Lyn Kirkconnell with children in the Maryknoll parish of Ciudad de Dios in Lima’s Pamplona Alta area.

There were three of us in the second Maryknoll lay missioner class in 1975. Our first week overlapped with the last week of the “original” first three at the beginning of the official Maryknoll lay mission program. Like with the first class (of Josie and Frank Cuda and George Gieselman), our orientation was just six weeks long, with four of the weeks attending a Mission Institute: so much to learn, so little time.

(From left, in the front pew) Patty Boyd, Lyn Kirkconnell and Ernestine Lam, the three members of MKLM’s second class of August 1975, at their Departure Ceremony at Maryknoll. All three went on to serve in Peru.

And then we three — Patty Boyd, Tina Lam and I — were off to our missions in Peru.

It is hard to describe the effect that first year had on me, but it certainly was the confirmation of a desire to live my life in service to the poor and to justice.

I lived and worked in the parish of Ciudad de Dios in an area called Pamplona Alta on the outskirts of the capital city of Lima. There, children had no change of clothes, no toys, and had to share their one pair of shoes with a sibling.

When I went to a local school to speak to a counselor about the situation of a child I had met, I found there was no counselor, no school nurse, no heating or air, no telephone — and the roof didn’t meet the walls of the building. And of course, no books.

I once helped to organize an outing to the ocean for several children who lived up the hill in Pamplona Alta. None of them had ever seen the Pacific. Knowing they had no bathing suits, I said all they needed to bring was a towel. I heard later that they went from hut to hut trying to borrow a towel from anyone for the outing.

In our parish we had study groups about the Gospel and justice. One young woman said: “How do they read the Gospel in the wealthy barrios downtown when it speaks of giving your life for others?” A fair question given their situation.

I had signed up for only one year — back then we could sign up for one, two or three years. I wanted to stay but had to return to teaching for one and a half years to be eligible for retirement benefits later in life. It was very hard to leave — and very hard to return to the U.S. and a reality that was so different.

Lyn with three boys in Ciudad de Dios

So in December 1978 I re-joined with another group of lay missioners and, after a longer orientation, went back to Peru for a three-year term, hoping I could live there my whole life.

I lived with a Peruvian teacher in a poor barrio on the outskirts of the city. The situation in the schools was so dire that the teachers went on strike. My housemate and I joined the marches downtown. We faced machine guns, tear gas and water cannons (not the healthiest of water).

We helped to prepare a frequent olla común, a meal prepared in a large pot for groups of people affected by the strikes; people ate standing in the street around the pot, sharing their stories.

I learned that to bring about positive social change, one had to do justice. We attended overnight (because of curfews) meetings with our Christian base community, reading the Gospel and planning activities. Our Maryknoll parish was very active. The sisters, priests and lay missioners met every Saturday morning for Mass at different houses.

I learned from the Maryknollers and from the active Christian base communities what community meant — how to support one another in following the example of Jesus.

After three years, I returned to Maryknoll, where the sisters invited me to be the first lay missioner on the Mission Institute team. I lived at the sisters’ center during this time and got to know many sisters from around the world who prayed and reflected together and shared stories of living the Gospel in solidarity with the poor and oppressed.

My love of the sisters led me to embrace a call to be one with them, and in 1983 I applied to enter the sisters’ congregation.

In 1985 the Maryknoll Sisters assigned me to Bolivia, where, together with an associate Maryknoll sister, a San Rafael Dominican, Judy Lu McDonnell, I lived and worked in the village of Litoral among the Quechua Indian people and Guatemalan refugees.

We worked mainly in the promotion of women but also taught high school and helped to prepare Bible study groups and Sunday celebrations. We gave classes in literacy at night by the light of kerosene lamps, while the women hung their babies from our rafters, tucked tightly in their aguayos (native cloths).

Women had few rights in these villages, and we hoped our work would empower them to speak out about injustices against them. Their active participation in the women’s groups, the skits they prepared about their reality, and the words they shared in pamphlets that we created, were proof of the power of women coming together for justice.

My last two years in Bolivia, I lived in a town closer to Santa Cruz. We continued to give workshops in the local parish, one of which was attended by 700 women from villages all around the region. The women presented their topics in the form of skits.

Later, together with a group of women in Santa Cruz, Judy and I helped in the formation of a women’s organization that came to be known as El Colectivo Rebeldía (the Rebellious Collective). To this day, they call us “the mid-wives of the feminist movement in Bolivia,” and the Colectivo Rebeldia continues today to offer classes, give workshops and help to organize events in Santa Cruz.

After five years in Bolivia, I was missioned to Brazil with Judy and two other sisters, where we “completed” the Maryknoll Mission Unit — priests, brothers, lay missioners and now—sisters, too.

My main work was in feminist spirituality, co-creating courses with amazing, hard-working women who lived on the outskirts of São Paulo. They called themselves the Association of Women of the Eastern Zone of São Paulo (AMZOL). They understood that they were church, and they lived their faith every day.

They told us that the feminists didn’t understand their faith, and that many faithful did not understand their feminism. They asked Judy and me to create a feminist spirituality course. We learned as much as we shared, as we journeyed together in faith and solidarity. The AMZOL women took the courses back to their parishes and continued to use the material years after we left.

One year, we were able to go with several AMZOL women to the International Feminist Encounter in Argentina. Our group spontaneously suggested that we offer our ritual about the “Burning Times,” which traces women’s history from the onset of patriarchy to modern times. So many women requested to take part in the ritual that we had to repeat it three more times. (Years later, while visiting El Salvador, I met a woman who said she had experienced this ritual in Spain!)

My life’s journey led me from being a lay missioner for eight years to becoming a Maryknoll Sister for 12 years and to my life today.

I had often dreamed of working among the poor, but it was my time as a lay missioner that gave form to that yearning. And it was my time as a lay missioner that led to my religious vocation, which, in turn, led to the work I have done since then.

I co-founded the immigration program at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Stockton and worked there for 12 years as an accredited immigration representative, accompanying clients before the immigration service and in immigration court. After that work, I spent 12 years as a promoter of justice and peace for two congregations of Dominican Sisters, where we focused on human trafficking, environmental issues, nuclear disarmament, immigration issues, the crisis in Iraq and racism.

Through this work, I met amazing, committed women and men among the Dominican justice promoters, and I have grown in my own commitment through my association with them.

Having retired two years ago at the age of 78, I continue my justice work as a member of both a Catholic coalition against human trafficking and our local county-wide alliance to end human trafficking.

I have attended School of the Americas Watch protests against the training of Latin American soldiers who have often returned to their home countries and used this training to abuse their people, and sometimes to author military coups.

I participate in actions regarding issues at the U.S. southern border. I join with others to protest the production of nuclear weapons. I am an active member of local political groups. I serve lunch weekly at an agency that focuses on the needs of unhoused women and men. And at our local Catholic hospital, I am a Reiki volunteer, a process of healing touch that can bring respite and relaxation to staff and visitors.

This is how I have tried to live a life based on justice and peace. It was as a lay missioner that I first learned about Catholic Social Teaching, and as a lay missioner that I first became actively involved in justice issues. Thus my years as a lay missioner were foundational to my life and work in and after Maryknoll.

Maryknoll will always be my home.