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Magazine

Missioner Tales

Missioner Tales, Winter 2026

By Missioner Tales | December 1, 2025
In Kenya, where I am serving as a Maryknoll lay missioner in the HOPE Project, I met a widow named Lucy. After the death of her husband in 2020, Lucy was left to care for three children with barely any means. Her youngest son, Athman, is now 13 years old but is only in sixth grade. He fell behind because he was in and out of school, depending on wh...
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Missioner Tales, Fall 2025

By Missioner Tales | September 2, 2025
What an enjoyable morning I’ve spent! Unsure of the path to take to reach the home of a disabled boy — whose address I had lost both on paper and in memory — I lucked out at just the right time, encountering folks along the way to guide me for almost seven miles. A friendly villager led me the last steps to the family’s tin shed. Alameen, n...
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Missioner Tales, Spring 2025

By Missioner Tales | March 3, 2025
A group of our Maryknoll community including myself went to the Amazon region of Bolivia to celebrate Holy Week with the Indigenous people of Santísima Trinidad parish. It was wonderful to learn about the joys and struggles of the people as well as their cultural traditions celebrating Easter. During the Easter Vigil, a 7-year-old boy joyfully san...
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Missioner Tales, Winter 2025

By Missioner Tales | December 2, 2024
The Missionaries of Charity, with whom I minister in Cochabamba, Bolivia, offer housing to men with disabilities. My fellow Maryknoll Lay Missioner John O’Donoghue (who has since retired) had been praying for a Christmas miracle in the lives of these men who have suffered so much. But as Christmas approached, there was no proof in sight that his ...
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Missioner Tales, Fall 2024

By Missioner Tales | September 3, 2024
Here in El Salvador, where I serve as a Maryknoll lay missioner, I am starting a children’s library at the school where I tutor. I’ve been using my free time to sort through books including a generous donation of new ones.The school day had ended, and after three English lessons, I was feeling unmotivated as I faced piles of books. Then a smili...
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Missioner Tales, Summer 2024

By Missioner Tales | June 3, 2024
At the United States-Mexico border where I serve as a Maryknoll lay missioner, an Annunciation House shelter for asylum seekers was in full swing. At the time, the shelter was welcoming 15 to 60 guests per day. The majority of arrivals were families. I especially got to know a single mom with three children ages 1 to 7. The youngest son was a toddl...
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Missioner Tales, Spring 2024

By Missioner Tales | March 4, 2024
Sorghum is a most incredible plant. It can survive in South Sudan’s harsh semi-arid environment and resists pests and diseases that ravage maize or cassava. There is really only one predator that can damage an entire crop in a short time: birds. If left unchecked, small sparrow-like birds that congregate in the hundreds will eliminate the farmer...
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Missioner Tales, Winter 2024

By Missioner Tales | December 4, 2023
The 25 or so prisoners gathered in a cell at the men’s detention center in São Paulo, Brazil, where I served as a Maryknoll lay missioner, watched me patiently, with puzzled faces. I placed four construction paper “candles” on the table and held up a yellow construction paper “flame,” asking for a volunteer. One of the men raised his han...
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