Maryknoll Lay Missioners Help Migrants on Both Sides of the U.S. Southern Border
People putting faith in action near El Paso, Texas, in the 50th anniversary year of this Catholic mission-sending community
Nearly thirty-five years after returning from mission in Venezuela, Linda Savio and Bill Hallerman are serving Venezuelans again—this time in the couple’s hometown of Seattle and at the border in El Paso.
Linda and Bill were Maryknoll lay missioners from 1986 to 1990, and as returned missioners routinely say, “once a missioner, always a missioner.” It’s a call that stays with you for life—and like so many others, Bill and Linda keep answering it.
“The border seems like a natural place for returned missioners to go, with the experience that we have,” Bill says. “Especially for those who are in other kinds of ministries in their home communities now, to be able to have a touchpoint with that kind of work, it resonates for us in so many ways.”
Maryknoll Lay Missioners is a U.S.-based Catholic mission-sending community—celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year—with a simple yet profound objective: to put faith into action by serving those in need around the world. It is committed to nonviolence through the prevention, intervention, reconciliation, and restoration of all creation.
Long-term missioners and their families work in nine African, Asian, and American countries. They are teachers, healthcare workers, community advocates, attorneys, and more.
While Maryknoll lay missioners are found all over the globe, they also minister closer to home, on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border—in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez—as well as in Mexicali, Mexico, near the California border. And because of strong interest in volunteering at the border on the part of returned lay missioners as well as Maryknoll Affiliates (laity who commit to the mission goals of Maryknoll as they pursue their own life journeys), there is a new community in El Paso for them: Bethany House.
Compelled by faith to engage with people across cultures and ethnicities, Maryknoll lay missioners live, love and work with communities on the margins to promote active nonviolence and healing.
