Left to right. Top row: Harry Blaber and Artemio Bagalawis, 1930s; first official Class of 1975; Founding of the Maryknoll Mission Association of the Faithful, 1994; Merwyn De Mello and Wynnie-Fred Victor Hinds (Class of 1994); John and Phyllis Gauker with Fr. Bill Woods, 1976 (John and Fr. Bill were martyred later that year). Middle row: Angel Mortel, 2008; First co-director team, Sr. Mary Anne O’Donnell, Fr. Jack Sullivan and Chuck Lathrop, here at 15th anniversary in 1990; founding assembly, 1994; Jean Donovan, who was part of the Maryknoll lay missioner Orientation and Sending in 1979 and was martyred in 1980. Bottom row: “Bosse” (one of the first Maryknoll lay missioners) and Carolyn Bosse; Ann Greig; Fr. Charlie Dittmeier; Susan Nagele; three of the seven members of the second Class of 1975: Ernestine Lam, Lyn Kirkconnell and Patty Boyd.

Philip told Nathanael, “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote
in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”
But Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
Philip said to him, “Come and see” (Jn 1:45-46).

Dear friends,

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathaniel asks in the Gospel of John. Nazareth was at the margins, at the periphery; this remote, backwater town was definitely not Jerusalem or Caesarea. And yet it was to the margins then — and it is to the margins today — that the Gospel calls us.

“Come and see” is an invitation to all of us.

“Come and see” the good that is coming from the people at the margins in Riwoto, South Sudan; in Musoma, Tanzania; in Tacopaya, Bolivia; in El Cedro, El Salvador; in Mexicali, Mexico; in Chom Chao, Cambodia; and in all the places where Maryknoll lay missioners serve today. Can anything good come from those places? Come and see with us!!

This month Maryknoll Lay Missioners is entering our 50th anniversary year (a Golden Jubilee that we will be marking with special events throughout the year). We were officially established as the Maryknoll Lay Mission Program in the summer of 1975, but Maryknoll had already had lay missioners in Chile, Guatemala and Hong Kong, in Japan, Peru and Bolivia before that. In fact, two physicians — Maryknoll’s very first lay missioner, Harry Blaber, and his colleague, Artemio Bagalawis — already served with Maryknoll in China in the early 1930s.

As we have been digging into our early history for this anniversary year, I can’t help but be inspired by the pioneers that got this movement going. From the two intrepid doctors working in China to John Gauker, the lay missioner who was martyred with Father Bill Woods in Guatemala in 1976; and from Carol Zuccarino, who joined in 1975 and, now in her 80s, still works in shelters at the U.S.-Mexico border, to Frank and Josie Cuda of our very first official class in 1975, who dedicated their whole lives to community building: Our Maryknoll lay missioners today are following in some amazing footsteps.

Maryknoll Lay Missioners has an inspiring past, we have a compelling present, and we have a strong future, thanks to partners like you, who so generously support our commitment to nonviolence, compassion and justice around the world.

Since 1975, we have been blessed to be able to send almost 1,000 women, men and children to answer the call to “come and see” — and to accompany people and do mission work in the marginalized “Nazareths” of 35 different countries.

Please help us continue to build upon the legacy of MKLM by supporting our missioners and missioner families in nine countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Thank you!

One of our newest missioners, Sarah Bueter, has just started her work in the remote village of Huizúcar in El Salvador. In a recent letter, she shares what it’s like for missioners to get started in mission:

Sarah Bueter making tortillas

I spend a couple days a week at a rural school. I visit the sick. I learn why people are sick. Staying in people’s homes helps me get to know their dreams and their challenges. We drink cups of sweet coffee and slap at mosquitoes.

Sometimes it is difficult to spend so much time listening. Wouldn’t it be easier to view people as problems to solve instead of as my neighbors with autonomy and creativity, with whom I’ve decided to share life? Our sitting together in discomfort begets understanding and compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh taught that the foundation of love is understanding. Only once you are in contact with a person’s suffering does understanding become active in a response of “I will do something so that she will not suffer so much.”

I am here to understand, to set a foundation for compassion in action. Now is the time for coffee and tamales, for language blunders and the consequent chortling, for handshakes that greet and for abrazos that promise to return. It is a time for, as Thich Nhat Hanh offers, “peace in every step.”

Thank you for joining with Sarah and all of our missioners in witnessing and strengthening the good that comes from today’s marginalized Nazareths around the world.

Please send your gift today, if you can. Come and see how you are a part of mission today! And come and see the wonders God reveals to those who serve.

Please keep our lay missioners in your prayers, just as you are in mine.

In hope and shared purpose,

Elvira Ramirez
Executive Director