part of Cameroon, where they would teach in a three-year RN program, a one-year licensed vocational nursing program, and a six-month nursing assistant program.
 
The country needed nurses, and getting a degree or certificate was a sure route to a job in a hospital or clinic.
 
“They were 50 years behind the times, medically, and I was trying to get them at least up to date on some things,” said Grace, who recalled that they had no IV drips, no electric machinery, not even working incubators for babies, because the electricity was too unreliable. “We found incubators and put hot water bottles in there to keep the babies warm. You did what you had to do.”
 
Although she hosted Bible study at her house once or twice a month, Grace didn’t feel that her primary call was to actively proselytize to her students. 
 
“I didn’t go around saying I was Catholic, I was Christian. I just taught my students. I was more a nurse than a preacher. I just thought nursing would take care of the preaching,” she said. “All I could say every day was okay God, I'll be here, but you do the talking.”
 
She recalled a story about one of the local teachers at her school whose wife was being discharged from another hospital for lack of funds. He desperately wanted to take her home to their children, in the mountains, but the only way to get there was on the bus, which wasn’t an option for such a sick woman. Grace had the community car that week and offered to drive them.
 
“Her husband was holding the IV bag, and up we went. We got her home and their families were so excited that she was there with them,” she said. “And two days later I saw him and asked how did she do, and she died that night. But she was with her family and that’s what she wanted.”
 
She pauses for a moment, then said, “So when you ask me what have I done as a Christian, I think doing those kind of things is what I have done.”
 
Cathy Medina and her husband Ed were with Grace in Cameroon for the whole four years. The Medina’s three children were young at the time — all under the age of 8 — and they reminded Grace of her grandchildren, whom she missed terribly.
 
“She was like a grandma to them” said Cathy, reflecting on their time together and the power of a child’s simplicity to touch hearts. “I felt really that our kids did more evangelizing than we did. People responded to them. It was a blessing to Grace, too, because it helped integrate us more into the community.”
 
The couple still see Grace a few times a year, and even found out that Ed and Grace are distantly related, through cousins in Taos, New Mexico.
 
“Talk about a small world,” Cathy said with a laugh. “Going to Africa to find your cousins!”


To learn more about the Lay Mission-Helpers, visit their website at http://www.laymissionhelpers.org/
 
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A Heart to Serve on Mission
by Julie Bourbon

For Phillip and Lacy Brupbacher, mission is truly a family affair. The couple and their six children — the youngest of whom was born while they were on mission in Costa Rica — have just completed their third year with the Family Missions Company. They are living out their Gospel call to bring the Word and the ministry of presence to places far from the places they once called home.
 
“My wife and I felt five years ago that God was calling us deeper into our faith, deeper into serving him and others,” said Phil, who is back home in Louisiana with his family for a few months, visiting grandparents and other relations, and reconnecting with their sponsors and benefactors. “So when we kind of abandoned our American dream, so to speak, we knew there’d be many challenges but many beautiful fruits, and we feel that God has provided both of those things and opportunities for us to grow deeper and to serve more.”
 
The last year has been spent in a majority Muslim country in Southeast Asia, which the family has asked us not to name because missionaries are not accepted there. They’ve been working with their local bishop and the small Catholic population in their community, which Phil describes as “very alive and vibrant and faithful.”
 
While being the only missionaries in country has had its challenges, it has also been a time of great spiritual growth for the couple and their children. They are involved with a number of basic ecclesial communities (BECs) in the region and meet with fellow Catholics in their homes, where they share their testimony of how God invited them to mission.
 
Lacy teaches catechism at the local parish, and the whole family pays weekly visits to the patients in an AIDS home, for people in the final stages of the disease. There, they pray with the patients, sing songs, and play games, and their children — who range in age from 2 to 11 — make cards and cookies.
 
“There’s definitely a ministry of presence that our children bring,” Phil said, with the affection of a proud papa. “They tend to have the ability to soften hearts and break down barriers in a way we can’t.”
 
Their ministry is quite different from what it was in Costa Rica, where they could freely practice their faith and bring it to those who had never been exposed to the Gospel. There were about 500 people in that small rural town; the couple did marriage prep and RCIA, and once a week held a dinner for the entire community.
 
Their children served the meal, Phil said, and then, “We would break open Sunday’s gospel and give a brief reflection, then invite them to mass.”
 
Although they’re not able to make such public witness where they are now, it’s still exactly where they want to be.
 
“My wife and I have a heart to serve in Asia, amongst the unreached,” he said. “Our goal is to enculturate and learn the culture where we are, to become to the best of our ability one of them and serve beside the people there.”
 
Family Missions Company chooses the assignment for the first year of an initial two-year commitment, but then those on mission can choose where they want to go after that. The company’s model is unusual in that they send whole families out on mission, and the families do the fundraising to support their mission work themselves. Travel costs, in particular, can be significant for a big family.
 
The families on mission live as the people they’re serving live, embracing Gospel poverty and simplicity.
 
“We try not to transport our American way of life,” said Kevin Granger, Family Missions Company executive director. “If they have dirt floors, we have dirt floors.”
 
Kevin and his wife Sarah, who is the daughter of the company’s founders, spent years on mission themselves before moving into administration at headquarters, in Abbeville, Louisiana.
 
He and Phil have been friends since college, and even then, says Kevin, “He was really seeking the Lord in radical ways.” Phil was in seminary for a time, then led a men’s reflection group on fishing trips where he would invite speakers to address the group. Kevin was the speaker on one of those trips. They had coffee afterward, and Phil and Lacy decided in 2016 that they wanted to take their family on mission.
 
The two men have been catching up with one another during the Brupbacher’s sojourn back in Louisiana, but Kevin can tell they won’t be staying longer than they have to. The call of mission is too strong for them, he said.
 
“They both have an exceptional joy and excitement. There’s a freshness to mission life for them. It’s inspiring to me, because sometimes I have to pray for that myself,” he said and laughed. “Staying close to the Lord is what keeps that vocation alive.”
 
For more information, visit familymissionscompany.com.   

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Going Beyond Mission
by Julie Bourbon

Tim Shelgren had already raised three children when he embarked on life as a lay missioner in Jamaica for Franciscan Mission Service in 2017. Soft-spoken, with a style he describes as “pretty gentle and nurturing—it’s not real disciplinary,” he was put into a classroom of 18 third graders. The rambunctious ones.
 
“It was an experiment to put all the lively boys together for one year and see what we can do,” Tim said by telephone from Kingston. “So they just threw me in with this class.”
 
While his initial assignment was to assist the teacher and maintain order in the classroom, it quickly became apparent to Tim that there was another, more immediate need. At least six of the boys couldn’t read at all. Once Tim realized that, he began to see their behavior in a completely different light.
 
“What I learned is if a child can’t read, then, like an adult, they’re going to be bored and not participating,” he said. And just like that, instead of being a teacher’s aide, Tim found himself taking a handful of students out of the classroom to give them individual, concentrated attention to develop their reading and language skills. “It’s turned into a reading program, one kid at a time. And that has really worked.”
 
Until he moved to Jamaica, Tim’s life was not a mission life. At least not formally, anyway. A yoga instructor and massage therapist, Tim, now 58, sold everything he owned a few years ago and began driving a camper around the country, settling in Arizona. The experience was enlightening in a way he could not have predicted before setting out.
 
“I didn’t know this before I left on my adventure, but a lot of people live in campers. A lot of our American poor live that way,” he said. “That was my introduction to the poor, so I took an interest in it and started studying St. Francis.”
 
The experience set him on a different path—a mission path.
 
“I found myself working with the underprivileged and living on the margins, and I became fascinated with that. Between my study of St. Francis and Pope Francis, I just thought, I want to do this with others who are doing it,” he said. “I wondered what’s out there in the world for people like me who want to behave and live in a way like they do.”
 
So Tim headed back East and ended up living near State College, Pennsylvania. There, he worked at a boys home with teenagers whose alternative to group housing was juvenile detention, becoming a second parent to young people who didn’t have any.
 
It was then that Tim began to think of his undergraduate days at St. Bonaventure University, and of the friars there. He was too old to be considered for the seminary, but not too old to work as a lay missioner. And, as he likes to point out, because of the years of yoga, he can still do handstands like he could as a much younger man.
 
But it was more than a question of age or physical preparedness that made a missionary life a natural choice for Tim.
 
“One of the main reasons I did this is, as a spiritual person, I wanted to figure out how to take my spiritual consciousness up a level or two or three” he said. “I stepped out of my culture, away from my country. Jesus says, ‘lay down your nets and follow me.’ I went into FMS with that intent, I’m going to lay down my net and follow you.”
 
One of his sons, Troy, visited Tim in Jamaica and isn’t at all surprised at this new path his father is on. “He had already been living alternatively for some years and was looking for a way to live his spirituality in the most literal possible sense,” Troy said. “After being exposed to the deep financial dichotomy that defines Jamaica‘s social landscape, his awareness and convictions about social problems, values, and action have taken on new dimensions." 
 
In other words, for Tim, there’s no going back. Although his two years in Jamaica will be ending soon, and he’s not sure what lies ahead—other than seeing his grandchildren more often—he knows it will be a simpler, more committed lifestyle than American culture typically encourages.
 
“I’m hoping to be creative and use whatever work I can create or find in an area of service, so there’s no difference between my life, my work and my vocation,” he said. “To be on a two-year mission overseas sets you up to be on a rest-of-your-life mission at home.”

DOWNLOAD DECEMBER 2019 NEWSLETTER
 

Trying to Keep Up with the Lord
by Julie Bourbon

Seeking God’s little ones is the primary mission of the Schmidt family, founders of the Servants of the Good Help. For nearly five years, Katie and Taylor and their seven children have been bringing the Word to communities in the region of Picota, San Martin, Peru (in the missionary prelature of Moyobamba) that have been left behind by the Catholic Church.
 
The region was in the grips of drug cartels until the early 1990s, and as recently as 15 years ago, Katie said, there was no priest in the region—the Church wasn’t let in.
 
“The Church is very new here. We have come as a family to go out to the lost, the unknown and the abandoned, in search of them, to bring the Gospel to them,” said Katie recently by telephone from Peru, where her children could be heard playing and singing in the background.
 
Their efforts are largely focused on evangelization—even the kids teach the local children—including confirmation classes, marriage retreat and preparation, and formation of local church leaders.
 
“When we came in, the people were rightfully angry because they hadn’t had the sacraments or the Word of God for 30-plus years,” said Katie. So the family’s first task was to apologize to the people they came to serve, a key step in their relationship building.
 
“Just the words ‘I’m sorry’ bring a response of ‘thank you for hearing me, thank you for acknowledging that I was hurt, I was abandoned,’” she said. “The openness after hearing that is just phenomenal. The people are so open to receiving the Word. Now we are working towards renewing their faith, if they had a faith before, and being open to working with priests.”
 
Originally missionaries with another organization, the Schmidts founded Servants of the Good Help about 18 months ago. They work with fellow missionary priests from Cordova, Spain and sisters from Paraguay in a true melding of cultures.
 
“We felt the Lord calling us to take on the mission to go out to the wild country to teach God’s little ones what is necessary for salvation,” said Katie, as she explained how she and her husband came to found the missionary order. “We go out to communities that have never been in contact with a representative of the church before and help start Catholic communities there.”
 
In addition to evangelization, the Schmidts also work to educate locals about the ways that the Amazon region has fallen prey to deforestation and other environmental threats. One of the Schmidts’ projects focuses on providing access to clean drinking water through the collection of rainwater, which cuts down on the amount of time residents spend walking to the river and boiling water, as well as reduces the risk of contracting water-borne parasites.
 
Another project concerns the San Martin Titi Monkey, which is critically endangered due to environmental destruction and hunting for meat.
 
“We’ve found that we need to teach by doing,” said Katie, noting that the family has purchased some land that they are committing to reforesting, by planting five trees for each one they need to cut down to build with. They plan to build a mission center with a dormitory that can receive as many as 40 people, as well as a small chapel and a visitor center.

They’re also building a small house for themselves up in the mountains, to make their hiking journeys from pueblo to pueblo easier.
 
Curt Skaletski is a member of the Schmidt’s home parish, Holy Family, back in Brillion, Wisconsin. He’s a big supporter of their mission work and has visited them in Peru four times along with other parishioners on a 14-day mission trip every February.
 
An engineer by profession, Skaletski has helped with water sanitation projects and has worked on the construction of several chapels. Like the Schmidts, his purpose on the mission trips is part labor, part evangelization.
 
“You evangelize as you go,” he said. “It’s fun to take part in their culture. It’s an awesome culture, and a beautiful language.”
 
Curt wasn’t surprised that Katie and Taylor became missionaries, and said his response when he heard the news was, “we’re coming, we’re going to help.”
 
He’s not sure they’ll ever come back. Katie said they’re leaving that up to God.
 
‘We’re just following where the Lord is leading us, and where Our Lady of Good Help is pushing us,” she said. “We’re just trying to keep up.”
 
To follow the Schmidts on their missionary work in Peru, visit http://www.schmidtfamilymission.com/ and https://www.thegoodhelp.com/.
 


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The Call Is the Journey
by Julie Bourbon

Jhoanna “Jao” Resari was looking for a job after graduating from college in Manila, in her home country of the Philippines.
 
“Something meaningful,” she said. “Not just any job.” She prayed for clear direction because, she said, she didn’t know what direction she was going in.
 
“By coincidence or maybe divine providence, I went to a church where they were promoting lay missionaries,” she recalled, but was told she needed three years of work experience before she would be considered for a missionary program.
 
Disappointed but undaunted, she found work as a graphic artist and continued to volunteer in her spare time. Feeling that perhaps she was being drawn to become a religious sister, Resari inquired with the Carmelite missionaries and went on a retreat, but that didn’t seem to be the path for her, either.
 
“It was a commitment I was not ready for at the time,” she said.
 
Three years passed and Resari inquired again about missionary work. This time, she was accepted and in 2005 was sent to Taiwan along with four others to become Columban Lay Missionaries.
 
“When you go on mission, it feels like you’re very much unqualified; still, you go where God is leading you,” she said with disarming frankness about beginning her new life. Again, she prayed for direction and found that working with those suffering from or affected by HIV/AIDS was calling her. “It's a very difficult ministry for a beginner,” Resari admitted in retrospect.
 
She spent the next six years working with experts in local HIV/AIDS shelters—caring for patients, visiting them in prisons and hospitals, and ensuring that the children who were left behind when their parents became sick or imprisoned found homes through adoption.
 
“After that, after having lived with and gotten to know the reality of people affected by HIV/AIDS—as well as the discrimination, poverty, drug addiction, especially its impact on children and families—I felt like I needed to do something more,” Resari said.
 
So she moved to the Hsinchu Diocese, where Bishop John Lee was very supportive of her desire to continue this ministry. There, in 2011, the diocese opened an office that focuses on education and outreach on HIV awareness, the Agape Centre for HIV Education and Outreach Ministry, the first and only diocesan center in Taiwan for this ministry.
 
Three years later, Resari was elected as a member of the leadership team for the Columban Lay Missionaries throughout the world, located in Hong Kong. There, she also continues to engage in part-time HIV/AIDS ministry.
 
“Throughout her nine years in Taiwan, Jao helped to slowly break down people’s prejudice towards people living with HIV and AIDS,” said Columban Father Peter O’Neill, who worked with Resari in Taiwan for about nine years. “Her deep faith in a God who has a preferential option for the poor inspires her to live in solidarity with the marginalized and to see the face of Christ in every person living with HIV and AIDS.”
 
Resari explained that Columban Lay Missionaries work in cross-cultural mission and respond to the needs of the local church in the country to which they are sent. Missionaries sign on for three-year agreements; after two such agreements, they can continue for a three- to six-year agreement with the Missionary Society of St Columban.
 
Their ministries include works promoting and advocating for justice, peace, care for the environment and interfaith dialogue; work with the marginalized, poor, indigenous, migrants, and refugees, and victims of human trafficking; prison ministries; pastoral work in parishes; building up Christian communities; and programs for women and youth. Currently, there are 44 Columban Lay Missionaries around the world in 11 countries: the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, on the U.S.-Mexico border, Pakistan, Myanmar, Ireland, Britain, Fiji, and Hong Kong.
 
For the last year, Resari has been on sabbatical, studying in a program for pastoral studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and just recently beginning the Hesburgh Sabbatical Program there.
 
“I’ve learned a lot from meeting and journeying with people while on mission,” she said. “I see how, regardless of our many differences—be it in faith, culture, race, or circumstance—God is present in each of us.”
 
What’s next for Resari? Whatever it is, it will be defined by mission.
 
“When I arrived in Taiwan, what I discovered was that saying yes to the call meant embarking on this journey in faith,” Resari said. “It was taking me out of my own boundaries to respond to God’s mission, wherever that may lead.”

If you are interested in finding out more about the Columban Lay Missionaries, go to their website
https://www.columbanlaymissionariesireland.com/ or email them at [email protected].
 
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Taken by the Vow to Serve
by Julie Bourbon

“The Holy Spirit is a jolly joker,” said Gabe Hurrish with a laugh. “He loves to make fun of you.”
 
Hurrish was speaking by phone from South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, where he is working as a Maryknoll Lay Missioner for Solidarity with South Sudan. He’s taught English, math, professional studies, Christian religious education and served as an assistant to the principal at the Solidarity Teacher Training College in Yambio, his current assignment.
 
This isn’t Hurrish’s first time in the region. In fact, 30 years ago, he was on mission in the north of Sudan but was ill-prepared for the challenge.
 
“There was a crisis every day. Disasters. We were working with refugees and it was a very difficult situation,” he recalled of that time, when the country was destabilized by a military coup. “We were running healthcare. We had shortages of money, logistical problems, staffing issues, drought, then rains.”
 
He vowed never to return but has since found out that God often has other plans for us.
 
Now 61, Hurrish had what he calls “a very good Catholic upbringing” in Wisconsin, where he preferred sports to church. After college at the University of Dayton, he joined the Peace Corps and headed to Kenya.
 
“I kind of found myself there,” said Hurrish, who has also been on mission in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Somalia, South Africa, Italy, Hong Kong, and Peru, among other places, always carrying the Bible his mother gave him before leaving for Kenya. It is his constant companion. “I loved the people. I loved the poor. I loved the way of life.”
 
He also loved his great uncle Alex, a Franciscan Third Order Regular (TOR) priest who spent more than two decades on mission in India, then another decade in Brazil.
 
“I remember as a child, he’d come home and tell me stories, and I was just fascinated. In those days, you only came home every 10 years or so,” Hurrish recalled. “I wanted to sell everything I owned and go be with Fr. Alex.”
 
When his uncle was missioned back to the States, the two developed a special closeness. Fr. Alex was nearly 99 when he died, and although Hurrish missed the funeral, he made it to his uncle’s community about two weeks later. There, the provincial and some of the other priests presented Hurrish with Fr. Alex’s missionary cross, which would traditionally have been buried with him.
 
“The provincial said Fr. Alex would want it to be on mission,” Hurrish said. Battered and fragile now, the cross is with him in South Sudan. “I feel my uncle’s spirit is there, praying for me. He was a very good missionary and I hope I can be like him someday.”
 
Sister Joan Mumaw, IHM, president and CAO of Friends in Solidarity, Inc.—a partner organization to Solidarity with South Sudan—has known Hurrish for about four years and dismissesthe notion that he isn’t already a “very good missionary.”
 
“He’s tremendously committed and has a big heart for people” she said, listing writing and organizing as among his many talents. “He’s just a very well rounded, flexible, generous person, the kind that makes for a very good missionary. Gabe is willing to take on new challenges when there’s a need.”
 
Hurrish will be taking on a new challenge later this summer, when he is reassigned to Juba to serve the executive director of Solidarity as project coordinator, collecting data, writing reports, and supporting fundraising efforts for all of Solidarity’s projects in South Sudan. Those include a health program that trains midwives and nurses in Wau; a nation-wide pastoral program to train priests, sisters, brothers, lay people, and bishops; an agricultural program to work with farmers in Riimenze; and a presence in the north in Malakal, in a camp for internally displaced persons.
 
When asked what he thinks makes a person a good missionary, Hurrish is thoughtful.
 
“I’d say the number one thing is just to put your life in the hands of God, and it’s not easy. You have to be very calm and open and at peace with yourself and with what God is asking you to do,” he said. “We North Americans especially really want to be in control, and it’s hard for us to let go. That’s what religious have done all through history, though. They’ve just listened to that little voice. And it’s not easy because you’re asked to sacrifice quite a bit.”
 
And how does he explain his own calling to serve in Africa?
 
“A lot of people ask me, do you have to go to Africa to help the poor? No, but I feel that call, so here I am,” said the man who swore he wouldn’t return. “I never took vows, but it seems the vows have taken me.”

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Taken by the Vow to Serve

Lay MSC Associates Carry on Charism
by Julie Bourbon

They are described as “ordinary men and women doing ordinary things … while living the Gospel in their own daily lives.” But in the world of mission, the ordinary becomes extraordinary when done for the Kingdom of God.
 
The men and women who are Lay Missionary of the Sacred Heart (MSC) Associates have answered a call to be more active in the church, to grow in faith, and to, as their mission statement reads, “Be on fire with a deepening realization of God’s personal love for me and every person. To be a visible sign of God’s love and compassion to His people everywhere.”
 
For Jane Martin, association with MSC runs in the family. Her uncle was an MSC priest, and, perhaps more importantly, her Aunt Matty, now 94, was in the second group of lay MSC Associates.
 
“She suggested it would be nice,” if I joined the Associates, recalled Jane, who laughingly described herself as “a Catholic school lifer.”
 
That was about nine years ago, and Jane hasn’t regretted a moment of it.
 
“I went to my first gathering in Reading [Pennsylvania] and I fell in love with the charism and the whole concept,” she said. Jane began formation that fall and the following summer made her
commitment. “I call Redding my oasis, a place of spirituality, rest, calm, away from the hectic, busy crazy life.”
 
That hectic life includes leading formation for new MSC candidates, being part of the Rosary society, making meals for residents of a halfway house, volunteering at her parish, and helping to care for her aunt.
 
Lay MSC Associates meet monthly, alternating between their local meetings in Redding and Lehigh Valley and then having a joint meeting of up to about 27 people. They might read and discuss scripture, meet with MSC sisters for conversation, or engage in service.
 
For Joann Rivera, it a happy accident that she ended up joining the MSC Associates in 1997. Her spiritual director mentioned that the Missionary Sisters needed a receptionist, even though Joann wasn’t actually looking for a part-time job. One of the sisters, Sister Eileen, encouraged Joanne to consider becoming an Associate, something she had never pondered before.
 
“She said you have the ability to be in places we can’t be,” recalled Joann of that first conversation, when she explained to the sister that she worked in a factory assembling headlights. It was a perspective- and life-altering conversation.
 
“Sister Eileen was excited. She said wow, you could pray over every one of those headlights for the safety of the people who received them,” said Joann, still marveling over that conversation, more than a dozen years ago. “It was the most profound thing I’d ever heard for a person who works in a factory, because I never ever gave it that thought. Ever.”
 
Joann is now the director of the MSC Associates and notes that the founder of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart—Father Jules Chevalier, who founded the order in France in 1854—had always intended there to be three branches: priests, sisters, and brothers; diocesan priests; and laity. The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus were founded in 1900.
 
Two years ago, the Lay MSC Associates celebrated their 25^th anniversary. They decided to do a time capsule to commemorate the special occasion and asked Joe Kenas, a retired Navy flight engineer who enjoys woodworking, if he would create one.
 
Joe—who teaches CCD and RCIA, and is a Eucharistic minister, cantor, and lector—not only crafted the time capsule, he was so impressed with the Associates, he decided to join them!
 
“I have really enjoyed it a lot. It’s very enlightening,” said Joe, who has only one more session in the lay formation process before committing to the MSC Associates. “I feel so much love. It’s exciting.”
 
The time capsule, incidentally, was filled with a treasure trove of items related to the Lay MSC Associates, including a Lay Missionaries of the Sacred Heart prayer booklet, a booklet from their recent anniversary celebration, a picture of Pope Francis, a picture of current associates, a list of active members, and an explanation of the group’s theme, “From Root to Blossom to Fruit.”
 
It’s exciting for the Associates when a new member joins them, in no small part because they know that the numbers of priests and women religious are on the decline and that lay men and women such as themselves will need to carry on the charisms of the congregations they are associated with.
 
“We the laity are going to have to step up and take a more active role. Being a lay MSC gives me the focus and a jumping off place to start,” said Joann. “It’s a special group when we’re together. You can feel where two or three are gathered in my name. You can feel the spirituality. I take that from our gatherings and hold it with me as I move through the world.”

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Participants in the March 2019 delegation to the Diocese of Homa Bay Kenya

A Mission Journey of the Heart
by Julie Bourbon

Africa may be on the other side of the world from Minnesota, but the St. Cloud Mission Office is making it seem much closer through its solidarity partnership with the Diocese of Homa Bay Kenya. Through relationship building and faith sharing, parishioners from two dioceses separated by multiple time zones and thousands of miles are getting to know each other as brothers and sisters in faith, and partners in mission.
 
Their goal is not merely to enter into partnership, but to create “a family in Christ,” inspired by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1997 statement, Called to Global Solidarity: International Challenges for U.S. Parishes.
 
“It’s about us walking together, physically and spiritually,” said Elizabeth Neville, who has served as director of the St. Cloud Mission Office for the last nine years. “It is about how we can learn from them and they from us, as we are journeying together as church.”
 
The partnership goes back 20 years, to when Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was looking for dioceses in the United States that wanted to invest in building a solidarity relationship with another diocese oversees. There was precedent for Saint Cloud to answer the call, as they have been sending missionaries throughout the world for more than 80 years, and have another diocesan partnership in Maracay, Venezuela, that has existed for more than 50 years.
 
But this would not be a traditional missionary relationship, as is more commonly understood, with well-intentioned North Americans going to the developing world to dig wells or teach communities how to become more modern. Certainly, there have been opportunities for sharing of material goods. But this partnership emphasizes growing together spiritually, faithfully, and in love.
 
Delegates from the Diocese of Saint Cloud take part in a nine-month formation period that includes four orientation sessions in order to participate in the delegation. Participating sister parishes in the diocese submit the names of parishioners they believe would make good delegates, and during the formation period, they discern their reasons for wanting to take part in the program.
 
“When you are in this journey that we’re taking, it’s really about opening up your heart. To go into it thinking that you’re going to fix something is to go into it for the wrong reason and to be disappointed,” said Neville. “You’ve got to go into it with the mentality that I want to build a friendship. I want to build a relationship with this person on the other side of the world that I might never see again, but I want to walk with them and share my faith with them.”
 
Mary Schmit, a parishioner at St. Ann’s in Wadena, Minnesota, took part in a delegation to Kenya this past March and has since joined the board of the mission office. A teacher by training, she had just retired from her job at a group home for developmentally challenged adults when she traveled to Homa Bay. It was her first mission experience.
 
“This wasn’t doing, it was being. From the very beginning with our sister parish, the emphasis was on growing in prayer and relationship. It was an exchange of learning about their culture and sharing ours,” Schmitt said. The experience, she added, has led to “a deepening of my faith and what that means, to respond to our baptismal call. It is ongoing.”
 
The mission trips are on a three-year rotation; a delegation from Kenya will come to Minnesota in spring 2020, and then the following year will be for discernment and evaluation. Then another delegation from Saint Cloud will begin the process all over again.
 
During the formation process, Neville said, parishioners learn about the Luo culture in Kenya and how their practice of Catholicism might differ from what they’re used to at home. For instance, polygamy is part of the culture, and women are not typically found in serving as catechists or at the altar in Kenya, whereas Neville’s office is entirely staffed by women.
 
The differences take some adjusting on both sides, and can result in rich conversations and experiences.
 
“We don’t try to influence. It’s learning from each other and helping each other to understand our similarities,” said Neville. “We have such a diverse diocese right now, so many cultures and colors, for me personally it makes it so easy to do my ministry. We are just all people of God.”

Article by Julie Bourbon,
ENCOUNTER Editor
 
Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

ENCOUNTER is made possible, in part, by a grant from Catholic Communication Campaign.
Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate here. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.






Hermanamiento: A True Partnership in Mission
 
The first time Leonor Spencer visited Honduras, in 2007, she had a flare-up of rheumatoid arthritis that derailed the experience somewhat. “I wanted to do more,” Leonor said, and couldn’t. “But then a good thing happened. Honduras came to me.”
 
What she means is that two young men from Honduras came to Midland, Texas, where Leonor lives, and she became a second mother to them as they worked their way through community college, jobs, and personal ups and downs. And that’s how her involvement in the Hermanamiento program began.
 
But nearly a decade earlier, a hurricane brought her diocese and one in Honduras together, a relationship that has linked them long after the storm subsided. Hermanamiento. They couldn’t have picked a better term to define their mission, which is, true to its name, a genuine partnership.
 
The Hermanamiento program was originally conceived in 1998 to deliver disaster relief supplies to Honduras. Hurricane Mitch had just devastated the country, killing more than 7,000 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless. As a result, the bishops of Texas made a decision to pair up some of their dioceses with those in need in Honduras. The Dioceses of San Angelo and Tyler were paired with the Diocese of San Pedro Sula (which has since been divided into a second diocese, La Ceiba) to provide short-term relief.
 
Three years after the storm, on September 11, 2001, the bishops of San Pedro Sula and San Angelo signed a formal “Covenant of Partnership,” with the bishop of Tyler committing his diocese several days later. Catholic Relief Services was instrumental in bringing the dioceses together in this manner, as were the writings of then-Pope John Paul II.
 
Monsignor Larry Droll, pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Midland and diocesan chairman of the Hermanamiento program from 2001–2018, draws heavily on John Paul’s 1999 papal exhortation, “Ecclesia in America – On the Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ: The Way to Conversion, Communion and Solidarity in America,” when he talks about the program he has been deeply engaged with since its inception.
 
“What the Pope asked in #37 was that dioceses urge the faithful to live this communion and to assume the responsibility of developing bonds of communion with other churches and dioceses in America,” said Monsignor Droll, who has always felt drawn to mission and evangelization. 
 
“We would do this through education, exchange of information, fraternal ties between parishes, and projects involving cooperation and joint intervention in questions of greater importance, especially those affecting the poor,” he continued. “We are changed when we have this interaction with other people, and we want to grow in unity with them and work in solidarity.”
 
That’s certainly been Leonor’s experience. In the dozen years since that first visit to Honduras, she has returned a number of times and met the families of those two young men (who are still in Texas) and established relationships with the other families in their community. She coordinates Hispanic ministries at St. Ann’s and will be visiting Honduras again next month, to see her many “godchildren” there.
 
The first year the two young men were in Texas, they went home for Christmas and took Leonor’s 19-year-old daughter Espy with them for a month. Leonor laughs when she remembers the enormous suitcase of clothes and makeup she brought with her. But when she returned?
 
“I'll never forget when she got off the plane, all she was carrying was a backpack,” Leonor recalled. “I said, ‘Where’s all your luggage?’ She ended up giving all her stuff away, and I understood that.”
 
Leonor added, “Many people of our parish and diocese have participated and have been deeply touched over these many years.”
 
A team of eight from the Diocese of San Angelo will be traveling to La Ceiba next month—the location of the annual trips rotates among the four dioceses.
 
Clementina Urista, a parishioner at Cathedral Church of the Sacred Heart in San Angelo, Texas, will be on that trip, as she has been on many others, both on the diocesan and parish level. She spent much of her first trip, eight years ago, painting and mixing cement to make blocks for building homes. She recalls how little water there was, and that the group was admonished by the Maryknoll priest who led them not to waste any food.
 
“Father told us whatever they give you to eat you will eat because that’s taking food from someone else,” Clementina said, an experience that clearly still affects her powerfully. “We didn’t see the same children every day because they took turns eating.”
 
The work they do on these trips has morphed from labor to relationship building, education, evangelization, parish visits, and meeting with small faith communities.
 
“They’ve become a family, an extended family, and I feel their pain. I’ve broadened my field of prayer. It’s not just in my hometown. It’s a bigger, larger picture,” said Clementina, explaining the impact the program has had on her. “It has transformed my life and I feel so blessed to be a part of the Hermanamiento, our universal church. My awareness and vision now have a much larger picture of missionary work.”

Article by Julie Bourbon,
ENCOUNTER Editor
 
Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 





Joanne (center) with two course members.
 
On a Mission to Restore Justice

Joanne Blaney realized a long time ago that justice sometimes has nothing to do with the judicial system. But this has not turned out to be a handicap in her work. In fact, as a Maryknoll lay missioner who works with victims and perpetrators of violence in São Paolo, Brazil, quite the opposite is true.
 
“We work toward helping people feel, first of all, restored to yourself, that you are a person of dignity and respect,” said Joanne of the process of restorative justice. Then, she said, they try to restore broken relationships and work for “a just justice for everyone involved in the conflict or crime.”
 
Since joining Maryknoll in 1990, except for a few odd years back in the States, Joanne has worked at a human rights center in an impoverished, violent neighborhood of São Paolo, engaging with individuals and community leaders of marginalized and vulnerable populations to break cycles of urban and domestic violence. She uses restorative justice principles, including dialogue and compassion, as well as working to change structures, to accomplish that goal.
 
This brings her into relationship with people experiencing conflict within their families or communities, and into prisons where she teaches these same principles to offenders. “There is a process of healing that takes place,” Joanne said, “that leads to responsibility for the harm they have caused and a desire to repair the harm with the victim and/or their family."
 
It is, she said, a way for people to transform their concept of justice, when before they wouldn’t even have thought that a real justice could be part of their lives.
 
“We’ve had cases working with victims and offenders where the victim says, ‘I want that person to suffer more than I’ve suffered and I will not forgive them,’” she said. “As you go through a restorative justice process, they are able to listen to the other person’s story and to see the other  as a human being instead of a monster.” There is healing and forgiveness that helps victims, as well as offenders, to move forward with their lives.

Living Out Gospel Principles

With her background as a Sister of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia and an educator, there was never any doubt that Joanne would spend her life advancing the cause of social justice. But she didn’t necessarily see a future for herself as a missionary. 

“I’ve just always been concerned in my life with how we translate the Gospel into people’s reality and people’s lives,” she said.

Growing up in a poor, immigrant neighborhood in Philadelphia called Kensington, Joanne was the third of 12 children of a devoutly Catholic Irish family. All of the children attended the parish school, and her parents were very involved in neighborhood activities through the parish.
 
“My parents always looked at other people with great dignity and respect, that we are all children of God, we are all equal,” Joanne remembered. “Mostly, my parents influenced all of us in trying to live out Gospel principles.”
 
They probably weren’t surprised, then, when Joanne entered religious life at 17. She remained a sister for 13 years and spent much of that time as a teacher and then principal in urban schools in Washington, D.C. She recalled that by the 1980s, crack cocaine was gripping the city; many of her students were being raised by their grandmothers, who were remarkable examples of dedicated service, she said.
 
Even after she left the order, she continued as a principal in D.C.’s Catholic elementary schools and started volunteering with a group of Carmelite Sisters on the weekends. The Carmelites were ministering to women fleeing the wars in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and Joanne found herself increasingly interested in global justice issues.

When a Maryknoll priest from the Philippines visited her school to address the students, Joanne stopped by the room to listen for a minute. Instead, she found herself transfixed. Immediately, she felt the call to follow the Gospel beyond the borders of the United States.

“It just seemed that was the next step,” she said. 

A Lifetime’s Work

Joanne has given courses and presentations on restorative justice as a Maryknoll missioner throughout the world, including Kenya, Australia, Rwanda, Finland, and Northern Ireland. She is both a facilitator and trainer of facilitators, and considers herself fortunate to truly love her work.
 
“It’s hard and difficult to see so much, but marvelous trying to see the world differently from different perspectives,” she said of the many people she’s met and places she’s traveled to since becoming a lay missioner. “In spite of all the problems in our world, I am hopeful because of the many dedicated people whom I have met and who are doing such wonderful work.”

Marj Humphry, director of missions for Maryknoll, has known Joanne for more than 20 years and admires her passion and dedication. 

Joanne (top, center) with the Brazil restorative justice group.

“Joanne is unable to separate who she is from her very core, from her faith,” said Marj. “Her deep faith motivates and sustains her in her life. She is tireless in her commitment to mission and has been for decades.”
 
Reflecting on her life in Maryknoll, Joanne feels that she is exactly where she is meant to be.
 
“I’ve struggled with how to live Gospel values in a world torn apart by poverty and injustice,” she said.  “This is what I want to do with my life, because I believe that mission and following the Gospel is about bringing people together and dialoguing so that we can truly build peace and bring about justice.”
 
Living as a Maryknoll missioner has allowed Joanne to become an instrument of God’s desire to heal communities.
 
“The Gospel is a liberating force,” she said, “that fosters human dignity, connects hearts and builds peace.”
 
Joanne recommends the following resources for those interested in learning more about restorative justice principles and practices:

Books:

Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for our Times. Scottsdale, Pennsylvania:  Herald Press, 2015.
           
Kay Pranis, The Little Book of Circle Processes: A New/Old Approach to Peacemaking (The Little Books of Justice and Peacebuilding Series). Good Books. 2005.
 
Arthur Paul Boers, Justice That Heals: A Biblical Vision for Victims and Offenders. Newton: Faith and Life Press. 1992.
 
A Companion, Peace and Justice Shall Embrace: Toward Restorative Justice, a Prisoner's Perspective. Writers Club Press. 2001.

Websites:
www.zehr-institute.org/#   (Articles by Howard Zehr and John Paul Lederach)
www.restorativejustice.org  Centre for Justice & Reconciliation
https://catholicmobilizing.org/restorative-justice  Catholic Mobilizing Network

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor
 
Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate here. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

 

Mission as Faith

Children often speak of the powerful example their parents set in shaping their view of service and opportunity. For Dick Horstman and his wife Judy, the roles were reversed, with the children teaching their parents how life-changing mission can be.

The Horstmans, who’ve lived in Houston for more than two decades, were always active in their faith—teaching CCD, volunteering in their parish—but it wasn’t until their three children began doing mission work that the couple realized lay people could serve the church and their sisters and brothers as missionaries.

Dick confesses that, growing up, “I thought, lay people don’t do mission,” he said. “Priests and sisters do mission!”

That early misconception makes it even sweeter that he is now the chair of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston Mission Council, an entity that exists only in Texas and which has three focus areas: education, spirituality, and promotion of mission.

Fifteen years ago, Dick, at the time still an attorney for Marathon Oil, was attending a Catholic Relief Services conference in Houston. That might seem like a strange place for him to have been, but there he was.

“Oil companies are very interested in the developing world and in international business,” he said. “I personally was very interested in mission and the work CRS does.”

He happened to sit near then-Auxiliary Bishop Michael Rizzotto during a talk. The pair struck up a conversation, and before Dick knew it, he’d been appointed to the Mission Council.

To say that a lot has happened in the intervening 15 years would be an understatement. For starters, Dick retired from the oil company after 35 years, although he keeps his legal skills sharp with pro bono immigration cases—mostly unaccompanied minors and trafficking victims —through Catholic Charities, as well as by teaching a course on government–business relations in the developing world at the University of St. Thomas.

Dick and Judy also began to accompany their adult children on medical mission trips—to Central and South America, Eastern Europe, and Africa with groups such as Feed the Children, Helping Hands, and the Medical Missionaries of Divine Mercy at St. Laurence Church in Sugar Land, just outside of Houston.

Even as Dick realized that lay people can go on mission, his understanding of what mission can be was also expanding. It doesn’t have to be far away, in foreign lands, but can be in your own backyard, in poverty-stricken communities like Eagle Pass, Texas, on the U.S.–Mexico border, or in low-income Houston neighborhoods post-Hurricane Harvey.

After the historic flooding in Houston and surroundings, the archdiocese responded by offering home repair mission opportunities in two focus areas, one a Hispanic immigrant community and the other a Cambodian immigrant community. Volunteer groups are invited to stay at the 24-bed Cameron House, owned by the archdiocese, which they can use as a home base during their stay in the area.

“After Harvey, we are promoting mission in the area to help the poor who were affected by the storm and have had a very difficult time rebuilding their homes,” Dick said. “We want to encourage more parishes in the archdiocese to get involved in mission and are using this as a vehicle. We also encourage mission groups from outside the archdiocese to consider Houston as a mission destination, of course.”

Dick and his wife are also involved in missions to the border, including an annual high school spring break mission to repair homes. “I think for the youth it’s so important,” he said. “It helps give them some positive direction. It can be life changing to experience the poor, to work with the poor.”

In promoting the Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts, Dick at first doesn’t even mention that he and his wife lost their own home in the flooding. It’s his friend, Fr. Gerry Kelly, a Maryknoll Missionary priest he’s known for more than 10 years, who relates that Dick and Judy were rescued by the Coast Guard!

“He has this profound mission spirit and dedicates himself completely to it,” said Fr. Kelly, who has traveled to Eagle Pass and Costa Rica with Dick on mission trips. “He’s been a moving spirit to keep mission going forward. He’s just been excellent in that sense.”

Not one to boast about his own experiences, Dick tends to keep the focus on the work, which seems to grow ever dearer to his heart the longer he does it.

“I think it’s central to our faith,” he said. “Jesus very clearly identifies with those in need, and with the poor. I think it is our faith. Mission is our faith.”

For more information on the Mission Office of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, visit https://www.archgh.org/offices-ministries/clergy-formation-chaplaincy-services/mission-office/.

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor
 
Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate here. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.




Franciscan University: How Mission Changes Lives
 
Of all the opportunities a young person might have in college, perhaps the most important is the opportunity to find oneself and to discern one’s higher purpose. That’s going to be different for everyone, of course, but the students who are attracted to Franciscan University at Steubenville tend to share one common trait.
 
Rhett Young, director of missionary outreach, puts it this way: “I think it’s notable that our student body really has a hunger for mission trips and for proclaiming the Gospel.”
 
Little wonder they’re drawn to the Ohio institution. The university, with about 2,500 students, offers two-dozen official mission trips over the course of the school year, as well as a few “unofficial” trips, through its Missions of Peace student outreach program. “Serve – Inspire – Evangelize” is its credo, and the program provides opportunities across the U.S., Latin America, and Western and Eastern Europe for students to do just that.
 
“The hope is that they will be comfortable sharing about their faith and putting their gifts and talents into service for others,” said Ronald McNamara, coordinator of student leadership development at Franciscan.

About 450 students take part each year, so many that some are turned away for lack of spots and encouraged to apply again the next year. Their activities include youth ministries, chastity presentations, prayer services, home improvement projects, village ministries, medical outreaches, and other apostolic endeavors. At their heart, the trips are meant to provide opportunities for students to grow in their faith and to spread the Gospel to those they encounter. 

“I think they’re really on fire for the church and they want to be out there and share their faith and bring the message to different parishes and different schools,” said Tiffany Boury, director of Catholic Leadership at Franciscan. “They’re giving up spring break to go. I think that’s pretty powerful.
 
The annual mission trips require months of planning between Young, other faculty and staff advisors, and student leaders—teams of two per trip, one male and one female. Typically, the student leaders have participated in that particular mission before, making them veterans of sorts and well-equipped to anticipate the needs of their peers and the people they’re serving. Students must raise the funds necessary to go on the trip.
 
McNamara served as advisor for four years on the mission to Douglas, Arizona, to the Loretto Catholic School, under the direction of the principal, Sister Mary Aloysius, a Carmelite Sister of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles. Sister Mary Aloysius, also know, affectionately, as “The General,” pays regular visits to Franciscan looking for education majors interested in the challenge of teaching on the U.S.-Mexico border.
 
Douglas, which McNamara described as a “missionary” town, is small and economically poor; the school is about one mile from the border, and many of its students wait in long lines every morning to cross from Mexico into Arizona for the opportunity to get an academically and spiritually rigorous Catholic education. 

Often, McNamara said, fathers will wait in the checkpoint line until they’re near the front, and then will be joined by their wife and children, so the kids can get a bit more sleep before their school day begins.

The Franciscan students participate in a service project—painting, cleaning, making repairs—while they’re in Douglas, in addition to engaging with the Loretto School students both by organizing retreats for the K-8 students and sharing their faith and conversion stories.

Boury took over the advising role for the Douglas mission trip last school year and will be accompanying students there again this March. She marveled during her first visit to the town—her first-ever experience of mission—at how tightly knit the parish community was, and yet how welcoming of the Franciscan students.
 
She talked about the fun of a volleyball tournament, with the school’s 8th graders playing the college students, and a Praise and Worship evening, in which Loretto faculty and Franciscan students played live music while the Franciscan students prayed over the gathered assembly.
 
“It’s a very engaging event, it’s very Franciscan,” Boury said, but it was also a learning experience. Many of the Loretto students had already gone home to Mexico, and because it takes so long to cross back over the border, they couldn’t return for the evening events. “That’s something cultural that you don’t know until you get there, the sacrifices that some families make to get a Catholic education. Next year, we’ll make adjustments to the schedule.”
 
Like McNamara before her, Boury said she felt that her heart had been captured by the Loretto School mission.
 
“It was a great experience,” said Boury, who stayed with a local family last year in Douglas and hopes to stay with the same family again this year. “I think it just really opened my eyes to the many different American homes and each is special and unique and precious.” 

When Young was a student at Franciscan—he graduated 25 years ago—he said there was one mission trip available, to Florida, to witness to college students during spring break.

“Spring break, it’s a tough ministry,” he recalled with a laugh, “trying to have conversations with people when they’re not intoxicated. They’re usually in a vulnerable state, after they’ve partied a couple of days and wonder, why am I doing this?”

The mission opportunities have expanded significantly since those days, as the student body has clamored for more, Young said. A focus for them is helping students learn how to be pastoral but not preachy. 

“There are sensitivities that we have to have in explaining the faith, and I think they’re more profound with some of the gender issues and the misconceptions of church teaching,” he said. “We’re helping our students navigate those conversations.”

When not on one of the 24 mission opportunities, Franciscan students also lead parish retreats through the SENT program and engage in local outreach, including serving at prisons, soup kitchens, and doing youth outreach, through the Works of Mercy program.
 
Young said many students start out going on a mission trip and then become regulars in one of the local outreach opportunities. He finds that they all say the same thing: the mission trip changed their lives.
 
“How does 10 days change your life? I think it may have been the first time they gave themselves completely to God’s will. They’re going on this amazing mission, it’s adventurous, it’s scary, and they jump in with both feet,” he said. “God’s been there the whole time, but it’s perhaps the first time they’re totally focused on His will. They see God in themselves, in their teammates, in the people they serve, and they sum it up with ‘this mission changed my life.’”
 
Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor
 
Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

Opening Up the Doors of Faith

It wasn’t until she was in at least her third career that Ann Bollheimer, a lifelong Catholic, felt her faith life really open up.
 
Now the pastoral associate at St. Michael Church and Ss. Peter & Paul Church in Fort Loramie, Ohio, where she has served in various ministerial capacities for almost 19 years, Ann was raised about 15 miles from the parish and settled there after she married. Photography was her first career, she said, followed by motherhood.
 
She had been a stay-at-home mom for about five years when she became involved in church ministry.
 
“I was the coordinator of youth ministry for about a year and a half and just felt like I needed to know more,” Ann said. She went through a certification process but ultimately quit the position to take part in a two-year lay pastoral ministry program through the Athenaeum of Ohio in Cincinnati. It wasn’t a master’s program but it did include theology courses and a practicum, as well as a 100-hour service project; she chose to go to Appalachia with a neighboring youth group for her service.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

“The trip to Appalachia was not a great experience for me. We worked on patios and painted houses but really were not engaged with the people,” she recalled. “I felt there was something missing. I didn’t know what it was supposed to be, but it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.”
 
That sense of “something missing” stayed with her, even after she accepted the pastoral associate position in 2003. The parish was finishing up a four-year renewal program that included studying the four pillars of the catechism. 

“The year that we focused on the third pillar of the catechism, Life in Christ, and on living your faith, brought a lot of attention,” Ann said. “People were calling and saying ‘Well, what do we do?’ We were being called to engage in social justice, but we really didn’t have parish programs.”
 
Some parishioners, she remembered, volunteered at a food pantry in another town. They started a St. Vincent de Paul Society, and Ann reached out to Mike Gable, a Maryknoll lay missioner who serves as the director of the Mission Office of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. It was 2008.

“Five people came to speak on Catholic Social Teaching, on immigration, the environment, global solidarity (mission), and faithful citizenship that sparked for me—oh my goodness, this is what we’re missing in parish life,” she exclaimed. “It opened up a lot of doors.”

That fall, Gable invited Ann to spend two weeks with CRISPAZ, Christians for Peace in El Salvador, and a twinning parish in Honduras. Before I said yes, “I just kept pushing and asking, what are we going to do? I didn’t want to go there to build houses. Because our patio at home needed work,” she joked. “I just couldn’t understand.”

It took coming back to Ohio for the truth of mission to sink in for her. 

“It’s not so much doing in El Salvador but coming home and advocating for people in El Salvador and Honduras and people living in poverty in your own neighborhood. It’s helping people to live in mission right where you are,” she said. It was a revelation for her. “That was life-changing. That’s when my Catholic faith opened up. This is what it means to be Catholic! That was when I was engaged and really felt my faith come alive.” 

Ann is now in her eighth year on the CRISPAZ board of directors and travels to Latin America every fall. 

Her clustered parish has a sister parish relationship in the small town of San Cristóbal. Parishioners at St. Michael Church and Ss. Peter & Paul Church are assisting the Salvadorans with English studies through the donation of 10 laptop computers and the Rosetta Stone language program. They’re also supporting up to 16 adult learners to become catechetical leaders via the online catechist program at the University of Dayton and the Virtual Learning Community for Faith Formation (VLCFF). 

Members of the community in San Cristóbal visit Ohio every other year, staying in the homes of parishioners and speaking at the parish about their lives in El Salvador. The learning goes both ways.
 
Ann’s passion for mission and for the program is total, said Deacon Paul Timmerman. The two have known each other for about 10 years.
 
“Her commitment is to her faith and to mission work,” he said “She lives it in her daily life. I guess you would say she’s a person who walks her faith. She not only talks her faith, she walks it. She’s one of the people that if you watch her, you can see Scripture come alive.”
 
The experience of being in community with her sisters and brothers in El Salvador took Ann years to begin to understand and continues to evolve.  
 
“Something happens when you engage with a stranger, share a meal, share a smile. Something happens to the people who go to El Salvador and come back, and the same with those who come here. There’s a bond that will always be there,” she said. “There’s a trust, a vulnerability that has anchored my faith, to say, this is faith, this is the Catholic Church in a fuller dimension.”

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor
 
Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

Chris Kerr (right) is seen taking a selfie with Jose, a DACA recipient and an immigration rights activist.

Discipleship in Justice Advocacy
 
Christopher Kerr, who has more than 15 years of social justice advocacy under his belt, is considered a “full-time” missioner for his consistent work to promote and enable a “faith that does justice.” He has served as the executive director of the Ignatian Solidarity Network, whose mission is to form a network of faith-based social justice advocates, since 2011. 

“To work for the dignity of our brothers and sisters, we try to unite individuals and institutions,” said Kerr. That work is rooted in ISN’s mission to form advocates guided by the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the principles of Catholic social thought, and solidarity with the marginalized.  

Kerr identifies himself as a “lifetime missioner… not in the traditional way of mission where one goes off to a place and directly serves but … through a lens of solidarity,” he said. His work entails engaging people, “including those in positions of power, to more deeply commit themselves to solidarity with others and the dignity of others.”

“It is mission in a different way of thinking about it, but certainly in the same spirit,” said Kerr.

Prior to joining the Ignatian Solidarity Network, Kerr worked as a coordinator of social justice initiatives and immersion experience programs at John Carroll University in Ohio and as a young adult advocacy coordinator at the InterReligious Task Force on Central America, located in Cleveland.

“My greatest moments in my work are encounter with those seeking to be formed, to come to understand the call of solidarity more deeply and to have the most marginalized at the heart of the conversation,” Kerr said.

As a lay missioner, his work allows Kerr, his local community, and the nation to work towards ethical and humane policies that uphold the dignity of all people.

“He has the type of job that doesn’t end because he cares about being in solidarity and accompaniment with people who are vulnerable and suffering,” said Nicholas Napolitano, a lay missioner at the Jesuit's Northeast Province office.

“The whole team at the Ignatian Solidarity Network, under Chris’ leadership, have made themselves indispensable for the Jesuit community and other lay people to advocate for justice,” said Napolitano.

Kerr believes faith is inherently tied to social justice advocacy because, “we believe God is present within each one of us as complex creations of God. Because we believe that, we have to be willing to respond when one of our fellow creations, one of our brothers and sisters, is marginalized,” he said. “It’s impossible for us to have a faith in Christ without us seeking to respond through acts of justice.”

A faith that does justice is the fundamental vision of the Ignatian Solidarity Network and a major pillar of Jesuit spirituality, which has played a huge role throughout Kerr’s life. He attended a Jesuit high school and John Carroll University. It was during his time at John Carroll, in 2004, that he first attended the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice, an annual gathering of students, teachers, and committed social justice advocates. The event is sponsored by the ISN.

“He is extremely creative and very effective at mixing together Ignatian themes, Jesuit experiences, and values with the social justice agenda,” said Fr. Fred Kammer, S.J., the director of the Jesuit Social Research Institute in New Orleans. He encountered Kerr five years ago when he joined the ISN Board of Directors. “He’s got a real charm with the young people at the Teach-In. When he speaks, there’s good energy in the room and a very positive response.”  

Discipleship at the Crossroads was the theme of this year’s Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice. Nearly 2,000 people attended and engaged with presentations on the relationship between family and immigration policy, promoting peace and justice through the arts, mental health and wellness as it relates to promoting the dignity of all people, grassroots organizing and how to engage with peers on a college or high school campus, and more. Each year, the Teach-In calls young adults to adapt a lens of solidarity and embody radical kinship to facilitate social justice advocacy.
Radical kinship, Kerr said, occurs when we acknowledge all people as members of one family, united in Christ, and recognize the universality of the Church. Kerr calls these transformative experiences “bread moments” that call people to encounter others in mission.

A memorable bread moment for him was his visit to a community in Nicaragua a few years ago. He encountered a family with a beloved new baby, but when he returned a year later, the baby had died from dysentery caused by polluted water. 

“It was a very desolate experience,” he said. “It articulated the reality of injustice in their community, that took the most vulnerable – a small child that had no way to protect himself – and how another person’s choices upstream would have a deep impact on the lives of that family.” This experience continues to motivate his engagement in imperative social justice issues and encourage others to seek encounter through immersion experiences.

Kerr believes his mission of faith-based justice advocacy is rooted in the words of Pope Francis, who reminds us “that God’s vision is a global vision, God’s vision invites all of us to be a part of the banquet.” Kerr hopes to network with organizers and form social justice advocates to be disciples who seek justice and dignity for all. “To be true to our Christian faith,” he said, “we have to respond to injustice.”

Article by Nadia Barnett

Nadia Barnett is currently working at USCMA as the publications and communications associate during her year of service with Franciscan Mission Service, a DC-based program.

ENCOUNTER is the basis of mission. With encounter, witness becomes a heartfelt connection, justice the work of right relationships, and liturgy a joyous celebration of Emmanuel – God among us. ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of the United States Catholic Mission Association made possible, in part, by a grant from Catholic Communication Campaign. 

Download the latest verision of ENCOUNTER here. 

A Smile Is the Best Payment
Dental missions change lives in Latin America

There may be no more fundamental way to express joy than with a smile. But children in the developing world born with cleft lip and palate and no access to life-altering surgery are limited in their ability to fully partake of a smile’s simple beauty. The deformity may circumscribe their possibilities and destine them to a lifetime of poverty and shame.
 
That’s why the commitment of dentists like Milagros Preciado Huaman and the work of Global Smile Foundation are so important. Because of her efforts on dental mission trips in Latin America, babies born with cleft palate get the surgery they need before they can ever even remember being afflicted.
 
The native of Trujillo, Peru, went on her first medical mission trip, to Guatemala, in 2015, and in 2017 visited Ecuador. Each time, she spent about a week working with a visiting team of dentists, acting as a translator for the families of patients and helping with logistics.
 
“I’m a general dentist, but I wanted to do more than dentistry and help others,” Milagros said, recalling that she first met Global Smile’s founder, Usama Hamdan, in 2012 while she was still in dental school, after a class lecture.

Since 2017, Milagros, 28, has taken on another role with Global Smile, doing patient screening and molding the custom plates that go into a baby’s mouth, part of a procedure called NAM (nasoalveolar molding) therapy, which helps to align the gums and reshape the nasal cartilage. That corrective process must begin in the first six weeks of life in order for it to be effective and prepare the infant for surgery. 

She remembers clearly the first baby whose case she worked on, a little boy who lived six hours away but whose mother never missed his weekly appointment for the NAM therapy. She has since seen videos of the toddler as he grows, and it never fails to affect her.

“It’s very touching, and every time I see it, I almost cry, because you can see our work. The mom cries because she was waiting for that moment, and it changed very fast,” Milagros said, noting that while the child won’t remember the experience, his mother always will. “He received therapy and the surgery, and after that, his lip closed and it changed his face. I was very happy, crying of happiness. It was very good."

Milagros also takes part in dental campaigns in Peru, doing outreach to people outside the cities who have little access to regular dental care. She coordinates some of the campaigns, which consist of hygiene lectures, preventive dental care, distribution of dental kits, and sometimes extractions.

The dentists are not compensated for the work they do. Or at least, not with money.
 
“We just receive the smiles, and that’s enough for us,” Milagros said. Instead, she said, payment comes in the form of “their happiness, when they see someone is taking care of them.”
 
It’s for this reason that she looks forward both to more mission trips abroad with Global Smile and the local dental visits she and her colleagues make within Peru.
 
“I would love to keep doing missions in other places, and I love to do what I do here with the local campaigns,” she said. “Because I think that’s the best thing I can do.”
 
She attributes her passion for this work to her Catholic upbringing, which included volunteering with children and collecting clothing for the poor through her church.
 
“I think that religion is very important. Other volunteers at Global Smile belong to other religions, but we all respect that. We are there because we want to help people. We have just one goal, to help, to serve others,” she said. “We pray in our way, everyone. I always pray for the surgeons, for the patients, so everything goes according to the best for them.”
 
Her work and commitment have impressed the group’s founder.
 
“It is very clear that Milagros has the leadership skills, drive, personality, dedication, and focus to further drive our outreach cleft programs to new heights in Peru,” said Usama. “She has an exemplary personality for how someone decides to better the lives of so many others through hard work and dedication for their communities.”
 
“Yes, I think that this is my calling,” Milagros said. I always say this, it’s like I was meant to meet Dr. Usama so I can help through my career. And I’m very happy for that.”

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor

Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of USCMA made possible, in part, by a grant from Catholic Communication Campaign.

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

A Twinning Relationship, from Syracuse to Kenya

Child Discovery Centre in Nakura, Kenya, lacks for many things, but love and fellowship are not among them. CDC, located in the Lasallian Lwanga District of Africa, which includes Kenya, Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and South Africa, is one of 14 ministries paired with the Lasallian Region of North America as part of a school-to-school twinning program. The program, which falls under the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers), has a goal of helping to fulfill the material needs of the students and community of CDC and to support them in achieving sustainability. But it is also about so much more.
 
“It’s really who we are as Lasallians, taking care of those who are in need. Expanding our faith showing our love, and reflecting Jesus’ love for our brothers and sisters in Kenya,” says Marijane Finlay, a campus minister at Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse, New York. “That’s the most important thing for me, that we are doing as Jesus would have done.”
 
Christian Brothers Academy is one of 65 schools in the U.S. and Canada taking part in the twinning program. They’ve been involved with CDC for 12 years, and about six years ago, the school made a decision to be more intentional in its engagement. They went from an annual fundraiser to frequent educational programs for students in Syracuse about why their efforts in Kenya were important.
 
“We really started to focus on making our students more aware of CDC and the problems they face, to expand our vision of our Lasallian world,” Finlay says. “It’s really easy up here in Syracuse to be in our own little world and not realize that there are Lasallians all over.”
 
The Syracuse students have made presentations about CDC at school Mass, held greenhouse sales and t-shirt drives, sponsored a dress-down day at which students learned about the dangers of the failing perimeter wall near the girls dorm on CDC property, sold prom dresses as a fundraiser, and have shown videos and made educational presentations, including on the importance of potable water and the need for drilling a bore hole at Child Discovery Centre.
 
“Our goal is to educate the student body through the videos and slide shows, to show them where their money is going,” says Makayla Kanervico, a senior at Christian Brothers Academy who has been active with the twinning program. “I love that twinning is an important part of who we are. It’s what makes us brothers.”
 
Chris Bushnell, another senior, chimed in about Skyping with the students in Kenya on Founder’s Day. “We all said a prayer for CDC, which was really nice.”
 
The Skyping can be hit or miss, depending on the internet connection in Kenya, but still, says senior Mary Kilmartin,  “It was cool because 800 of us [in Syracuse] Skyped them. It was nice to make connections with the faces.”

Finlay says the Skyping usually starts out feeling pretty formal but the students quickly warm up to each other and ask questions about school and hobbies and sports. 

Some of CDC’s students wrote about the benefits they’ve experienced through twinning. Grace Wanjira Ndungu wrote: “The twinning program has given me my identity. My future shines because of the program. … I have supported girls in my school to not only realize their talents but also uphold their self esteem and boost their confidence.”
 
Morris Vaati John wrote that, through the twinning relationship, he has “come to know about God” and grown “physically, psychologically, mentally, and spiritually.”
 
And Margaret Njenga wrote, “The Lasallian spirit in you is possessed by nobody else, the spirit of sharing and helping the less fortunate. I am so grateful and I love you a lot.”
 
Maryann Donohue-Lynch is the associate executive director of the Office for Mission and Ministry in the District of Eastern North America and coordinates its twinning efforts. She’ll be visiting Kenya for about three weeks at the end of October, her third trip to the region.
 
Donohue-Lynch first visited in 2014 as an organizer of the first Twinning Summit in Nairobi. It was then that a commitment was made to return every two years to continue growing the relationship between the District of Eastern North America and the Lwanga District.
 
The trip this year will focus on educational ministries for eight days, then Donohue-Lynch will take part in a two-week formation session on pastoral accompaniment of young adults. Brothers, sisters, laymen, and laywomen, representing all five global Lasallian regions, will be present for the sessions, which are usually held in Rome, at the Generalate, from which the Institute of the Brothers for the Christian Schools is governed.
 
Donohue-Lynch finds much to be thankful for in the opportunity to expose the students from Syracuse to their counterparts in Kenya and elsewhere.
 
“One of the things we encourage is a deepening of students’ understanding that they’re part of a global Lasallian family, with brothers and sisters in 80 countries,” she says. “Today, young people have a remarkable sense of connectivity on a global level, so making this connection available to them and building direct relationships between a school in Syracuse and Child Discovery Centre puts a face on the Lasallian family and the educational mission. It makes it very tangible and real to them, especially when seeing young people overcoming obstacles to obtain education.”
 
Saint John Baptist de La Salle, patron saint of teachers, founded the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers) in 17th century France as a religious order of laymen dedicated exclusively to providing a human and Christian education to the young, especially the poor. Today, the Lasallian mission is present in 80 countries, with 4,000 Brothers and 90,000 Lasallian Partners serving one million young people in 1,000 ministries.

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor

ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of USCMA made possible, in part, by a grant from Catholic Communication Campaign.

Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

Living the Mission of Matthew 25: Theresa Patterson in Haiti

After more than 40 years of devotion to a place, it can surely be said to be stamped upon your heart. That’s certainly the case with Theresa Patterson and Haiti. And yet, by her telling, her involvement with—devotion to—twinning U.S. parishes with their counterparts in the hemisphere’s poorest country was almost accidental.
 
She’d seen a presentation at her Nashville parish, St. Henry’s, about Haiti and asked Harry Hosey, “during Dialogue and Donuts,” Patterson said, what she could do to help. Quite a lot, as it turns out. “Next thing I knew, I was on a plane going to Haiti.”
 
That was 1978, the year she became a co-founder of what would eventually become the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas (PTPA). Three days after returning from the trip, she wrote a letter to the bishop of Tennessee’s only (at the time) diocese suggesting that parishes in Knoxville and Memphis join hers in Nashville to adopt a parish in Haiti.
 
“I said, wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could all twin with a parish? That shows you how shortsighted my vision was,” Patterson recalled of an effort that has grown to include more than 300 American parishes, 224 in Haiti, and 48 in Mexico and Latin America. “I had previously only just done volunteer work in church, but it was a time in my life when I was really looking to become more involved in something. What, I didn’t know. I felt that God just handed this to me on a plate.”
 
The PTPA was headquartered in Patterson’s home for the first dozen or so years as they began a slow, parish-by-parish effort to match U.S. congregations that had an interest in establishing long-term relationships with sister congregations, and not just sending charity their way.
 
From those humble beginnings, the PTPA held its national conference and 40th anniversary celebration in Nashville in August with the theme of “One Are We … The Blessings of Twinning.”
 
The relationships that PTPA facilitates begin with finding out about the sister parish and its needs—as well as its assets—including financial, educational, and medical. Thank God for the internet, Patterson says, which makes it so much easier today to correspond via email with Haitian pastors and be more timely in their responses. 

As the American parishes learn about the identified needs and how they can help meet them, the ultimate goal is always to encourage sustainability, so that the Haitian congregations become more self-reliant.

That’s why, Patterson says, micro-credit programs, loans for small businesses, co-ops, nursery and tree projects, literacy programs, small banks, schools, and medical clinics are usually among the key projects to be funded.

Many of the Haitian pastors have visited the U.S. to make presentation to their parish partners—who pay for their travel and lodging—and not a few American volunteers, as well as 63 medical delegations (and counting), have made the trip to Haiti and other countries. Patterson counts 122 trips to Haiti so far. She primarily accompanies groups that are making their first trip.
 
She comes by her commitment to this mission work honestly. Patterson’s mother worked for Catholic Charities for 25 years, and she was educated at Catholic schools. The Bishops’ 1997 call for global solidarity has also been formative for her.
 
“It so beautifully states our obligation as Catholics to reach out beyond our own boundaries to the universal church in solidarity and justice,” she said. “That to me was so key, as well as my faith, in getting involved with Haiti.”
 
Diane Huggins has served on PTPA’s board since 2004 and been to Haiti 23 times. She laughs when she thinks how that compares to Patterson’s trip tally.
 
“She’s definitely a very inspirational person,” said Huggins. “It’s kind of a shoestring operation. When I think about what she’s done, it’s just amazing.”
 
Shoestring is right. PTPA’s only staff members are Patterson and her son Jeff, plus a volunteer in Sarasota who coordinates twinning for Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, and Central America in exchange for a small stipend.
 
One of the most concrete symbols of PTPA’s commitment to Haiti is the small hospitality residence—the Matthew 25 house in Port-au-Prince—from which the volunteers begin their journey. The name had special meaning for Patterson after returning from her first trip, back in 1978.
 
“The next morning I went to mass, then walked into the parish library and immediately gravitated to mission magazines. The first one I opened is burned into my soul because it was the words of Matthew 25,” Patterson recalled. “My very first words written about Haiti and my work there quoted Matthew 25. I remember thinking this is what my faith is really about. I was fully invested in it from the moment I made that first trip and realized this is what I need to be doing.”

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor

ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of USCMA made possible, in part, by a grant from Catholic Communication Campaign.

Download this ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

What’s God Calling Me To Do?

It’s been half a lifetime since Ben OuYang – a self-professed “ABC,” or American-born Chinese – stumbled upon a Chinese Catholic church in suburban Maryland. It happened roughly 30 years ago, when he was a graduate student at the University of Maryland.
 
The Rochester native attended Catholic school throughout his youth but didn’t fare so well in weekend Chinese school. His parents had been advised not to teach their children Chinese so they wouldn’t grow up speaking English with an accent.
 
“Which they totally regretted,” said Ben, 51, who speaks a limited amount of his parents’ native tongue. The Chinese school dropout now calls his lack of diligence “a blessing in disguise,” because he grew up to be an educator, including positions as a school counselor, assistant principal, principal, and director. His difficulty in Chinese school allowed him to connect with students who get bored in class, struggle academically, or misbehave with their teachers.
 
“This was God’s way of showing me, hey, this is how you can relate to kids,” he said. And relate to them he did, both in school and at church.
 
Because his mother had converted to Catholicism in China while his father became a Protestant, Ben moved back and forth easily between the two, ending up attending a Chinese Protestant church while in college at the University of Rochester.
 
He became a youth minister there because, he said, “there was a need.” So he attended Catholic Mass but then led the youth group at the Protestant church. His decision to become involved with the Newman Center at the University of Maryland, where he earned a master’s in counseling and a doctorate in education administration, looks fateful now, in hindsight.
 
After Mass one Sunday, the pastor mentioned to Ben that there was a Chinese Catholic church nearby, in Rockville. He attended Our Lady of China Pastoral Mission the following Sunday but didn’t understand the Mass, which was entirely in Chinese.
 
It became immediately apparent to Ben that there was a need for an English-language Mass for people like him, and for those even younger, who weren’t engaging with the language of their parents and weren’t getting much out of their time at church as a result. And thus was born a mission for him: to serve the youth of this newfound community that would soon become his own.
 
He began by teaching CCD, which grew into the youth group. The ministry began holding semi-annual retreats and evolved into the East Coast Chinese Catholic Youth Conference, with participants from as far away as Atlanta and Boston.
 
“My mission was to really build the English ministry, and that’s what’s grown over the years,” he said. There is now a weekly English-language Mass before Chinese school, and it has been instrumental in keeping younger generations of Chinese American kids involved.
 
“I’m a big, big fan of the English Mass. You see the kids being readers, altar servers, singers, doing everything. They identify with that English Mass,” said Ben.
 
“So I don’t get it when an Asian church doesn’t have an English mass, because the kids will sit in the back and quite honestly just pick their noses,” he said with a laugh. “It’s hard. They have to have an advanced ability to speak Chinese, and if they don’t have that, the kids are going to float and not have a sense that they belong.”
 
Over about a dozen years doing youth ministry, Ben’s own life changed. He married – when he met his Taiwanese wife, she was a militant anti-Catholic, he said, but she has since converted and is more devout than he is! – and had two children, now 11 and 19. Kaitlin is following her father’s footsteps at the University of Maryland Newman Center and has taken part in two World Youth Day events. Timothy is in CCD and will join the youth group next year.
 
Ben realized he was aging out of the youth ministry, and his wife Jia-Shieu, who coordinates the CCD program, pointed out another growing need in the church community. And just like that, with the guidance, he says, of the Holy Spirit, he was off to his next mission.
 
“It was evident there was a need for married couples groups. Married couples were under attack,” he said, and needed their faith built. Ben and Jia-Shieu work in this ministry together. “Once they do that and they have kids, they’re not going anywhere.”
 
Patrick Cheng took over the youth group when Ben moved on and ran it for several years after he graduated from college. Now 43, he’s known Ben since his own days participating in the group as a teenager.
 
An “ABC” like Ben, Patrick met his wife, an immigrant from China, in the youth group. “When Ben spoke, it resonated with me and with many in the group,” he said. “He made it engaging and fun. I tried to emulate those components when I was leading.”
 
Ben still engages with the youth group leaders, and spent a week with them this summer at Bethlehem Farm in West Virginia, doing service work. He hopes to bring a work group to Houston at some point, to partner with a Chinese Catholic church there.
 
Now, he wonders what will come after the current phase in his life. He’s been an educator for almost three decades and plans to retire in a few years.
 
“I’m really discerning the question: what do I do next?” he asks with an openness that teenagers no doubt still find very appealing. “What’s God calling me to do?”

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor

ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of the United States Catholic Mission Association. USCMA relies exclusively on memberships and donations to fund its service to the Church and the world – building bridges of solidarity through mutual relationships.

Download the latest ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

Some people will tell you they always knew they were called to mission work. Others found their mission purpose through life experience. Kim Lamberty, director of university and mission engagement at Catholic Relief Services, who has spent years dedicated to mission work in Haiti, would say she falls into the latter category.
 
“I originally wanted to do international work in general, and I wasn’t actually Catholic,” said Lamberty, who pursued philosophy and Soviet affairs as an undergraduate at Marquette University—even studying in Leningrad—then went on to receive a master’s in international affairs at Columbia University. “My thinking was I was going to have a career at state department and I worked there for a couple of years.”
 
Then, pausing a beat for maximum impact, she added wryly, “and that experience was part of what helped me to understand that that was not my calling.”
 
It was while working at the State Department that Lamberty began to question what she was doing with her life.
 
“It’s a long story. I was in a job that I wasn’t well suited to. It wasn’t working for me on a spiritual level,” she said.  “So that led me to question who I am, and what kind of life do I want to lead?” 
 
She began reading some of the great spiritual writers— Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton—which led her to the Catholic Church. Their wisdom began to shape her into the person she was meant to become.
 
“They’re two of the greatest spiritual Catholic figures of the 20th century, so it should surprise no one that they influenced me,” Lamberty deadpanned. “Both were contemplative and both dedicated their lives to justice and peace. That captures my own faith commitment, as well, and who I am as a Catholic—a contemplative, dedicating my life to justice and peace.”
 
This new direction led her to move into a Catholic Worker house in D.C. and to a position as director of social concerns at St. John the Baptist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. She spent seven years at that parish, which had a twinning relationship with a parish in Haiti that included partnering on primary and high schools, nutrition programs, medical delegations, and fundraising.
 
“That’s where Haiti started,” she said. And, with no prior experience in international development, she began to understand that mission is more than sending supplies to cities and countries devastated by poverty and natural disasters, although certainly supplies may be needed. Mission, she said, is about relationship.
 
“My perspective on mission is that it’s relationship based. It’s not some project we’re all going to take on. It’s based in our faith identity, in that contemplative identity, which is also based in relationship with God” Lamberty said. “The heart of mission is a mirror of our relationship with God. It’s not defined by a project, but projects tend to flow out of that relationship. Even when you leave, when the project is done, you’re still in relationship.”
 
St. John the Baptist led to positions with Christian Peacemaker Teams and the Episcopal Service Corps, as well as theology studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where she focused on cross-cultural ministry. In 2006, Lamberty founded a coffee development initiative called Just Haiti, a private NGO that sells coffee in the fair trade solidarity market. Four years later, she found herself at Catholic Relief Services, working as a senior advisor to their projects in Haiti.
 
What she’s learned at CRS, which has considerable expertise in disaster relief, is that it is only through the long-term strategy of strengthening local community capacity so that communities are self-reliant and not dependent on mission projects that true mission is accomplished.
 
“One of the things we know is you have to figure out how to reduce the risk that vulnerable communities are under with respect to disaster. How do you do that?” Lamberty asked. “You make them more sustainable, you help them have more assets, more local structure. Working toward sustainability and self-reliance is how CRS approaches disaster relief. That’s the only thing that really works.”
 
A longtime colleague, Mike Haasl, global solidarity coordinator at the Center for Mission in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, commended Lamberty’s commitment to sustainable development.  “Kim has a tremendous passion for mission,” he said, “and for justice and dignity for local people from economically vulnerable countries.”
 
Lamberty now works with colleges and universities to educate students, faculty, and staff on the social justice tradition of the Catholic Church—including mission—and the ways they can take action to live that out through the work of CRS. She continues with the Just Haiti project, as well, although she is careful to say that mission work, for her, is broader than one country.
 
“Mission is the vocation. Haiti chose me, is how I would put it,” she said. “I have important relationships there, and Haiti chose me as one of the ways to live out the vocation. But it’s not the only way.”
 
Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor

ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of the United States Catholic Mission Association. USCMA relies exclusively on memberships and donations to fund its service to the Church and the world – building bridges of solidarity through mutual relationships. 

Download the latest ENCOUNTER newsletter here. 

Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.

A Humbling, Rewarding Mission

It’s hardly a surprise, given his background in mission, that Harrison Hanvey would continue on that path, bringing others along with him.
 
Now an assistant campus minister for community service at the Catholic University of America, Hanvey, 30, first accompanied others in mission as an undergraduate at Texas Christian University. The native of Wichita Falls, Texas, was studying mechanical engineering at the time.
 
“So that translates well to the work I’m doing,” he said with a laugh. “Calculus 3 has really served me well on mission.”
 
But if we look at all of our life’s experiences as being preparation for what the Lord has in mind for us, then engineering and math are just as good a foundation as any.
 
Hanvey had done mission trips to Tepeyac, Nicaragua his sophomore, junior, and senior years, but he hadn’t quite figured out what he wanted to do with his life yet; he hadn’t started putting together the pieces of the puzzle.
 
The last two years of college, he interned with an engineering firm and found it boring, he said. “I was also starting to look at my faith in a new way, or through a different lens, as far as looking for meaning in my life and what I wanted to spend my time doing,” he said. “The idea of working 40 hours each week behind a desk to make a paycheck to have fun on the weekends just seemed really empty to me.”
 
To put it plainly, he said, “I thought, man, if this is what I have to look forward to, I’m not down for that.”
 
Still, the way wasn’t quite clear. So he put out to sea, as it were, working on cargo ships to pay off his student loans. At the same time, he was formulating a plan to do long-term service work abroad.
 
He applied for and was accepted to a program called Farm of the Child in Honduras, a home for abandoned, abused, and orphaned children. It was March 2012, and he was 24 years old. He spoke no Spanish.
 
“You want to talk about a humbling experience,” he said with a laugh. “That was very humbling.”
 
But with the confidence of youth – and a little faith – Hanvey threw himself into the work. After about six months, he had a pretty good handle on the language, he said, so as “to be somewhat useful” around the place. He extended for a third year after his initial two-year commitment ended.
 
He began on the groundwork and maintenance crews with a handful of Honduran men. There were about a dozen volunteers, often Americans, three Franciscan sisters, and other Honduran staff.
 
Once he’d cultivated some facility with the language, Hanvey transitioned to the life skills program for the kids. Many of them, he said, had lived at the home since they were 2 or 3 years old, and they might be there until age 18.
 
“They needed to learn skills to be able to survive in the outside world, for lack of a better term,” he said. They took academic classes, including English, and volunteered in the health clinic and agriculture program. Once they were about 16, Hanvey worked with them to find paying jobs outside of the program.
 
The experience was an eye-opener.
 
“These are kids who carry some really heavy burdens and have complex struggles. That was a world I had no understanding of,” he said. “I kind of won the lottery as far as family and opportunities in life. I grew up in a healthy family and schools. It’s kind of heartbreaking, and it’s a completely different reality.”
 
After three years, Hanvey returned to the States to live with his parents, mowing lawns and pondering where he’d been and where he might go next.
 
During those three years in Honduras, he’d returned to Nicaragua each spring break. He realized his heart was calling him back there again, so six months later, he arranged with a friend to live and work in Tepeyac, the same small agricultural community he’d lived in as an undergraduate student. He lived in a tiny, 10x14 sheet metal house, working first on a plantain farm and then a coffee farm, earning about $3.50 per day.
 
He stayed for two years in Nicaragua.
 
“I felt like I really learned a lot from the people there. They taught me a lot about hospitality, generosity, solidarity,” he said. “But I did miss my family, and I missed my friends back in the US. I was tired of swinging a machete and was ready to do something more creative, that used my mind a little bit more.”
 
A job search led him to Catholic, where he found a position organizing immersion and mission trips during spring break and summer vacation, as well as working with the community service team. Thus far, he’s accompanied students to Jamaica and Belize.
 
Hanvey has impressed his Campus Ministry colleagues, including Fr. Marek Stybor, a Conventual Franciscan from Poland,
 
“He’s very joyful, solid, and responsible,” said Fr. Stybor, who was a missionary in Africa and Kenya for six years, and who accompanied Hanvey and the students to Jamaica on spring break. “He’s a person of integrity. Respectful, very patient, very gentle, and I think self-disciplined. A missionary needs those qualities.”
 
There’s no question that Hanvey is a missionary now.
 
“The most rewarding part of the job is to hear how it impacts the students or how they grow,” he said. Then Hanvey reflected on how he came to mission work to begin with. “That’s how this whole world was opened up for me, on a spring break trip, so it’s the whole thing coming full circle.”

Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor
 
ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of the United States Catholic Mission Association. USCMA relies exclusively on memberships and donations to fund its service to the Church and the world – building bridges of solidarity through mutual relationships.
 
Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available. 

Sue Keefe - far right standing - with IHM Education Project

A Life in Mission: To Nicaragua and Back Again

It’s been a lifetime of ministry for Sue Keefe, and even retirement can’t really slow her down. The nurse, wife, mother, grandmother, and lay missioner has dedicated herself to the service of others, in Mexico, Nicaragua, Kentucky, and her town of Cincinnati.
 
As a young woman, Keefe had planned to enter the Peace Corps with a girlfriend from nursing school, but that friend was killed in a car accident, a crushing loss for Keefe. One month later, she met her husband, Pat.
 
“I always tell him he was the best gift I ever received,” said Keefe, 71, who is retired after 41 years as an ICU nurse. When the two became engaged, she asked if he wanted to go on a medical mission. Pat, a pharmacist, said yes.
 
“It was the 70s,” Keefe said with a laugh. “We thought we could do anything.”
 
They spent three years in Tila, Chiapas, Mexico, with the Davenport Diocesan Volunteers, establishing a medical clinic that provided the first organized healthcare the Ch’ol Mayan people in that region had ever had.
 
“It was just a wonderful experience,” said Keefe, who grew up in a Catholic family, going to Mass on Sunday and catechism on Saturday, with a deep devotion to the Virgin Mary. But it wasn’t until college and the mission trip that she felt her faith deepen and expand.
 
“I think my faith grew in Mexico, and throughout the years at nursing school and college,” she said. “Mission was important to us.”
 
With two children who have volunteered with the Capuchin Franciscans and another who joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, it’s clear that mission has been important to the entire Keefe family.
 
But the long-ago trips to Mexico were really just the beginning of their adventure. An even bigger mission would soon speak to their hearts.
 
As a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Cincinnati, Keefe enrolled with some fellow parishioners in a Just Faith program in Louisville in 1997.  Out of that experience would come a twinning relationship that is still going strong.
 
They met Sr. Margie Navarro C.S.J., a missionary in Nicaragua who also happened to be their then-pastor’s principal when he was in grade school.
 

Sue Keefe with Josefa Rodriguez at the Cultural Center

“I think it was the Holy Spirit that brought us to Margie,” said Keefe. “She came up to visit, and we all fell in love with her.”
 
Sr. Margie had started the Cultural Center of Batahola Norte, in Managua, in 1983. It offered classes in cooking, sewing, dance, music, art, accounting, literacy, and English, among other things, in an area of high unemployment and grievous poverty.
 
By 2000, the IHM parishioners had signed a covenant with the people of Batahola, and a mutual partnership, Project Education Batahola, was born. The mission visits have gone both north and south, with congregants from Ohio visiting Nicaragua, and their friends from Batahola making the trip to Ohio.
 
“We share a lot of the same values, we have the same faith,” said Keefe, who has been to Nicaragua about 20 times. “It’s just been a wonderful relationship all these years, and the center is still open. It’s this wonderful, loving place. They realize that all of us are valuable and they try to instill in all of these people a love for themselves, for neighbors, for God.”
 
Today, the center serves more than 700 people, and many of the services are possible because of donations from IHM congregants, including books, paint, uniforms, Bibles, school supplies, sewing machines, musical instruments, carpentry tools, and more.
 
The international twinning relationship opened the door to a second partnership, closer to home. The sister of IHM’s current pastor, Fr. Tom Kreidler, is the parish life director of Our Lady of the Mountain in Stanton, Kentucky, which is geographically close but also worlds away.
 
“Our Lady of the Mountains is the Catholic island in the midst of a very impoverished and destitute area,” said Fr. Tom. His parishioners donate food, clothing, and other necessities to the Kentucky parish. “The outreach there, through education, building up the people, education, dignity, equality, it’s just wonderful.”
 
Fr. Tom credits Keefe’s energy and passion with much of the success for both twinning programs.
 
“Sue has been godmother if not mother superior to all of that,” he said, noting that the programs will continue even though she has decided that it’s time to retire from traveling to Nicaragua.
 
“She’s trying to do the passing of the torch, [because] she has all of the energy and the wisdom that comes with her experience.”
 
Keefe plans to spend more time with her nine grandchildren, while still raising funds for the Nicaragua mission and volunteering with a healthy moms and babies program in Cincinnati. She is sanguine about leaving the twinning programs in the hands of younger parishioners.
 
“It’s all connected,” she said. “It was meant to be, if you just sit back and let the Holy Spirit do the work.”
 
Article by Julie Bourbon, ENCOUNTER Editor
 
ENCOUNTER is an electronic newsletter of the United States Catholic Mission Association. USCMA relies exclusively on memberships and donations to fund its service to the Church and the world – building bridges of solidarity through mutual relationships.
 
Donations are warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated. Donate HERE. Membership in USCMA will connect you to the growing network of missionaries - lay, religious and ordained. To become a member, click HERE. Organizational memberships are also available.