MISSIONER TALES
I first learned of the concept of accompaniment, of “walking with the people,” from the Maryknoll Sisters. This, I thought, is the ministry to which I am being called here in Nicaragua.
Missioner Tales July/August 2020
The idea of making protective masks during the COVID-19 pandemic started in our Maryknoll lay missioner house here in Haiti, but we had no big plans in place. Then our Religious of Jesus and Mary friends offered us a sewing machine. Another friend, Geri Lanham, said Mercy Beyond Borders (MBB), a non-profit organization helping women, where she...
Missioner Tales May/June 2020
Teaching in the altiplano of Peru (at 13,000 feet above sea level) many years ago, I found myself in a unique situation. The school, which was just for girls, was a one-room building made of adobe with a corrugated tin roof. There were about six rows of worn wooden desks with attached benches. They were lined up three in a row from wall to...
Missioner Tales March/April 2020
I walked the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday with prisoners at one of the men’s prisons in Lima, Peru, where I work. In the procession the prisoners carried a heavy cross on their shoulders as they walked slowly in silence. As I walked along with them, under the hot sun, I realized each of us is carrying our own burdens. There is no need to...
Missioner Tales January/February 2020
I was part of a pastoral team that had the responsibility for the parish of Capinota, Bolivia, which consisted of about 30 villages, many of which were nestled in the thinning air of the Andes Mountains. One day to guide us to the isolated village of Calacaja, the campesinos brought a mule for me to ride up the mountain. At first, riding went...
Missioner Tales November/December 2019
I was visiting patients at a medical clinic here in Malakal, South Sudan. I noticed one of the patients, a 5-year-old boy, sitting on a bench waiting for the doctor. The boy had come to the clinic with his mother. He had a painful ear infection that needed treatment. I stopped and said hello to him. We shook hands and I gave him a blessing. Later...
Missioner Tales September/October 2019
As I usually do three times a week, I jumped on the number 800 bus to go to the local seminary here in China. Oddly enough, in this city of some 4 million people, the bus had a lot of open seats that day. I sat down on one of them. All of a sudden, I felt wet. I reached my hand underneath my leg to double-check and bingo: I had chosen the wrong...
Missioner Tales July/August 2019
After eight years in São Paulo, Brazil, our family recently returned to João Pessoa, a coastal city at the most eastern point of the Americas, where we had previously served with the Maryknoll Lay Missioners. In order to reconnect with partners and explore ministry possibilities, my husband, Flávio, and I are visiting several communities. I was...
Missioner Tales May/June 2019
During my first month in Shariatpur town in Bangladesh, where I visit the sick poor and often accompany them to the hospital, a woman gently turned down my invitation to take her, her husband and their disabled son to a Dhaka hospital. I later returned to see them and learn if there had been any change in the 9-year-old boy’s health. No, nothing....
Missioner Tales March / April 2019
When I was living among the Aymara women in the Andes Mountains of Peru, it was not uncommon to see a woman walking along with her hands in constant motion. Under her arm she would have a large ball of newly shorn wool from an alpaca or sheep. In her hands she would be holding a type of wooden spindle, which was likely homemade. She would grab a...
