September 2018
Glenmary Home Missioners
Vacation Bible School in East Tennessee One perk that Boost-A-Month supporters get is the occasional preview of a Glenmary Challenge story. Here’s one that started with our trip last summer to Glenmary’s Holy Family parish, in Lafayette, Tennessee. Glenmary Father Vic Subb is pastor there. We ran into a bustling group of high-school volunteers in Lafayette who had gotten there a few days earlier, from Jesus the Good Shepherd parish in Owings, Maryland. The mission experience, now heading for its 20th year, is the brainchild of youth minister Julie Gartrell, who supports two Glenmary missions with an outpouring of love and labor each and every summer, since 2001. Actually, this past summer was her last, as she is passing the torch on to others (she’s retiring). Outpouring might be too small a word; her outpouring is more of a flood, coordinated this past summer both by Julie and by Deacon Paul Fagan. It all started back in 1999, after the priest who is now Glenmary’s first-vice-president, Father Neil Pezzulo, was in formation, serving as a transitional deacon, on his way to priestly ordination. He was assigned to Jesus the Good Shepherd parish, not far from his Washington, DC, graduate school. Julie, wife and mother, was an active parishioner who worked with then-Deacon Neil. After priestly ordination, Father Neil went on to become pastor at Glenmary’s mission in Crossett, Arkansas. Julie eventually became her own parish’s youth minister. Each credits the other for the idea, but at some point, after Father Neil was in Arkansas, she asked him what her parish youth group could do. “We settled on Vacation Bible School,” she recalls. So she started with a summer trip to Holy Cross mission where Father Neil served. Each year, the program grew, and Julie’s home parish deepened its commitment. “That first time, back in 2001, we had, I think, 15 or 16” student volunteers, she recalls. “There were 6 adults--and 90 kids enrolled in the Bible school.” Now her program has a waiting list back home of students eager to travel for the mission experience. About 30 make the trip each year. (continued on reverse side)
Growing Our Faith Together Volunteers are part of what makes Glenmary tick. That might seem overstated, but volunteerism has been a key part of our Glenmary society for decades. The good work of volunteers boosts our mission. Literally thousands of young people, mostly from the eastern and midwestern United States, have spent a week or more at our volunteer programs in Appalachian eastern Kentucky, and now in eastern Tennessee. But just as important are all of those different, smaller programs that directly support our parishes. The accompanying article highlights one of them, a Vacation Bible School at Holy Family parish in Lafayette, Tennessee. The interesting things about these programs is not only the good they do for the local communities, but also the good they do for the volunteers. That same thing could be said of any of our almsgiving, any of our support for the Home Missions. We receive from our giving much more than we ever give. Yes, there’s the satisfaction of knowing that we have used our God-given resources to help make someone else’s life better. But more important, our giving is an expression of—and a way to grow—our own faith. It’s one of those “God-things,” where the tiny mustard seed becomes the large bush, where our support of the Glenmary places where the Church is smallest can become a great source for our own faith. Thank you for your generous donations, small or big. You are our partners in spreading the Good News! Yours in Christ,
Father Chet Artysiewicz President