June 25, 2007
The Vincentian spirit flourished across the Western hemisphere
last month, as two groups of St. John’s student-volunteers embarked
on two very different service trips, each sponsored by the Office
of Campus Ministry. For one group, which traveled to a small
Panamanian village to fix houses, the trip was a time to get the
hands dirty. For the other group, which journeyed to Lourdes,
France, to bathe pilgrims in holy water, it was a time to rinse
them clean.
Photo
Gallery
Panama Plunge
On May 15, a group of 12 students and two campus ministers traveled
to Santa Clara Abajo, a western Panamanian village near the town of
Volcan, to take part in the University’s second annual “Panama
Plunge.”
Over the course of 10 days, the St. John’s volunteers
refurbished three houses, erected an outhouse, fixed the roof of a
chapel and painted the entire elementary school of the village,
which is home to around 30 families, each living on about $20 a
week.
There is just one convenience store in Santa Clara Abajo, run
out of somebody’s house. Only 30 to 40 percent of the villagers
have electricity, and just two percent have indoor plumbing.
“By experiencing the struggles of the community and sharing
their faith with them, the students tirelessly carried out the St.
John’s mission through the Plunge,” said participating Campus
Minister Melissa Gibilaro.
In one case, the St. John’s team completely resurrected the
walls of a dilapidated two-room house crumbling down on its
occupants: a single mother and her five children. When the project
was complete, Jennifer Daniel, who graduated from St. John’s in
May, said she overheard the owner of the house referring to the St.
John’s students as “angels” who answered her prayers in a way she
“never would have imagined.”
Ask the students, however, and they might argue that the Santa
Clara Abajo residents are the true angels. Humbled by the
villagers’ squalid living conditions and inspired by their
perceived happiness in the face of poverty, the students returned
to the United States asserting that they were the ultimate
beneficiaries of a trip intended to help others.
“My family in Panama showed me how important family can be in
times of trial and times of joy,” enthused recent graduate Raymond
DeVries.
“I felt welcomed and accepted as a member of the community; a
sister, a daughter, a fellow Panamanian,” added senior Andrea
Sánchez.
Gibilaro said she wasn’t surprised by the students’ reactions.
“They were able to see people who seemingly had so little, but were
still so happy,” she explained. “In this way, the trip challenged
the typical ‘me-first’ American way of thinking and suggested that
material possessions don’t always determine happiness … that love
and community are more important than money.”
To thank the volunteers, the village threw two community-wide
parties, complete with indigenous dances, skits, poetry readings,
piñatas and sporting competitions.
After 10 days of building homes and friendships, the departure
was difficult for everybody.
“It was an absolute tear-fest,” admitted Gibilaro, laughing.
“The villagers had really come to see us as part of their
families.”
“They opened up their houses for us, giving us everything we
needed — and for some of these families, that meant giving us
everything they had,” added Rev. Tri Duong, C.M., a St. John’s
Campus Minister.
Panama Plunge was conceived two years ago by Father Tri and Rev.
Joe Fitzgerald, C.M., who currently ministers to 25 western
Panamanian villages, including Santa Clara Abajo. The two priests
were ordained together by Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in
Huntington, NY, and have remained friends.
After they departed, Father Fitzgerald raved about the students’
commitment to helping the world’s poor, which he suspected was
shaped by the Vincentian values they learned at St. John’s.
“The St. John’s students are truly unique,” he said by e-mail.
“They endured the hardships of the experience with a deep-rooted
belief in the importance of the village people.”
According to Father Tri, plans are already forming for Panama
Plunge 2008.
Labors of Lourdes
On June 1, nine students, two campus ministers and a professor
journeyed to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, where they spent
10 days bathing pilgrims in the spring water that pours forth from
the sanctuary’s famous grotto. The Catholic Church recognizes
Lourdes, a small city situated at the base of the Pyrenees
Mountains in southern France, as a holy site where the Blessed
Mother appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous during the 19th
century. Many Catholics believe the grotto’s waters possess healing
powers.
Each day, the St. John’s volunteers assisted pilgrims, most of
whom were frail, sick or wheelchair-bound, by escorting them to
private bathtubs within the sanctuary, helping them undress and
dipping their bodies into the holy water. The cleansing ritual,
which attracts hundreds of visitors per day, also leads pilgrims
and volunteers through intense prayer and recitations of the “Hail
Mary.”
Many St. John’s students also spent time at the Lourdes train
station, assisting pilgrims off of trains and onto buses.
Typically, their workday stretched from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
“The message of Lourdes is about how to love,” said Jim Walters,
a participating Campus Minister who organized the trip. “You are
servants. The Bible says those who are last will be first, and
that’s Lourdes. The sick and elderly are put first while your own
needs are put last.”
The trip was conceived by English Instructor Roseanne Gatto,
Ph.D., who made her first visit to Lourdes with her mother five
years ago and has continued to volunteer multiple times a year.
According to Gatto, the challenge of the ministry is finding a way
to reconcile the unavoidable emotions with the physical demands of
the job.
“When you see so many people over the world with such a sheer
devotion to Mary, you’re forced to think about what you, yourself,
believe in,” she explained. “But then you have to put those
thoughts on the back burner, get on your knees and start taking
people’s shoes and socks off.”
The trip offered St. John’s students daily opportunity to
participate in international Mass, Rosary sessions, Eucharistic
adoration and candlelight processions. During one of the
processions, the students were given the honor of carrying the
cherished statue of the Blessed Mother.
After 10 days in Lourdes, the St. John’s volunteers skipped off
to Paris where they enjoyed two days of sightseeing. Upon arriving,
the group embarked on a Vincentian-heritage tour of sorts,
traveling to the St. Vincent de Paul Chapel (which sits above the
bones of St. Vincent), the Vincentian Museum, the Cathedral of
Notre Dame, and the Miraculous Medal Chapel (which is dedicated to
St. Catherine Laboure, to whom the Blessed Mother appeared during
1830 and 1831).
Walters says he hopes that the Lourdes service trip will become
an annual event.