The Power of a Parish

May/June 2009 Issue | Posted by Joseph Pronechen in Features

_{Hope Erupts in Haiti}

Ten years ago at Church of the Nativity in Burke, Va., Father Richard Martin asked his parishioners to help build houses for the poorest of the poor in Haiti by saving just 50 cents a day per family during Lent.

The pastor calculated this small sacrifice from each of 2,500 families could raise $50,000 to build 27 simple houses. Parishioners responded with nearly $67,000 and enthusiastically asked to continue the program the following Lent — and beyond.

They launched their own Operation Starfish to work through Food for the Poor, since then helping Haitians to the tune of more than $2 million. To date they’ve built four Nativity Villages with hundreds of houses, and set up fishing villages, tilapia farms, sewing co-ops, schools, and clinics. They’ve made annual trips to Haiti, too, and turned destitute areas into model communities.

Programs like the Church of the Nativity’s are model examples of what a sister parish program — U.S. parishes helping parishes in other countries — can accomplish.

Nativity funded 250 homes in an area that was very violent and depressed. “The people have gotten this gentle nature now,” said Angel Aloma, executive director of Food for the Poor. “They changed from hostility and anger to being sweet. They have become people of God.”

Looking back on his first trip, parishioner Jim McDaniel said, “A switch was turned on in my soul and I wasn’t the same after that.”

He remembers lying awake hearing gunshots in the distance, then visiting the best maternity hospital in Port au Prince, where doctors were issued one pair of gloves all day, and up to four women shared one bed — from one who lost a child at birth to another nursing her newborn.

“What difference could we make as one little church?” he asked himself at first. But by 2002 he and his wife Michele decided to focus on Operation Starfish (StarfishMission.org). He retired early from his job as White House Liaison for the National Park Service to help Father Martin. Now he’s even a “remote associate” for Food for the Poor, speaking about Operation Starfish.

Even the youth like Dennis and Donna Staszak’s 15-year-old Ian and 17-year-old Larissa are enthusiastic about Operation Starfish. Ian put up flyers around the neighborhood asking for shoe donations. He went back a week later with his family and collected a whopping 207 pairs, many new sandals.

“It’s so neat to see that by one family collecting shoes in just one neighborhood, we could make a difference not to just one, but to 207 people in Haiti,” said Ian. He has already collected throughout three neighborhoods and helped load the shoes into ship’s containers.

Larissa has been doing the same with eyeglasses to start a vision mission there. “It’s just a natural expression of our Catholic faith,” she said.

McDaniel remembers what one wo­ man with several hungry children outside their mud hut taught him about faith and charity. He asked her why she had an empty pot on the fire. She answered, ‘I trust God will provide the food, so I’m taking the first step.’

“We emptied our pockets of everything we had that was edible,” he said. “Her faith was rewarded with food. Those are the kinds of lessons we learn that are a gift from them to us.”

Nationwide, Nativity’s example has inspired 300 other organizations, churches, and schools to start an Operation Starfish.

Scenes from Nativity Village at Prolongé, clockwise from top left:

Fruit and vegetable gardens; Father Martin begins construction;

students in their new school; a farm ribbon cutting ceremony.

Fishermen near Cap-Haitien in prayer.

Sisters before, above, and after ‘Operation Starfish.’

_{International Partnership With the Poor}

_{Epiphany Gifts}

Annually on the Sunday closest to the Feast of the Three Kings (Epiphany) on Jan. 6, Hombre Nuevo leads a caravan of cars and vans to bring food, clothing, toys, and supplies to the poorest areas of Tijuana, Mexico. The mission is called Campaña Pequeño Nino Jesús (The Little Baby Jesus Operation).

This Spanish-language mass media apostolate based in Los Angeles expands the sister-parish boundaries by inviting radio listeners, members of many parishes, to imitate the Three Kings bringing gifts to Jesus.

When Legionary Father Juan Rivas, founder of both this mission and Hombre Nuevo (GuadalupeRadio.com), organized the first trip in 1993, three cars like three kings followed the star to one church in Tijuana.

In 2008, events coordinator Jose Fuentes said teams in 391 vehicles spread out to reach 48 churches, chapels, and children’s centers. They brought nearly 8,000 toys and hundreds upon hundreds of boxes of food and clothing, including 5,000 blankets alone. More than 380 families joined Father Rivas to visit Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito, and places in Baja, Calif.

When Frances Guerraro’s group stopped in what’s called El Basurero, which she translates as “The Trash Dumpster,” she didn’t expect to see people living there or a 6-year-old boy and his father going through a dumpster for food.

Then the priest in the chapel nearby rang the bell and people streamed down the hillside where the Hombre Nuevo team gave them food, baby formula and diapers, clothing, simple toys, and soccer balls.

When Guerraro told that 6-year-old boy to pick out a toy, she wasn’t prepared for his answer. “Please,” he asked, “can I have a blanket instead? I’m really cold at night.”

“I couldn’t believe a 6-year-old trading in a toy for a blanket,” she said. When she handed his father a bag of rice and beans, the man politely asked they be given to another family because he had no stove to cook them on.

“We gave him things he didn’t have to cook — granola bars, cookies, cereals,” she said.

The trip was an eye-opener for her 12-year-old daughter Celina who came back to go through her wardrobe, telling her mother, “I have too many shoes and they need them over there.” And her 14-year-old son Michael looked at pictures and offered, “We need to start collecting pastas and buy rice and beans to donate.”

“It’s really changed us,” Guerraro said. Instead of giving a relative yet another jacket for Christmas, they use that money to buy more rice and beans to take to Tijuana. The family also helps their local homeless.

Faith gets kindled in many ways. Guerraro doesn’t complain when stuck in L.A. traffic anymore. “Now I thank God for what I have, and I use that time to pray for these people,” she explained. “I turn every negative into something positive.”

Fuentes was born in Tijuana. He used to receive gifts.

“I prayed to God when I became an adult I want to do the same with these people,” he recalled. “Now that I’m in the U.S., I coordinate this campaign and go and give presents to the others. I thank God for giving me this.”

“Every year it’s the same,” said Father Rivas’ assistant Jorge Luis Macias. “It rains, but when we arrive in those poorest of the poor sites the rain stops. Inside those little churches we pray the Rosary with all the families before the distribution of toys, blankets, soccer balls … and the sun comes out.”

Scenes from Tijuana. Top left: calling the community. Above:

tables of food and supplies. Inset, right: a boy enjoys his gifts.

Below left: inside the church.

Reaching Russia

Sunshine from parishes in the United States also brightens 16 small sister parishes in very poor areas on Russia’s far eastern border near China, from the port of Vladivostok to its outlying locations.

The connections are made through Mary Mother of God Mission Society, which began in February 1992 when two Americans, Father Myron Effing and Father Daniel Maurer, became Vladivostok’s first resident priests in 62 years and who remain the pastors there.

 Prayer support from sister parishes is the rock on which all other efforts rest. “We always emphasize prayer for our mission first,” Vicky Trevillyan, national coordinator of the Mary Mother of God Mission Society (VladMission.org) and member of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Modesto, Calif. “Even the elderly and those who don’t have the financial means get involved with their prayers.”

Every month, St. Joseph’s prays the Rosary specifically for sister parishes. Every feast of Our Lady of Fatima, who called for prayers for the conversion of Russia, the parish sponsors the Rosary and potluck supper for their Russian brothers and sisters. It’s coordinated so that the Russian parishes pray the Rosary at the same time for their sister parish.

St. Joseph’s pastor, Father Joseph Illo, pointed out that with the icon exchange with their sister parish in Russia, the icons painted by members of both parishes are a constant reminder for parishioners to pray for their charges 8,000 miles away.

“There’s a general feeling that those who are involved are living out what Our Lady asked for in Fatima,” said Father James West, the pastor of a sister parish in Little Rock, Ark. — Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. He and his parishioners often make annual trips to give hands-on help, too.

They visit the orphan hospitals, where children up to age 5 are starved for affection, and fund a Grandma Mentoring Program. And hospices for elderly, where they’ve taken disabled men outside for their first fresh air in six years. They remodel some two-room apartments, turning them into the basic parish churches where Russian Catholics go for Mass.

“We’re bringing the light of Christ to Russia,” said Trevillyan. “People who travel there are ambassadors of our faith, especially young people who give the example by being prayerful and attending Mass and interacting with a joy that’s uncommon there.”

Young adults like Tony Hagelsieb joined St. Joseph’s mission the last two years.

Because Catholic priests can’t publicly evangelize, Tony wanted to be part of the young adults who can evangelize by example — “It’s a simple witness, from the kindness of our comportment to a willingness to help,” he said.

The fruits continue to blossom both ways. This July a Russian brother was ordained a priest. Some parishioners at St. Joseph’s are exploring adopting Russian orphans.

Father Illo painted a picture of the sense of hope being brought to their sister parishioners and how he sees his own parishioners getting more generous with everything: prayer, service, and money. Last year the parish sent $80,000 to Russia and its own offertory steadily increased. Another plus: St. Joseph’s also does four local programs to help the poor.

“The more people touch the poor with hands-on work,” says Father Illo, “the more they pray, give, and the happier they are.”

Sister parishes prove again and again — “You give to God and he gives you more back.”E

Staff writer Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.

Scenes from Vladivostok, Russia, clockwise from top left: Father Daniel Maurer at the church;

the Vlad Mission team; the home for the elderly.

Inset: Tom Peterson, missionary, holds an orphan.

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