A family with three children serves in mission in Tanzania.
When Stephen Veryser moved to Tanzania to serve with the Peace Corps over two decades ago, he fell in love with Africa. After his contract ended, he remained, working with nonprofit groups.
Steve met Loyce while they were teaching at neighboring schools. They married and started a family. Loyce, who is from a devout Catholic family in northwestern Tanzania, continued teaching while Steve worked in projects launching school lunch programs and eradicating Guinea worm disease.
Although it was secular work, Steve saw it as a spiritual vocation.
“I found real meaning in a life of service across cultures,” says Steve, who is originally from the Detroit area. “I didn’t know about lay mission within the Catholic Church.”
Then he got to know Maryknoll.
Not far from the Verysers’ home in the city of Mwanza, Maryknoll Father James Eble was starting a retreat center overlooking Lake Victoria. After three decades of pastoral ministry, Father Eble saw the need for a place where Tanzanian religious and lay people could find respite from their busy lives and personal accompaniment on their spiritual journeys.
The Lake House of Prayer became a new spiritual home for Steve and Loyce, who relished the space and silence to deepen their Christian faith. The couple got to know other Maryknollers, including two families in mission. Maryknoll Lay Missioner Judy Walter, who served at the retreat house, became Steve’s spiritual director.
“I was pleasantly surprised to find Catholic lay people who shared a passion for social justice and a life in mission,” Steve says. In 2018, Steve and Loyce joined Maryknoll Lay Missioners, along with their three children, and completed the orientation program and commissioning ceremony in Ossining, New York. When they returned to Mwanza, Loyce went back to her job at Kitangiri Secondary School, a government school serving low-income students.
“There’s a big demand for math teachers, and I could have gone to a private Catholic school where families can pay fees,” Loyce says. “But here they don’t have enough teachers. I’d rather work where I’m more needed and where I can be a positive role model for girls who are interested in math and sciences.”
The head teacher at Kitangiri School, Anthonia Nkaka, says the Maryknoll lay missioner plays an outsized role at the school.
Not only is Loyce the only woman teaching math, Nkaka says, “but she’s always ready to find other ways to help.” When parents are unable to afford school uniforms, for example, “Loyce finds a way.”
Nkaka adds, “When we needed more desks, Loyce and Steve found a way to get them for us. And when we had water problems, they helped us get a big tank to supply water to the school bathrooms.”
Loyce, who is also treasurer for a savings and loan group formed by the school’s women teachers, has served as the school’s “academic mistress.” This role entails keeping track of individual students’ progress and identifying in a timely manner those who need assistance.
“Being in Maryknoll allows me to be here as an expression of my faith, to support these students who go on to become intelligent and compassionate leaders in their communities,” Loyce says.
Steve and Loyce, along with their children — twins Justin and Abigail, 17, and Claire, 15 — see themselves as part of a family in mission.
“Our kids have a unique experience that bridges cultures, races and geographies,” he says, adding that they are discerning “their own paths of service.”
Justin, who is good at math and science, “wants to design water systems so all people can have access to clean water,” Steve says. “Abigail is interested in medicine because she has seen how difficult it is here to access reliable medical care.”
Claire, who loves to travel, is interested in hospitality work. “She sees opportunities to do tourism in a way that bridges cultures and brings people together,” her father says.
Steve — whose decades of experience are put to use in leadership for the lay mission organization — builds bridges through another ministry. After learning Tanzanian Sign Language, he returned to the Bwiru Boys Technical School, where he had taught as a Peace Corps volunteer. About a hundred deaf students now take classes there.
“The deaf students can’t participate fully because the teachers seldom use sign language,” Steve says, adding that this means the students “just copy off the board.” Hearing students help their classmates here and there, he says. “It’s kind of piecemeal, but it’s better than not being in school at all.”
To supplement the deaf students’ classroom learning, Steve tutors them in math after school.
“We sit in a half circle, so people can see each other signing,” he says. “They do a problem and explain it with signs. They can ask questions, which I answer in sign language.
“It’s been a special experience to be invited into that community, a mission within mission,” continues the lay missioner.
“The deaf community is yet another world within Tanzanian culture.”
There is another way in which Steve has come full circle in mission. He was asked last year to take on the management of the Lake House of Prayer when Father Eble and Judy Walter returned to the States.
“My experiences at the Lake House changed my life, rekindling my faith and introducing me anew to mission. I wanted to offer others a chance to encounter God in a similar way,” Steve says.
“We’re almost like a field hospital for people, especially people in the Church who work so hard to support others,” he says. “We invite them to revel in God’s creation and mercy and love, to rest their weary body and their overworked mind, to turn off their phone and be able to notice in the quiet around them God’s presence in creation, in their lives and in their communities.”
Time spent in silence and prayer allows the missioner to reflect on his calling, as well.
He shares an essential insight gained from being a lay missioner. “At one point in my life I thought I would have to choose between having a family and being in mission,” he says. “But Maryknoll has been a great gift for Loyce and me. We’re both committed to living here, being in mission.”
Featured image: Maryknoll Lay Missioner Loyce Veryser teaches math at Kitangiri Secondary School, a government school serving low-income students in Mwanza, Tanzania. (Paul Jeffrey/Tanzania)
