‘Meet a Missioner Monday’ interviews

Are you looking for ways to travel the world safely from your living room? Are you interested in hearing about what mission looks like during this time of COVID-19?

Karen Bortvedt Estrada is now hosting #MeetAMissionerMonday, a series of Facebook and YouTube Live conversations with Maryknoll lay missioners around the globe. Karen’s guests from around the world share experiences and insights from their ministries. Karen is a returned Maryknoll lay missioner herself (Class of 2013, Cambodia) and currently serves as the recruitment and relationship manager of Maryknoll Lay Missioners,

The series is now running every other Monday at 11 am EDT on Facebook Live and YouTube Live. If you tune in live, you can ask your own questions of our missioners.

Upcoming episode on migration:

• Nov. 9 – Larry Parr (El Salvador) and Coralis Salvador (U.S.-Mexico border)

Here are links to previous episodes:

• Nov. 2 (hosted by Jepi Rivera) – Lisa Sullivan and Margarita Durán. Migration focus. Lisa is a returned lay missioner who continues to live and serve in Venezuela, and Margarita is a  lay missioner in São Paulo, Brazil.
• Oct. 12, Juan Gomez (Cochabamba and Tacopaya, Bolivia), entrevista en Español (interview in Spanish, with English live captions)
• Sept. 28, Food Insecurity Panel with Peg Vámosy (Monte San Juan, El Salvador), Rich Tarro (Mombasa, Kenya) and Sami Scott (Gros Morne, Haiti)
• Sept. 14, Ann Greig, San Ramón, El Salvador — Health Through Nutrition Soy Project
• Aug. 3, Jill Foster, Gros Morne, Haiti — Jean Marie Vincent Agricultural Center,
• July 27, Loyce Veryser, Mwanza, Tanzania — high school math teacher
• July 20, Gabe Hurrish, Juba, South Sudan — projects officer for Solidarity with South Sudan
• July 13, Mike Garr and Mohamed Abdalla, Mombasa, Kenya — vocational training in catering, challenges for young people, Christian-Muslim relations
• July 6, Fr. Charlie Dittmeier, Phnom Penh, Cambodia — Maryknoll Deaf Development Programme, Phnom Penh’s English-speaking Catholic Community
• June 29, Cortney Freshwater, Cochabamba, Bolivia — ministry with children with disabilities and with elderly women and men; COVID-19 food ministry.
• June 22, Dee Dungy, Nairobi Kenya — refugee advocacy with Jesuit Refugee Service.
• June 15, Heidi Cerneka, El Paso, Texas — immigration attorney for detained migrants at U.S.-Mexico border.
• June 8, Abby Belt, Gros Morne Haiti — continuing education for teachers, coaching and mentoring, Mercy Beyond Borders.
• June 1, Flávio José Rocha, João Pessoa, Brazil — holistic health, “Theater of the Oppressed” and environmental research and activism.
• May 25, Liz Mach, Musoma, Tanzania — longest-serving Maryknoll lay missioner; nurse in women’s health, women’s rights, fighting gender-based violence.
• May 18, Evey and Melissa Altman, San Salvador, El Salvador — mother and daughter; growing up in a missioner family, ACOMUJERZA women’s cooperative.
• May 11, Joanne Blaney, São Paulo, Brazil — restorative justice, popular education, base community with people experiencing homelessness.
• May 4, Anne Berry and George Stablein, Mwanza, Tanzania — missioner physicians in rural hospital.
• April 27, Kathy Bond, João Pessoa, Brazil — working with people who have experienced trauma; yoga, Shantala baby massage, women’s health and rights.
• April 20, Susan Nagele, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania — missioner-physician in East Africa for more than 33 years.

Please tune in each Monday, either through Facebook or YouTube and share the talks with your friends.

‘Global lay mission then, now and in the future’

On April 24, for the 45th anniversary of Maryknoll Lay Missioners, we organized a special panel on the topic of “Global lay mission then, now and in the future.” The panel, moderated by Karen, featured current and returned lay missioners, one from each of the five decades of our existence:

• 1970’s: Liz Mach (Class of 1976)
• 1980’s: Fred Goddard (1985)
• 1990’s: Wynnie-Fred Victor Hinds (1994)
• 2000’s: Flavio Rocha (2003)
• 2010’s: Juan Gomez (2014)