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Working, Praying, and Living in the Spirit of Vincent DePaul
Fall 2002
The 2002-2003 group of Gateway Vincentian Volunteers arrived in St. Louis on August 11 to begin their year of working, praying, and living in the spirit of St. Vincent DePaul.
On Sunday evening, volunteers gathered with Vincentians from the St. Louis area and program board members to celebrate the Eucharist with Fr. Jim Swift, C.M., Provincial of the Midwest Province of the Congregation of the Mission. After mass, a meal was enjoyed by all.
Orientation sessions began on Monday morning and continued through Friday. Presenters included Fr. Bill Hartenbach, C.M., Sr. Joanne Vasa, D.C., Sr. Kieran Kneaves, D.C., and Sr. Pat Connolly, D.C.
One of the highlights of Orientation was a Team Building Day sponsored by the YMCA. Throughout the day, volunteers and directors were challenged to work as a group to complete tasks–many of them quite frustrating! After each task, the YMCA facilitator helped the group process what had or had not happened.
On Monday, August 19, 2002, the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers began their new jobs. Scott Kelly began work with Dr. Fred Rottnek at the Institute for Research and Education in Family Medicine. Karen Lyons reported to Covenant House Missouri, Elizabeth Sain to St. John’s Mercy Neighborhood Ministry, Christine Shine to St. Vincent DePaul Parish, and Kellie Willis to Guardian Angel Settlement Association.
Volunteers will work full-time through the end of June. Throughout the year, volunteers will be presented with opportunities to deepen their spirituality, process and learn from their work with the poor, and increase their awareness of issues of social justice.
Dear Friends of the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers Program,
Once again, we’ve begun a year with a wonderful group of young adults committed to a year of service with people living in poverty. Each volunteer has brought unique gifts and talents. Each is learning a lot about how to help those in need, and probably more importantly, how to be simply present to the people he or she serves.
We are grateful to the Midwest Province of the Congregation of the Mission for their support of the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers program. We are also grateful to the many St. Louis Vincentians and Daughters of Charity who spend time with our volunteers, helping them learn about Vincentian spirituality.
The Vincentian family in St. Louis is definitely growing! One of our volunteers from our first year remains in St. Louis, and five volunteers from last year are also living in St. Louis. We are blessed by their presence with us and their continued commitment to the poor in the spirit of St. Vincent DePaul.
We have enclosed an envelope for your convenience if you would like to make a contribution to the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers. Your generosity will help as we strive to become more self-sufficient. But more importantly, we ask that you keep our volunteers and the GVV program in your prayers.
Thank you!
Jim and Geri Ryan
Directors Gateway Vincentian Volunteers
Introducing the 2002-2003 Gateway Vincentian Volunteers!
Scott Kelly from Newington, Connecticut, who works with Dr. Fred Rottnek at the Institute for Research and Education in Family Medicine.
Karen Lyons from Lebanon, New Hampshire, who works at Covenant House Missouri.
Elizabeth Sain from South Bend, Indiana, who works at St. John’s Mercy Neighborhood Health Ministry.
Christine Shine from St. Louis, Missouri, who works at St. Vincent DePaul Parish.
Kellie Willis from St. Louis, Missouri, who works at Guardian Angel Settlement Association.
Where I Need to Be
by Christine Shine
St. Louis is a strange town. It is a big city in the sense that even though I am from North County, South City seems so far away (Yes, a whole 25 minutes away). While on the same token it is a small city in the sense that everyone knows everyone else. My community members joke that no matter where we go together I know someone there (which has been true thus far).
So when I decided to stay in St. Louis for my volunteer year, I was happy because I wanted to stay close to my family. But, also, nervous because I knew the St. Louis I would be serving in and working in this year would be worlds different from the St. Louis I grew up in.
Throughout high school and college I did lots of community service, so my goal for joining the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers was to do something completely different. Boy, did that goal come true ever so quickly. At first I thought a little too quickly.
I have worked with kids plenty, I have worked with seniors some, and I have redone a countless number of houses, so I wondered what group of people or kind of work was next for me. Sr. Jackie Toben, SSND, of St. Vincent DePaul Church sat me down and gave it to me straight. I would be working with women who were formerly incarcerated, and I would be actually going into prisons and working with women who were in prison now!
Needless to say I was scared to death. I thought I could do anything but that. What do I have in common with convicted criminals? I am just a sheltered north county Catholic schoolgirl, nothing in common with these women. I thought they would eat me alive.
The first Let’s Start meeting ( the support group at St. Vincent’s Church for women who were formerly in prison) came, and I was extremely nervous. I followed Sr. Jackie around and did not talk at all. The women began pouring in. Within the first ten minutes I had been given at least five hugs. I was taken aback at first, but quickly I knew I belonged and felt comfortable there.
The women week to week that I have encountered are amazing. Even though I am so different from them in many ways, I have realized that we are also similar in many ways. I respect them so much now, and learn so much from them every week. It makes me sad when I have to miss a meeting. And when I go it gives me as much strength as I think it gives them. Each in their own way loves me, accepts me, and opens themselves up and lets me in their lives. Sure, I was nervous at first, but now I know the group and the work I do there (and feared most) is exactly where I need to be!
Time to Think
by Scott Kelly
Scott, together with the other Gateway Vincentian Volunteers, is working his way through the book Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective by Michael Schut. This poem reflects some of Scott’s thoughts as he reads and discusses this book.
Burning, yearning we try to keep up
with the frantic pace that drives us,
The dog pack always dashing for the rabbit that can’t be caught.
We disillusion ourselves.
"More is better, most is best."
We’re lost! We’re too busy to realize it.
Striving, driving to keep up with the Joneses.
For what? For why?
I think I could be a happier guy.
So what then, where do I go?
What more can I accomplish to make it?
That’s the wrong question.
See you can’t get the right answer
If you start with the wrong question.
We’re lost! We’re too busy to realize it.
Is the "good life" really the good life?
We seek and we think, "Well, sure it is."
More is better, most is best!
Is most best? Is busy better?
I don’t know?
You don’t know!
You haven’t had time to think!
Something’s off center.
No, something’s just wrong.
I’m not fulfilled. I’m not free.
Maybe this story’s just about me.
No. No. REM was right. Everybody hurts.
So we pop a pill. Down a beer.
Emotionally ILL! Drown the fear.
Cuz’ I can’t quit. I’ll quit next year.
What’s wrong with that?
What’s wrong with that!
Unfulfillment. Unknown fear.
You’re ok with that!?
It’s time to think!
Following My Dreams
by Karen Lyons
For a week now I have tried to figure out what to write for this newsletter. As I sit in the comfort of my living room, I am struck by two things, both hanging on my wall and both made by my mother. One is a cross-stitched sunflower next to which is stitched "Guide my way, Lord, as I follow my dreams." The other is a wooden bumble bee with the words "Bee Happy" cross-stitched on it. Now that I think of it, this year that I am spending with the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers is about doing both of those things, following my dreams and being happy.
One of the most common questions that I am asked once people find out that I am a full-time volunteer is, why? Why did I choose to work and not get paid? Why did I choose to live with four other people, essentially four strangers, when I could live in my own apartment? Why did I move all the way from New Hampshire, away from my family and friends? Why? Why? Why?
There are many days when I come home from work and ask myself these same questions. Why? I guess what it comes down to is that living this year of service here in St. Louis is about living my dream, about being happy, and about having faith that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.
Seven months ago, when I decided to apply to the GVV program, I was living in Selma, Alabama, doing a year of volunteer service. I worked for an organization that provided food, utility, and medical assistance to those in need. Although I spent a large portion of my day sitting behind a desk, it was very difficult work. I had a limited amount of resources and found myself having to decide every day who gets help and who doesn’t. At the end of the month when we were out of funds I had to find a way to tell people that we couldn’t help them. I spent some of my time working with HIV+ populations. I used to drive two hours out into the county to pick up a client and bring him to our clinic. One day he nearly died in my car. I had to comfort his family (and keep myself together) when they met me at the clinic.
How is that living a dream? How is that being happy? I used to ask myself that question a lot. It doesn’t seem possible that happiness can be equated with witnessing so much pain and suffering. But it can. At one of our community nights Fr. Jim Cormack, C.M., said that we know God loves us because he is allowing us to do a year of service. He is allowing us to know people in the most intimate of ways. He is allowing us to see and share in their vulnerability. He is allowing us to see and share in their everyday, emotional experience. He is allowing us to experience humanity in its rawest, most sacred form and that is truly a gift. It is a gift that brings true happiness.
When I came to St. Louis nearly three months ago I was terrified. I didn’t know if I could live another year of service. My heart ached for the people that I left behind in Selma. I was tired and didn’t know if I had it in me to be truly and completely present to those that I would be ministering to. I wasn’t sure that moving here would help me follow my dream and find happiness. I won’t say that it’s been easy here, because it hasn’t. The adjustment has been difficult. But my work brings me more happiness than I ever could have imagined.
I work at Covenant House Missouri with homeless, runaway, and at-risk teenagers. It is not an easy population to work with. The issues that these youth bring to the Community Service Center everyday are more complex than anything I ever could have imagined. These kids have been to places that many of us haven’t even visited in our nightmares. Working with them, teaching them, and loving them is often very hard. But it is in very small moments that my heart is filled. When one of my students progresses one step closer to passing his/her GED, when one of my students gets a job, when one of my students has been drug-free for a week, two weeks, a month, I celebrate. When one of my students comes into my office and asks for help, when he/she lets me in on what’s going on in his/her life, I am blessed. In all of these moments I am witness not just to struggle and pain and hurt, but to the authenticity of the human spirit and to the presence of God. It is this that I hope for. It is this that I strive for. And it is in continuing to live this lifestyle that I know I will follow my dream and be happy.
The GVVs of 2001-2002: An Update!
by Nichole Schneider
Last year six 20-somethings had a unique experience in St. Louis. They had a once in a lifetime experience of volunteering with the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers. I was lucky enough to be one of the three young women and three young men that were part of the Vincentians last year. This year there is a whole new crew in our place, but we are still around, still living Vincentian lives in our own ways.
Sarah Lenhart and John Roarick are in formation with the Vincentians. Sarah is in the first phase, and once a week she prays and shares a meal with the Daughters of Charity on Meramec in St. Louis. She also works at Ranken Jordan Pediatric Rehabilitation Center with children who have serious medical conditions, from prematures to sixteen-year-olds. John lives at the Arsenal Street Vincentian Community and is attending St. Louis University as a seminary student.
Scott Kelly and Nichole Schneider continue to volunteer this year. Scott remained with the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers and is working with Dr. Fred Rottnek as a clinical assistant at the Institute for Education and Research in Family Medicine. His job entails talking with a terminally ill patient at the jail, co-facilitating a psychotherapy group, and working with patient education. I am with the Loretto Volunteers program and am working at Salvation Army Harbor Light. I am a caseworker for men waiting to get into drug rehabilitation.
Elizabeth Gappa and Jeff Maciej have moved into the work force. Elizabeth teaches fifth-grade homeroom and sixth through eighth grade science at Notre Dame Elementary School in South St. Louis. Jeff returned home to Minnesota and is working for an agency that helps handicapped people find jobs.
Our volunteer experience last year was a huge part of the rest of our lives. Each of us grew in the spirit of St. Vincent as you can see by where we are now. Our friendship continues to grow in that spirit as well. We are no strangers to the Vincentian house on Arsenal Street or at other Vincentian gatherings!
A Reflection
by Fr. Bill Hartenbach, C.M.
About a month ago I celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday. I neither yearn for my disappeared youth nor do I find myself resenting the young with their new, and, often times, challenging thoughts and ideas. However, what I do know, at least for myself, that being sixty-five means is that I can easily–and have on occasion–fall into a kind of "been there, done that" frame of mind. That frame of mind can lead, me at least, into a kind of cynical ennui that impedes my embracing the life and challenges that God brings my way everyday.
These days, living at St. Lazare, sharing occasional meals and talking fairly often with the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers, I find that I am jostled out of the "been there, done that" frame of mind. Their enthusiasm for life and for the service of the poor is infectious and is certainly a blessing to this sixty-five-year-old. Among other things the blessing consists in the gift they give to me of being able to see life and challenges with fresh, not tired, eyes. The questions and the ability to wonder remind me and draw me into the fact that life, every day, is new.
I am very grateful for the opportunity that I have to share, if just for a year, the lives and commitments of these young men and women.