In Ministry - Stories

December 1, 2016, Bodǿ, Norway – Sisters Racquel P. Rones, OP, and Alma Zapanta, OP, both Adrian Dominicans from the Philippines, minister in what many may see as an unlikely place: a parish in Bodǿ, Norway. The Sisters are there for a specific reason: to reach out to the Filipino immigrants, who work in hospitals, hotels, and the fishing industry.

Sister Racquel P. Rones, OP

Sister Racquel has served in the northern Norway parish since April 2013, and was joined by Sister Alma in July 2016. They are pastoral workers at St. Eystein Menighet Parish. 

“Because of my ability to speak [the Filipino immigrants’] language and my understanding of the practice of the Catholic faith in the Philippines, I am able to work with the parish priest and staff to minister better to their needs,” Sister Raquel explained.

Sisters Raquel and Alma assist parish catechists who prepare children for first Communion, counsel parishioners, visit the sick and those who live alone, help with the financial aspects of the parish, and facilitate special events such as Advent and Lenten recollections. 

The Sisters also help with coordination Masses. The first and third Saturdays of each month they travel three hours with the parish priest to offer Mass outside of the parish; once a month, they help facilitate English Masses, which includes leading choir practice. On weekends, the Sisters serve people who come for prayer and counseling, go on visitations, follow up on parish activities, and attend meetings.

Along with their vigorous ministry, Sisters Racquel and Alma also have a structured regimen of prayer: daily Mass at different times and places on different days of the week and communal Morning, Evening, and Night Prayer.

Both also spend much of their time in formal study of the Norwegian language. 

“At first the biggest challenge is the language, weather, and culture, but with God’s grace we learned to adapt and love our ministry because the community is simple,” Sister Raquel said. The parishioners are “helpful to one another. They see the graces and blessings in spite of their hardships.” In addition, she said, they are respectful and show their love for the Sisters and the parish priest.

Sisters of Our Lady of Remedies Mission Chapter have served in Bodǿ, Norway, since June 2005, when they were still a separate Dominican congregation. Sister Zenaida Nacpil, OP, currently Chapter Prioress, heard about the need for Sisters to minister in Norway through her involvement with Dominican Sisters International. After visiting St. Eystein Parish in 2004, Sister Zenaida became one of the first missionaries to serve there, along with Sister Bibiana Colasito, OP.

Feature photo: Sister Alma Zapanta, OP, poses with the Norwegian flag

October 25, 2016 – Sister Jolyn “Jules” Dungo, OP, a junior professed Sister, is in the fifth year of a mission she deeply loves: living with and serving the Aetas, indigenous people of the Philippines, in the remote, mountainous areas of Villa Maria and Barangai Diaz in the region of Porac. 

Sister Jules’ ministry involves a great many facets of service, as well as hardship, as she struggles to meet the needs of the Aeta people who were displaced from their homes 20 years ago after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. She currently shares her ministry with Sister Antonette Lumbang, who joined her more than a year ago.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Remedies – once a separate Dominican Congregation but now a Mission Chapter of the Adrian Dominican Sisters – have opened a school in Villa Maria and a satellite school on Barangai Diaz. The schools serve elementary, high school, and college students. 

Sister Jules said the ministry involves a feeding program for the students, who had previously attended school without the benefit of breakfast. Currently, the program runs three days each week, serving 500 students from Villa Maria and about 75 from Barangai Diaz. 

Sisters Jules and Antonette are also involved in the spiritual lives of the people. “As missionaries, we’re not only feeding them,” Sister Jules said. “We’re not only giving them food but we also feed their spiritual lives. That’s our duty.”

Sister Antonette offers catechism, teaching grades four, five, and six, and preparing students for Communion. The Sisters also work in the Maria Villa and Barangai Diaz communities, offering weekly prayer sessions on Sundays and weekly Bible studies. Mass is offered in the communities only about once every year.

The Aetas are deeply spiritual people, Sister Jules said. “They respect Mother Earth. Their name for God means ‘Everything is possible.’”

One of her challenges is finding donors to sustain the mission, and in particular to fund scholarships to ensure students can continue their education. “We depend on local sponsors,” Sister Jules said. They also sell T-shirts and local products to raise needed funds.

Sisters Jules and Antonette also endure physical hardships. While Villa Maria is equipped with electricity, water, and a system of roads, Barangay Diaz does not have electricity – and the only source of water is a spring. 

“We have to go down a 10-minute walk just to get the water and a 10-minute walk to go up,” she said. To get to their ministries, the Sisters might be able to take a motorcycle – but are often forced to walk two hours in mountainous terrain or three hours taking a longer route. 

“One of the things I love most about the indigenous people is that they give the best for you,” Sister Jules said of her ministry. “They don’t give excess. For us, we give what is excess for us. But they will give you their first fruit.” 

She said she also learned the meaning of prayer and the value of trust from the Aeta. “You trust and depend on God’s providence, because everything is providence.”

Sister Jules deeply loves her mission with the Aetas, but is looking to the time when another Sister will be assigned to minister with them. 

“I am hoping that the Sister who will replace me will have a heart for the mission, will work beyond the hours of 8 to 5 and will be not only feeding them but always giving what is true to them, because the mission is not about us,” Sister Jules said. “The mission is about them and about God.”

September 28, 2016, Homestead, Florida – In her ministry as a nurse practitioner, Sister Patricia Erickson, OP, offers health care and compassion to children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who have crossed the Mexico-U.S. border on their own to find a home in the United States.

Sister Pat ministers at a specially designated facility at the Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida where up to 1,500 unaccompanied children can be housed for 35 days. 

“The idea is to bring them to this facility and then place them with a sponsor eventually so they can stay in the States,” Sister Pat explained. During the child’s stay, the government checks his or her sponsors in the United States – usually a family member – to make sure that the home is safe and appropriate for the child. “Once they’re placed with their sponsor, their legal status is addressed.”    

In her role as a nurse practitioner, Sister Pat works with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. She fulfills one of two roles, depending on her daily assignment. 

On some days, she works with children who have just come to the site. During that time, she determines whether they need immediate medical care or if they have any skin diseases. They also receive nine vaccinations “so that they’re up to speed with the rest of the children with whom they’re going to go to school eventually in the States.” She also gets their medical history, their family’s medical history and tests them for communicable diseases.

Sister Pat can also be assigned to work in the “daily living site” of the facility, offering primary care to children who request it for chronic diseases, sports injuries, or other conditions. The children are “very well cared for,” she explained. “They go to school. They have sports, all the clothes they need – just about anything you can imagine.”  

Because the facility is a transitional shelter, the number of children who reside there fluctuates at any given time. As some children come to the facility, others are released to their new homes with their sponsors. As of this writing, more than1,000 children live in the facility.

Sister Pat said that many circumstances can lead to children traveling unaccompanied to the United States. For example, she said, the parents might have come to the United States to work and raise money for the family and are now sending for their child, who may have been left at home with other relatives. In other cases, the child might have other relatives in the United States, and the parent might send him or her to the United States, where they feel their child will have a better life. 

Children often face danger and hardship during what could be a six-month journey from their native country to the border. She spoke of one girl who, after losing her shoes, continued to walk in spite of splinters in her foot, which became infected. Many ride on top of freight trains – known as la bestia – from Central America to the Mexican-U.S. border, risking severe injury or death. 

Other children come to the border with the help of “coyotes” – people who smuggle others across the border. In many cases, the “coyotes” exploit the children – sometimes taking them part way and then leaving them or selling them into human trafficking. The danger can be so extreme, Sister Pat said, that she has heard of some young girls who take birth control pills to prevent pregnancy in case they are raped.

In addition to providing health care, Sister Pat explained that her ministry involves being of whatever service she can be to children who have faced such a long and perilous journey. One of her biggest challenges is the regulation that prohibits her from touching or hugging the children – at a time when many of them need the reassurance of the human touch – and that prohibits her from asking questions about the circumstances that led them to the facility. When children want to talk, she said, she refers them to their case worker. 

Still, Sister Pat can give the children emotional support when they go through difficult times. She recalled one boy who refused to get out of bed and was sent to the infirmary. She discovered from his file that he had witnessed his brother’s murder and was depressed. 

“We kept him in the infirmary, not for any physical reason, but so that he could get more attention,” Sister Pat said. “At the meals I would go sit on the bed and just talk to him and encourage him to eat, and I would ask him about sports and school [at the facility]. Eventually, after 24 hours, he was feeling better and he went back to the dorm with the other boys.”

Sister Pat sees her ministry as a two-way street. She has been deeply touched and has learned from the children’s resilience in the face of hardship. 

“I learn from them, just by their demeanor, their attitude, how they act,” she said. “They smile. They’re happy. And I don’t know how they do that, under the circumstances.”

Sister Pat learned about the position from a brief announcement on television, and felt drawn to apply. “I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to have this kind of experience with children who had been on a journey like this,” she said. “I will never understand what it was like for them, but in some way, just to be with them, that’s a gift to me.”

While her ministry is gratifying, Sister Pat said she can’t help but being concerned about the “other” children who are not given the same “special status” as those she works with — those in Central America, Nicaragua, Belize, and Mexico. She wonders what happens to them when they cross the border alone.

“I have thought and prayed long and hard about putting this information in writing,” she said. “But when I talk about this, I realize that people do now know about this project, which is totally sponsored and funded by the federal government. It is a wonderful opportunity for these children – they are safe and especially cared for. But what about the ‘others?’”

Reflecting on an article by Ilia Delio in Global Sisters-National Catholic Reporter of August 16, 2016, “Is religious life attentive to Jesus?” Sister Pat reflects on the quote, “…to live in a radical commitment to the Spirit is to live in the anxiety of now…one who lives on the edge of uncomfortable, the uncertain…” Sister Pat said, “This speaks to me not only of our commitment to justice but also of the example of the children on their journey.”