St. Jerome parishioners serve own community
Seeing God in everything: In everyone. In every place. All the time.
Such was the theme for this year’s mission trip at St Jerome Parish, Newport News. Forty-eight parishioners, 27 of whom were youth and young adults, spent nearly a week in July helping impoverished people in the city, and they were challenged to notice God everywhere.
Delaine Botelho, mission trip coordinator, said that while adults participated in the mission, organizers were particularly interested in recruiting youth – which included rising sixth graders.
Over the past 20 years, hundreds of St. Jerome parishioners have gone on mission trips, first to West Virginia and a few years later to Buckingham County.
Botelho said youth on mission trips are normally away from their homes for a week, are stripped of their electronics and thrust out of their comfort zones so they can focus on serving others, building community, beginning and strengthening friendships and living their faith.
Tammy Castagna, kitchen leader and core team member, said the youth “need to get unplugged and get outside of their own world and just see how other people live and how just little things can make a difference in someone else’s life.”
They’ve made such an impact on the community over the years that Buckingham County issued a proclamation that the parish’s service week will be “St. Jerome’s Mission Week,” said Max Lindsey, core team member who helped establish the ministry in 2001.
Due to COVID, the parish didn’t have a mission trip last year, and this year they stayed in Newport News. In lieu of the mission, the parish collected food and distributed it to 50 households in Buckingham County last year and plan to deliver 25 boxes later this summer.
This year, from July 6 through July 11, the volunteers toiled by day, had a retreat experience each evening and slept overnight in parts of the church building. They discussed where they noticed God’s presence during the day.
Games and activities re-enforced the concept and built community. They celebrated Mass each morning and prayed the rosary together each night. One evening they had the opportunity for eucharistic adoration.
Throughout the week, volunteers performed a number of tasks at eight worksites: They did yard work, painted a room, repaired a rotting deck, fixed a screen door, cleaned a fence and replaced decaying columns on a deck. They trimmed trees on a trail by a high school, built a GaGa Ball Pit behind the church and replaced carpeting with linoleum in a center where food is distributed to the poor. They also repaired a shed whose roof was crushed by a fallen tree.
Previous years’ projects included painting, building a ramp, skirting a trailer and installing siding on a home.
“This is a perfect opportunity for them to be the hands and feet (of Christ), to take what they’ve read and they’ve heard and actually use it in a practical manner,” said Barbara Lynch, a core team member.
Lindsey said youth who go to the retreats tend to be “more charismatic in their faith and more involved in Church and activities. They realize that generosity is more than clicking ‘like’ on social media, that true works are not through oral support; true works are actually, physically being the hands and feet of Christ.”
The mission trip is a time to bond with each other and also a time to bond with the people they served. Hannah Nelson, 20, said she learned “that serving isn’t just doing manual labor” but also “really loving” the people served.
On the last night, the volunteers traditionally eat dinner with the people they’ve served and discuss their experiences together.
At the onset of the week, the youth think they will help others, but by the end, they realize those they served helped them, said Jan Gehrki, a former parishioner living in Florida. She added that the residents have “hearts of gold” and have helped the youth “view the world though different eyes.”
Gehrki’s granddaughter, Isabella Volini, 17, went on the mission trip in 2018 at her grandmother’s prodding. She “met so many kind people” and enjoyed helping others so much that she has commuted with Gehrki to mission trips from Tampa ever since.
Chase Imoru, a seminarian who attended the mission trip, said the youth were “appreciative” of the opportunity to reflect on what their faith calls them to do, to realize they have the ability to give someone a helping hand, to “receive from them the love of Christ” through interactions with them and know that “God is always present.”
Father George Prado, parochial administrator of the parish, said, “The mission trip aside from its transformative effect, taught the young ones to understand that the heart of our mission is to love Jesus and find him with least, the last and the lost.”
Castagna said the mission trips show the youth “how other people live and how little things like a conversation can change someone’s life.”
Several youth said the most beautiful part of the trip was seeing the smile on the individual’s face when a repair was completed. Vanessa Barreto, 13, said she learned that she can have an impact on others’ day-to-day lives. Likewise, Maggie Nelson, 18, said seeing the excitement and joy of the individual made her grateful for what she has and for what she is able to do for others.
Youth said a favorite part for them was hanging out with friends and making new ones. Mission trip leaders agreed that building community was important, and that being involved in the mission may prevent the youths and young adults from leaving the Church.
“The more involved people are in their Church, the more connected they are. Then they are more likely to stay Catholic and to remain and become stronger Catholics,” Botelho said.