MISSIONARIES
Fighting gangs one youth at a time by
Carol Schuck Scheiber is the content editor of VISION V oc ation G uide and editor of HORIZON, the journal of the National Religious Vocation Conference.
Carol Schuck Scheiber
FATHER ALEXIS ZÚÑIGA, S.T. plays foosball with boys at the Outreach Center for My Neighborhood. Social activities and a sense of belonging give young people an alternative to street gangs.
Father Alexis Zúñiga, S.T. followed his missionary calling back to the streets of his hometown in Honduras. He and a team of outreach workers offer hope to young people caught up in violence.
I
DON’T WANT to look like a hero.” It’s hard for Father Alexis Zúñiga, S.T. to talk about his calling—first to be a missionary priest and later to try to stop gang violence in Honduras—because, he says, “I don’t want to use the stories of other people to make myself look like the big missionary hero.” He knows that people like himself are sometimes glorified in headlines: “Priest sacrifices comfortable life to live in barrio,” or “Priest risks life to work in world’s most dangerous region.”
134 | VISION 2016 | VocationNetwork.org
