When missioner Joanne Blaney arrived in Uganda to accompany survivors of the Lord’s Resistance Army, she met women whose lives bore the heaviest burdens of violence. One of them, Immaculate Adong, was only eight when her father was killed in the 1995 Atiak massacre. Today, she manages a women’s cooperative that empowers survivors with skills, solidarity, and hope—showing how faith and resilience can rebuild lives and communities.
In the quiet shade of mango trees across Northern Uganda, Maryknoll lay missioners Marj Humphrey and Joanne Blaney met with parish leaders, teachers, and refugees who are putting lessons of healing, nonviolence, and restorative justice into practice. From remote village churches to camps along the South Sudan border, these open-air gatherings have become places of listening, courage, and renewal. Here, amid deep scars of conflict and loss, communities are finding new ways to mend relationships and move forward—together.
In 1995, the massacre in Atiak, Uganda, claimed scores of lives—but unlike tragedies elsewhere, it passed with little notice from the world. Thirty years later, Maryknoll lay missioner Marj Humphrey returns to the place that has haunted her memory, bearing witness to both the scars of the past and the quiet perseverance of those who remain.
Along the U.S.–Mexico border in California’s Imperial Valley, missioner Rick Dixon describes how the human cost of immigration policy is devastatingly clear. Here, steel barriers and irrigation canals claim the lives of those simply trying to survive. Just miles away, in an unmarked field behind a small-town cemetery, the bodies of the unnamed lie buried behind NO TRESPASSING signs. Here, grief meets witness.
In a region long haunted by the terror of violence, memories of war—stolen childhoods, ruptured families, and unspeakable loss—underpin daily life in northern Uganda. Yet voices rise—and not in vengeance. Here, survivors and peacemakers gather in quiet circles, daring to believe that healing begins by facing the past with courage and compassion. Missioner Marj Humphrey joins them in restoring dignity and reconciling relationships.
Nearly two decades after the guns fell silent, wounds still run deep in northern Uganda. Among the resilient Acholi people—survivors of war, displacement, and profound trauma—local leaders are rising to rebuild community through restorative justice and compassion. Missioner Joanne Blaney walks alongside them, listening, learning, and witnessing the quiet strength of healing hearts.
A library is blossoming in the Colorado Desert, bridging Spanish and English, children and parents, imagination and possibility. Thanks to generous donations, says missioner Rick Dixon, families in Mexicali, Mexico are gathering to read, learn, and dream together—finding in books a path to peace, justice, and a brighter future.
While missioner Rick Dixon in Mexicali, Mexico considered how the U.S. presidential election will affect asylum seekers, he was drawn to meditate on the words of German Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “God is the beyond in the midst of our lives.”
Returned missioner Marj Humphrey dedicated two decades to addressing health disparities in East Africa. At long last, she’s going back to continue advocating for justice there.
After the murder of environmentalist Juan López in September, missioner Sarah Bueter in El Salvador joined an emergency delegation to meet Juan’s family and community in Honduras.
Through a student struggling with letters, missioner Rick Dixon in Mexico sees how important nature—and moving our bodies in it—is to heal and learn.
