Feature Stories

Healing Broken Lives

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Gladys Gonzalez, MM

Gonzalez_TanzaniaFrom Maryknoll Magazine: Dar es Salaam is a rapidly expanding city. In the coming years this capital of Tanzania is expected to expand even more, with increased building and more economic opportunities. However, development is taking its toll on the environment as well as human lives and I am working to heal both.

Much of Tanzania’s landscape is surrounded by large boulders, which entrepreneurs are removing to construct buildings. The process is leaving huge holes, like craters, rendering the land unusable, causing massive erosion, and pushing out wildlife, flora and fauna.

Added to that is the plight of the women who labor to break up the stones to construct the buildings.

Trucks transport the boulders to a site where the women’s task is to cut them into small stones about three inches in diameter. They do this by hand, using large, heavy sledgehammers. The women then deposit their work into 10 kilo sacks (a little under 23 pounds), which the truckers haul away. The women are paid 200 Tanzanian shillings per bag, the U.S. equivalent of about 13 cents. They labor all day for perhaps $1.

Many of the women have lung problems. Many are completely blind or have impaired vision caused by the stone chips, particles and dust covering not only their faces but their whole bodies as they work day after day under a blazing sun. They have no hope of ever leaving this work until their bodies completely give out. I am working to help them heal holistically, that is, restoring their whole being, body and spirit, to health.

During my 18 years as a missioner in Tanzania I have discovered the importance of holistic healing working not only with women’s groups but also youth groups and children with hiv. I started out as a high school math teacher. At first it didn’t occur to me that I could go deeper than just dealing with the students’ minds in the learning process. The mind is just one part of the person as a complete system—physically, psychologically and spiritually.

Gonzalez2_TanzaniaI came to understand that the whole person is involved in any activity. That is what is meant by holistic. So I moved from formal teaching to informal teaching and the art of holistic healing. I believe that through nurturing, listening and responding to the deeper wisdom of our whole being, we can heal ourselves and our world.

Some of the practices I use are taken from a program developed in Central America and based in Watsonville, Calif., called “Capacitar,” meaning “enabling,” in which I have been trained as a practitioner. The program encourages meditation, body movement, visualization and breathing, active listening, simple psychotherapeutic skills, acupressure for alleviating pain and stress, and indigenous healing herbs as medicine and food. The arts, including dance, music, sculpture and painting, are all important tools in the process of helping people heal.

I am bringing these tools to the women who cut stones for a living. I meet with them for approximately four hours each week. Half of that time we spend learning and practicing different healing exercises and meditation to restore their energy that has been depleted by the difficulties of their everyday lives. The rest of the time we do art projects as a tool for healing as well as income-generation.

HealingAs a Maryknoll Sister, I am committed to carry on our charism: “to be an active participant in the mission of God: a mission of peace, healing, wholeness and love.” Therefore, even as I work to help the women, I also fight against the practices that are not only threatening their lives but also destroying their environment.

My work with these women is just a tiny beginning, but at least it is a beginning. Prior to this project, they were unaware of life outside the only one they knew. Although the four hours a week that I provide for them will not radically change their lives, it does allow them to view a different horizon; it enhances their self-esteem.

In order to compensate for their lost wages while these women attend our weekly meeting, we began a microcredit project with funds I had raised. We have been able to generate a little money from the artifacts and cards we make during our sessions.

I am always touched and humbled by the life and endurance of such women. They are not poor! They are rich inside; they simply have been denied their rights. They have taught me more than the knowledge I have shared with them.

What gives me hope is that the women who come to our weekly meetings are committed to having their daughters attend school. This may be the greatest outcome for their future.

Action Begins at Home

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Claris Zwareva, MM

EarthSince our foundation, Maryknoll Sisters have focused on ministries that promote peace, justice and the integrity of creation. This task is even more crucial today because deforestation, the overexploitation of earth’s resources, trafficking in wildlife, and other unhealthy practices continually increase human suffering, especially among poor people.

In June, the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, addressed these issues to protect humanity’s source of sustenance. We, as Maryknoll Sisters, share these concerns as we continue to witness the effects of forest degradation, desertification, and environmental pollution, and poor people continue to suffer because of past practices that have damaged their lands, making them infertile.

Since action begins at home, we Maryknoll Sisters are also called to continue concretizing our agenda for the care of the earth. Every tree, every bush on our grounds is an oxygen factory that preserves our health and for which we must care. As we grow in the awareness of our interconnectedness with nature, we begin to realize that it is our duty to care for the earth as God’s precious gift to us and not an object to be exploited. We must join hands in order to change the attitude of dominance that is destroying our planet and over-exploiting its finite resources. The example of groups from around the world who have participated in shaping the UN’s post-2015 development goals inspire us as Maryknoll Sisters. With the help of those who share our vision for mission, we can “make God’s love [truly] visible.”

At the environmental assembly in Nairobi, the UN Secretary General said, “Protecting humanity’s life support system is integral to sustainable development. And it is a duty for all. The air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil that grows our food are part of a delicate global ecosystem that is increasingly under pressure from human activities.” Ecosystem degradation affects not just human life but all of Earth’s bio-systems. Therefore, the Earth’s community, including Maryknoll Sisters and all those who share our mission values, is called to find effective solutions to today’s problems. Restoring a clean environment, providing sufficient clean water for consumption, and growing sufficient food requires the effective collaboration of all sectors that, together, are able to advocate for more effective environmental policies.

In Africa and other developing areas, many people continue to depend on solid fuels, biomass and open fires for heating and cooking. Household air pollution from such fuels affects the health of children and of the elderly. Industrial, automobile and other air and water pollutants affect human health and their capacity to contribute to the development agenda. Air pollution now ranks as the world’s biggest cause of respiratory illnesses most prevalent in slums where people live in deplorable conditions. Our mission as Maryknoll Sisters is not only the elimination of poverty but to address its root causes and a development agenda that has created a new kind of waste.

Technological progress has created a new kind of trash, electronic waste, which is a health hazard for those who go through the garbage looking for objects that they can re-sell for a living. Electronic waste is a danger to children who play with it and are exposed to such heavy metals as mercury, lead and arsenic among other hazardous substances. E-waste also infiltrates the soil, drinking water as well as the air we breathe.

September 23 is the beginning of the United Nations Climate Summit which will bring together heads of state, civil society leaders, and other stakeholders. This will be a time to link with other groups as well as a time to lobby government officials for effective policies on climate change, and UNEA can provide the overarching policy guidance needed within the UN system.

Our commitment to the promotion of justice, peace and the integrity of creation calls us to urgent action to engage in earth-preserving practices. True collaboration is imperative if we are to succeed in eradicating poverty and in promoting a life of dignity for all God’s people. Jesus said, “I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the full” (Jn. 10:10), which for us means promoting the dignity and integrity of life for all peoples.

Leading the Way for Peace

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Steve Lalli

esalmon380x240How many of us can remain true to deeply-held principles when the forces lined up against you include your country, church and family? Sister Elizabeth Salmon saw firsthand what opposing a world war did to her father, Ben.

Ben Salmon was subjected to torture, forced feeding after a hunger strike, hard labor, and prison time for refusing to fight during World War I. Sister Elizabeth has just returned from Austria for the war’s 100th anniversary in August 2014, where she shared how her father’s example can bring peace to today’s global conflicts.

“Long before Mahatma Gandhi, Franz Jagerstatter, Dorothy Day, Dr. King or Thomas Merton,” wrote peace activist John Dear, a columnist at National Catholic Reporter. Ben Salmon “stood and said that because of Jesus, he would not be a soldier. Right here in the United States.”

Salmon was a Catholic conscientious objector from Denver who was arrested and sentenced to death (which was eventually reduced to 25 years of hard labor). Believing that killing is immoral, Salmon, who died in 1932, claimed that no Christian should carry a gun. Because of that stand and a lifetime of Christian acts, a Catholic group is now advocating Sister Elizabeth’s father for beatification.

“Yes, our dad did leave an example of mighty courage and of stick-to-it-ive-ness and, as well, an adherence to the letter of God’s Word in the Ten Commandments, ‘Thou shalt not kill,'” Sister Elizabeth said. “He also stuck to his own principles with no deviation, as chaplains of five or six different prisons found out.”

To take that kind of stand when the nation was at war was considered criminal. The U.S. entered World War I in 1917, and by then the war already had been raging for three years. Ben Salmon’s example as one of the first Catholic conscientious objectors in a time of war stood in contrast to a Church that was late in adopting that stance. “The Germans are my brothers. I will not kill them!” Sister Elizabeth said her father once said.

Pope Francis, who would have a say on Ben Salmon’s possible beatification, heard arguments in favor of the proposal earlier this year, according to Sister Elizabeth. Supporters said they have no idea what the Pope will do but vowed to continue to write to Pope Francis and the Vatican about Ben Salmon’s courage as a soldier in the army of peace.

Later, during World War II, another Catholic, Franz Jagerstatter, would stand by his moral principles, too, and refuse his mandated duty to kill as a soldier in the German Army.

On August 9, 1943, Franz Jagerstatter, an Austrian, was put to death by the Nazis for refusing to serve. In 2007, the martyr for nonviolence was beatified by Pope Benedict. This August, Sister Elizabeth also attended Blessed Franz’s death anniversary in Austria.

“I certainly want to be involved in anyway possible for whatever would promote no more wars,” said Sister Elizabeth.

The Assumption: Mary’s Feast And Ours

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Betty Ann Maheu, MM

Assumption1From Maryknoll Magazine: Every year on August 15 thousands of Catholics in China make their way up the steep hill in the village of Donglu in Hebei Province to the country’s most popular Marian shrine there. They are remembering the day in 1900 during the anti-Christian Boxer Rebellion when the Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel reportedly appeared in the sky as soldiers were attacking the village and attempting to kill its Christian residents. In fear of the apparition, the soldiers fled and the Christians were saved. The victory was reported on August 15, feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is not surprising that years before Pius XII in 1950 proclaimed the dogma of Mary’s Assumption, Chinese Catholics celebrated the feast.

The declaration of the dogma of Mary’s Assumption into heaven did not surprise most Catholics around the world. It was not a matter for debate, but a moment for rejoicing. For the Catholics at Donglu, the declaration was a confirmation of what they already held dear. Mary, their mother, was very much alive in body and soul. Had she not saved them from the swords of the Boxers? Had they not triumphed repeatedly over those who would destroy their shrine and forbid them from celebrating her feast? Yearly they gathered at her shrine to say “thank you.”

Leaders in the Universal Church were aware that the declaration of the dogma was a teachable moment. It was important for the laity everywhere to understand the meaning of Mary’s Assumption. The declaration was a confirmation of a long held belief that Mary had been taken body and soul into heaven, where she shared in the glory of her son’s resurrection. It was the fulfillment and culmination of her immaculate conception, and what her “yes” to the angel Gabriel could mean for everyone. To the faithful pilgrims of Donglu, who would never forget what she had done for them, she well deserved to be assumed into heaven! No privilege the Church accorded to Mary would ever suffice.

By declaring the dogma of Mary’s Assumption, the Church was making an implicit statement: the human body is holy; it is not only for time but for all eternity. The Assumption signifies that Mary was assumed body and soul into God’s wholeness. Mary has already received what is true for all believers. We, too, will live with God forever. We have it on Jesus’ word: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16).

God entered the world of human beings through a human mother, Mary. By virtue of her life-long openness to all that God asked of her, it was inconceivable to the Church Fathers that her body should be corrupted in the grave. They believed that Mary’s body must already have the eternal quality of the complete human being, that is, one who has achieved full stature in Christ (Ephesians 4:13).

It was not just by coincidence that the pope declared the dogma of Mary’s Assumption on the feast of All Saints. On this feast we celebrate the millions of unknown nameless friends of God, among them surely hundreds who once climbed the steep hill to Donglu to celebrate Our Lady’s feast. Like Mary, they too have “reached their full stature in Christ.” The dogma of the Assumption confirms our hope that death does not end in corruption but in a transformed existence, the likes of which we cannot imagine. Paul told us as much: “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered the human heart to know what God has prepared for those who love him” (1Corinthians 2:9).

The feast of the Assumption is a missionary feast, a feast of Christian hope, a hope that heralds good news to the poor and to all who live peaceably in our global village believing in the promise that Mary’s Assumption is for all people, for all eternity.

My Health Care Ministry

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Mary Lee Englerth, MM

“The Greatest Gift Is Compassion”

This past year has been a busy year and also a challenging one. We were able to extend access to health care into five new counties located in northwestern Pennsylvania near Erie County.  We now have five sites serving the migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families in 30 counties in Pennsylvania and a few camps we visit in Maryland. This is an increase of 11 counties during these past 4 years. We have also been able to establish working contracts with additional federally qualified health centers – one in Erie and one in Lancaster, giving us a total of 12 clinics that provide health care to our migrant and seasonal workers. Besides clinic visits, the staff in these various sites during the picking season, also attends patients in the migrant camps 3 evenings a week during the months of June through mid-November.

Last year, over 2,600 patients were seen during the farm season–with over 3,550 visits. These include clinic visits seeing patients who work at orchards, produce farms, vineyards, dairy farms, poultry farms, nurseries, packing houses, mushroom farms, and Christmas tree farms.

The U.S. Bureau of Primary Health Care has many requirements regarding the operation of this program, and due to this, I must travel a good bit around Pennsylvania seeing that all of these requirements are in place. Many times during these trips, though, I do have the opportunity of going out with our local staff to visit the workers in the camps, and I have gotten to know workers from many areas of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Haiti. We have had also an influx of refugees from Bhutan and Nepal recently.

However, the best part of my health care ministry is when I have the time and the opportunity to go out in the evenings to our local Adams County migrant camps with our team of nurses and interpreters to see patients. These men and women are not accustomed to have health care workers come to them and, above all, to have someone actually sit down and listen to them. I believe this is the greatest gift we can give to them – showing compassionate listening, besides providing treatment. Believe me, this gift also is reciprocal.

Recently, I went up to the five northwestern Pennsylvania counties surrounding Erie to conduct health screens on the workers in the dairy farms. We went with a staff member from the local Migrant Education staff. As you know, Erie is in a snow belt. The week we were up there it was very cold, a mixture of rain and snow, and as we were literally sloshing through the mud to get into these places, I really felt at home. It was so much like the paths in Peru and Guatemala. The amazing part for me is that in each of these dairy farms, all of the workers were men and women from Guatemala. Many were from aldeas in which I had worked, so you can imagine the great conversations we all had. I even had to get some of the men to translate for me into Mam for some of the workers. This was the local language of the people where I had worked in Guatemala.

I laughingly asked the women where their beautiful huipils (blouses) and lovely woven cortes (skirts) were. They all laughed and some of the women said that they wear their local dresses in the house. It was strange to see these Guatemalan women dressed in sweatshirts and jeans. They were carrying heavy pails, lifting hay, and leading the cows in from the fields. It was a great week.

Every year in October we have the East Coast Migrant Stream meeting. Each year it is held in a different city along the East Coast. At this meeting, much time is spent on the Affordable Care Act and the need to enroll legal workers in the new health care insurance plans. This is presenting a great challenge to us. Many of our workers are legal residents and now by law they must be enrolled in one of the health care plans. The challenge for us is how to make them aware that they must comply with this new rule, and how and where to go to enter into the enrollment process for their insurance.

We also do many health screens with parents’ groups who have children enrolled in the Migrant Headstart program. We work especially with the women who come together for classes in English as a Second Language. They’re employed in the packing houses during the day. It affords us an opportunity to be able to sit down and also talk with the women, and needless to say they are grateful to have some of us who speak Spanish to answer their many and varied questions.

In Iraq, We Worked for Peace

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Rosemarie Milazzo, MM

This summer, I attended a meeting of a New York group called Religion and Peace in Stony Point, NY. I met a young Iraqi mother who told me that all her life, her country has been at war. Now, her children are born into more violence and war.

I was in northern Iraq last year as part of a peace team made up of mostly Christians from all different denominations. Our group, whose newest member is a Muslim, is called Christian Peacemaker Teams. During our mission in Iraq, I attended a dance festival in Erbil, a city in northern Iraq where thousands of Christians have fled attacks by extremist Islamic forces.

Last year, there was peace in Erbil. Many ethnic groups performed dances reflecting their cultural traditions.  The Yazidi danced beautifully. They were stunning in their presentation. They danced with passion, with gentle rhythms, huge smiles, radiantly garbed in their traditional clothing.

As part of our peace-building mission in northern Iraq, we monitored Kurdish national elections to ensure fairness for all. We also served with Islamic women who advocated for an end to abusive practices they suffered in their society.

Later in the year, we had the opportunity to visit the northern Iraqi village of Duhok. That’s where many Iraqis who are members of the minority Yazidi have fled. In recent days and weeks, the Yazidi have been trapped by Islamic extremists who have overrun their homes, persecuting the Yazidi where they have lived for thousands of years.

Last year, they warmly welcomed us to their homes and we were fortunate that they were baptizing two babies that day. We were invited to share the celebration. Following the baptism, we were taken all around the village by Yazidi elder women. They have such endearing respect for the earth that we all walked barefoot.  No shoes were seen in the whole village.

There were many smiles and songs that day.

Now, there is no more dancing in that village. Military forces have entered and ravished the homes, temples, ritual centers and have killed many of the men and taken the women.  Some have taken shelter in the mountains in Sanjir, where the hostile heat and lack of water and food offer no hospitality. It seems that many of the people have already died and many are suffering without help.

There is no more dancing for the Yazidi people now.

Saving Lives in Myanmar

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Mary Grenough, MM

MyanmarBoyThe other day, I heard a new “horror story.” A woman in the northeast of the country (Chin State, near the India border) was hemorrhaging and needed a blood transfusion. Fourteen men in her village offered to be donors. Their blood was screened and 12 of the 14 were positive for HIV. The next needed task will be to get a group to go to that village, check the blood of the wives and partners of these positive men – and that of their children. Then to get those who are HIV-positive to get check-ups and treatment.

Most of the people in that village are migrant workers and it seems they went to a jade mine where they picked up the habit of shooting drugs and using the same needle. They came back addicted and still do not use clean syringes and needles There are only four places in the country for drug rehabitation, and it is a big problem here – plus alcoholism.

It’s a common story in Myanmar, where villages are separated from medical care by mountain ranges and long distances – and poverty. My life here interacts with the people – mostly those from the villages and different ethnic groups – whom I have met during almost eight years of presence here. My three main areas of mission have been trying to improve awareness, prevention and care for people with HIV/AIDS, improving education about and access to basic health care for pregnant women and others, and assisting students to continue their education beyond village-level possibilities. These activities keep me busy and very fulfilled. We are often called on to act quickly in emergency situations, too.

SavingLives2_0For example, during a single week in May, we received two requests for emergency help. The first was for a mother in her first pregnancy who had been in labor for more than 24 hours and couldn’t deliver her baby. She had traveled for hours from their village to reach the nearest government hospital. With our help, she had a caesarian section and safely had her 8½-pound baby.

In the same hospital and almost at the same time, another mother having her first baby arrived – having had to borrow $250 to hire a riverboat to bring her to the hospital. She, too, had been in labor for more than 24 hours. She had a caesarian section and delivered twins weighing more than seven pounds each.

Without an immediate donation from a very generous supporter, these surgeries ($100 for the doctor and about $100 for anesthesia, supplies, and medicine) would not have been done. Those mothers, and probably their babies, would most likely have died, leaving two young widowed husbands feeling great guilt over the death of their wives and babies.

Neither of these mothers had any prenatal care – or even basic education. They had never traveled very far outside their village before this. I do have a dream connected with this and which I think could start a much-needed program here. It would be to hire a community organizer and a nurse midwife who would start a community-based healthy family program in a very poor industrial zone of Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

The program would involve developing people’s basic understanding of health, including human sexuality, identifying the women who are pregnant, and helping them to access needed services for good pre-natal and post-natal care – including testing for anemia, HIV, hepatitis, malaria and more, and getting treatment for these diseases which afflict so many here.

It would also include developing better community awareness and responsibility, providing needed education to parents, children, youth and spouses and partners concerning human sexuality, gender awareness and equality, and responsible relationships. We would also want to assure that the newborn babies get adequate nutrition, immunizations, and more, at least until they are two years old. As the program develops, I would hope that some of the mothers or others could be helped to develop income-generating programs and even to start small savings cooperatives.

When our staff accompanies sick people to consult in the hospitals or with the doctors, they are shown attention and respect. On their own, they wouldn’t dare to approach the doctors or hospitals – first because they have no money and, if they borrow, the interest rate is 20 percent a month.

That Paing Oo is an orphan who lives with his grandfather. He was born with a prominent cleft lip and cleft palate, and the grandfather, having no money, just felt sorry for him. He didn’t know what else to do. When the community health volunteer knew about him, he was referred, and with minimal costs for the surgery, his lip has already been repaired and he is beginning speech therapy. Surgery for his cleft palate will be done after six months.

Before his surgery, he could not be understood when he tried to speak. After his lip healed, he smiled broadly and kept saying, “I’m happy now!”

When he returned home to his 78-year-old grandfather, who was unable to leave the house – but in whose care the boy is – the grandfather and boy hugged each other repeatedly, and the grandfather said, “Now I can die in peace.”

A Global Cyber Missioner

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Mary Ellen Manz, M.M.

From Maryknoll Magazine:  In his apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis says, “Throughout the world, let us be in a permanent state of mission.” Maryknoll Sister Elizabeth Roach creatively puts those words into practice. Combining her experience as a teacher in Latin America with her passion for writing children’s stories, she brings God’s love to children worldwide through modern technology.

ElizabethRoach_CyberAfter a 50-year mission career that included teaching children in Bolivia and Peru, working with street children in Hawai,i and doing pastoral work in Panama, the Maryknoll Sister from Pittsburgh, Pa., was not ready to retire in 2002. She took a correspondence course in writing books for children.

Three of her books have been published in paperback and on Kindle. If I Am Worthy tells the story of Maryknoll Father William Kruegler, who gave his life to protect children in Bolivia. Secret Melody, she says, “is a gripping story about child immigrants.”Seven Stories is a collection of tales to be read to children ages 2 to 8.

“My stories are about children, animals and history,” says Sister Roach. “They are written to entertain children. Characters, of course, practice Christian values.”

As soon as Facebook and Twitter appeared, she saw them as other means to reach out with her stories to children whose parents cannot afford to buy books. Sister Roach considers it vital for children to have good stories in a world where so many children suffer. “Stories can lift them out of that suffering even for a short time and show them love and goodness and let them know that somebody cares,” she says. “That is Good News.”

She now has a blog called My Story Hour, where, she says, “I can tell stories to children all over the world because people are accessing the blog in so many places. I’ve had over 11,000 views since I started to put stories on my blog. Some weeks I have Iran, Latvia and Beijing. They can bring stories up in their own language and the translation can be made in about 80 different languages.” (

Sister Roach’s latest discovery is “Skype in the Classroom.” Again she had to learn the technology, but nothing daunts this missionary, who has been a Maryknoll Sister since 1946. “Skype in the Classroom” is a global classroom that has more than 78,000 teachers signed on to it.

With this program, she talks to a class of students who see her and she sees them. She shares her stories with the students and helps them develop skills to write their own stories as they ask her questions.

“In Catholic schools, grades K–2, I add a finger play about how Jesus teaches us to love everyone,” she says. “In public schools I cannot speak of God, but I believe the Gospel is proclaimed by reaching out to everyone in loving ways.” She cites as examples Pope Francis sending chocolate eggs to children with cancer and phone cards to street people. “Those are ways to make God’s love visible in our world,” she says.

She has given three storytelling sessions to kindergartners and first-graders in Ohio and New Jersey and lessons on “The Wonderful World of Writing” to fifth- and sixth-graders in Washington, Alabama and Iowa as well as New Zealand and Canada. She proudly shows thank you notes and drawings she received from one fifth-grade class. She marvels at the brightness of the questions of many and chuckles at the frankness of the remarks of others. One boy wrote, “Thank you for ‘skyping’ us. You sound like a good writer, but I have not heard of you.”

Sister Roach sees technology as a great means of extending mission to the farthest ends of the earth, and the wonderful thing about it, she says, is we can do it from home.

“I always want to be in mission,” she says. “I enjoyed showing children how God loves them during all my years in Bolivia, Peru, Panama and the United States. So, when I discovered cyber-ministry, I knew I could reach even more children as a global cyber missioner.”

An Archbishop Says ‘Thank You’

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Marjorie Ann Bush, MM

bisp_china2_At ten a.m. on September 16, 2014, Francis Lu Xinping, Archbishop of Nanjing Archdiocese in China, and seven companions arrived at the Maryknoll Sisters Center.  Archbishop Francis was on a ten-day visit to the United States.  His journey included Dayton University in Ohio, Caritas in Washington, D.C., and Maryknoll in New York.  In an earlier letter, Archbishop Francis stated that the purpose of his visit was to personally thank the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation and Maryknoll Society for the many services we had generously given to the Archdiocese of Nanjing.

It was a thrilling experience to once again meet Archbishop Francis Lu, Sister Maria Zheng  and Fr. Anthony Guo,  all of whom I worked closely with during the four and a half years that I lived in Nanjing. During that time, Sister Maria Zheng and Father Thomas Goa were granted scholarships through Maryknoll Society’s China Project  to study in the United States.  Also during that time, Father Larry Lewis volunteered to give a retreat to the clergy in Nanjing Archdiocese.

With the gracious assistance of Sister Betty Ann Maheu, we welcomed Archbishop Francis and his entourage with refreshments in Molly’s Suite.  After introductions and a presentation of gifts by Archbishop Francis to the Community, Sister Betty Ann gave the group a tour of the Heritage Museum, especially stressing our beginnings in China.  We prayed together for world peace in the Main Chapel, after which we wended our way to Maryknoll Sisters’ Residential Chapel on the fourth floor where Archbishop Francis, Father Anthony Guo and Father Joseph Gu concelebrated the Eucharist in Chinese.  After Mass both Archbishop Francis and the Sisters in wheelchairs could not get enough of each other. While shaking his hand, they all wanted to tell him where and how long they were in mission, especially the old China hands.

Finally, we were able to enter the elevator and descend to the first-floor main dining room, where Sister Betty Ann and Laura had lovingly decorated two tables with white tablecloths, flowers, place marks and gifts.  The group was in awe of the size and beauty of the dining room with its side views of flowering shrubs both in the courtyard and street side.  It was probably a first for the seven men to pick up their plates and food on the serving line, but for the three women it was not too unusual.  During the meal, the Maryknoll Fathers Superior General Edward Dougherty and Father Timothy Kilkelly, director of the Maryknoll China Project, joined the group for dinner.  There was a small reunion, as a few of the Sisters in the dining room recognized Sister Maria Zheng from the time she was at the Center studying English.

After the meal, just as we were beginning to say our goodbyes and turn the group over to Father Tim for a tour of the Maryknoll Society Seminary, Archbishop Francis asked to see the statues of Mother Mary!  Since they had already seen the beautiful statue of Our Lady of Maryknoll in the front foyer, I had to think which other statues had he in mind.  Then, I remember he probably wanted to see the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.  Almost every Catholic Church in China has a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes outside the Church.  Immediately on arriving at the grotto, Archbishop Francis gathered the group around him to pray.

Next we moved to the Maryknoll Sisters Cemetery.  Everyone was enthralled with the grounds and the graves, reading the tombstones!  Finally one member of the group asked why one grave was still open.  I told them we were preparing to bury Sister Helen Gleason, who just died.  She would be in the same grave as Sister Marge Kulage, who recently passed away at 107 years of age.  They were utterly astounded, since earlier I had told them their host, Sister Betty Ann, was 91 years old.  After praying to Our Lady of the Thorn Crowned Head at Mother Mary Joseph’s grave, the group was ready to head over to the Seminary.  I said goodbye to Archbishop Francis Lu, Sister Maria Zheng  and Father Anthony Guo and the other members of the group, thanking them for coming to express their gratitude for Maryknoll’s service to China, especially Nanjing Archdiocese.   We then turned the group over to Father Timothy Kilkelly who would give them a tour of the Seminary.

These Kids Are in Good Hands

Posted on March 24, 2015

By Bernice Kita, MM

Kita_GuatemalaFor the last several years, Maryknoll Sisters in the Guatemala towns of Lemoa and Chajul have hosted a group of freshly-graduated high school girls from Colegio Monte María in Guatemala City. They come as rural missionaries during school vacation in the month of November, when it’s summer in Guatemala. Each group quickly develops its own unique communal personality – no two groups are alike!

Those assigned to Chajul, a distant mountain town, are brought by their parents in vehicles filled with teaching materials, toys for children, enough food for a month, and their favorite pillows. These Monte Maria graduates, now college students in Guatemala City, volunteered in a spirit of adventure and service to help Ixil-speaking children in Chajul learn how to speak and read Spanish.

Last year, I had signed up 30 first-graders, 30 second-graders and 20 sixth-graders for remedial classes in Spanish and math. The volunteer mentors quickly organized themselves into a teaching team covering five days a week for four weeks. In addition, a few went with our priest to a distant village where they sloshed through mud, ate unfamiliar food, and witnessed the hard life of the people in the rugged countryside. All of them caught a variety of colds from their students. One sprained a ligament in her knee after too much mountain climbing. One had a few spontaneous and scary nosebleeds. And all took turns cleaning toilets, sweeping and mopping floors, washing dishes and cooking supper. In return for their volunteer service, the volunteers eagerly learned from their pupils how to speak a few words of Ixil and set themselves to learn to weave from some of their older students.

Before leaving Chajul, the group sat around my kitchen table talking about their experiences and a few shed tears. They had never seen such poverty, much less experienced it firsthand. They admitted to being deeply touched and permanently changed in those few weeks. Comparing their privileged lives in the capital with the lives of the children of Chajul, they wondered aloud how they could help them once they returned home.

In my kitchen that evening was born a project: to contribute during the next year to the education of six of the children. With very little free time left, these determined young women made arrangements with the children, the parents, the schools, and the banks to make their plan a reality. Several months later, the project was continuing as planned, and the Monte Maria graduates, now college students, were keeping in touch with their protegées in the countryside.

The volunteers from Guatemala City added a whole new dimension to my ministry with their one-month mission to Chajul. Each year, they had collected so much learning materials from other Monte Maria students that, when each year’s new group of volunteers arrived, they brought children’s books, loads of paper, games, paints, and lots of other materials. Each year I had to add more shelves to store everything they left.

This year in June, two of the Monte Maria graduates who served last November wanted to come back for a week during their vacation and plunged right in where they had left off.