By

Missioner stories from around the world

Priests active in parish ministry here in the Philippines usually receive a number of small gifts at Christmas. This past Christmas, I stocked "the booty" near a Christmas tree in the house we occupy. I did not get around to opening them immediately. A few days after Christmas, an elderly couple in the parish asked me if I had received their gift. I responded that I had, was very grateful, and, thinking it was a package of cookies, I said that "we ate them, and they were delicious." The couple smiled and the gentleman wryly asked me, "You eat T-shirts, Father?"
Jeremiah Burr, M.M.

 

We left early one morning for a Mass at a cathedral for World AIDS Day. We packed the truck with flowers, banners and materials to distribute about our organization that serves people with AIDS.  When we arrived and began to set up, we realized we had brought all four plastic legs for the table, but forgot the tabletop. In El Salvador ingenuity is a must, as things hardly ever go as planned. So the people with me took everything out of the box of materials, turned it over and created a table.
Deborah Northern, MKLM

One Christmas Eve, I was visiting one of our Sisters in a hospital in Los Angeles. While I was waiting in the hall to see my friend, a Chinese gentleman approached me and said he needed a witness to the signing of power of attorney for his mother, who was a patient in the hospital. He was upset because the hospital said he could not use any of the hospital personnel and he didn't know to whom to turn. I introduced myself as a retired Maryknoll missioner who had been in Taiwan for more than 45 years. When I mentioned Taiwan, he looked astounded and said he too was from Taiwan. We went to his mother's room, where I spoke to her in Mandarin Chinese, telling her who I was and that I would gladly help them. She thanked me over and over as I signed the necessary witness papers. As I left the room, her son followed me out and thanked me again, saying, "I feel so much peace now because I know that it was not a stranger who signed the papers."
Andrée Normandin, M.M. 

I confess: I'm a fallen woman. When I was a child, my father taught me to watch where I was going, while my mother admonished me to watch my step. I strode into adulthood balancing their advice. In Guatemala, unfortunately, I couldn't.

Once, I was shopping with Sister Rae Ann O'Neill in Malacatán's market, a warren of roofed stalls and uneven walkways. Watching where I was going, I didn't watch my step so I walked into six inches of air above the pavement. "You bounced!" Sister Rae Ann exclaimed.

Another time I was coming home from market in a downpour. I stood on the high, narrow sidewalk across from our house peering left under my umbrella, waiting for a break in traffic. As I stepped into the street, I forgot the curb was a foot high and went sprawling. Gathering umbrella, purchases, purse and as much dignity as I could muster, I crossed to our house. Just inside I realized my new glasses had flown off my face. I found them in the street, smashed, victims of my erring ways.

I hope the last time I fell will truly be the last! Walking toward a door on the parish grounds, I lost my balance and fell five feet down onto a concrete walkway; I didn't bounce. A year after badly fracturing my femur, I'm walking again, and praying to be converted from my fallen ways.
Bernice Kita, M.M.

We stopped to talk with friends in El Salvador and noticed a burlap bag moving on the ground. Inside was their cat. Their grandmother wanted to borrow the cat to help reduce her mouse population. We agreed to give the definitely unhappy cat a ride to her house. The cat scratched and meowed the whole way there. When we got to the house, the cat was let out of the bag to do its job. Unfortunately no one had told the cat it was on loan to do mouse patrol and the poor thing promptly took off, never to be seen again.
Erik and Margo Cambier, MKLM