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Our Missionaries
Long-term Missionaries
TO THE END OF THE ROAD….
By Miriam Bannon and David Deegan
Personal Background
Miriam: I’m Irish. When beginning as a teacher in my home country in the late seventies, I used to listen on radio and television for news of Nelson Mandela, the struggles for human rights in Latin America, the efforts of Mother Teresa in Calcutta, and the struggle for political and economic rights in Northern Ireland. These all inspired me. Around the same time I became a member of Viatores Christi, an Irish Lay Missionary Organization where I met other people of like mind who had the same vision and who inspired me. One of these people was David Deegan. Through Viatores Christi, in 1987 I came in contact with the Incarnate Word Missionary Program who accepted me as a candidate in their volunteer program.
David: I’m also Irish. I started my career as a Customs officer in Dublin Airport. As a child I was always impressed by the missionary tradition of my people. School, television and church were impregnated with a missionary spirit. Later, as a young adult, I discovered a very strong presence of God in my life through the Charismatic Movement and that led me to reach out an be of service to the community. My commitment to service grew and grew. Eventually I got to know Miriam and became a missionary through Viatores Christi and later as a Viator, joined the Incarnate Word.
Mission: Our Journey to Date
Miriam: I am twenty one years a missionary. In 1987 I started in the Tarahumara, Mexico and there worked with both indigenous and mestizos in education. From there I went to Mexico City as a fulltime pastoral worker in a parish on the outskirts of Mexico City. Since 2000, I work with Hispanic immigrants in the US Midwest in pastoral leadership. My responsibilities are varied depending on the needs – curriculum development, facilitation, organizing, etc. At the heart of my work is accompaniment of the people.
David: I spent two years in British Columbia, Canada working with First Nation Canadians (indigenous) as a house parent. In 1994 I worked in Mexico City in a project for street kids. From there I went to Eagle Pass, Texas where I established a Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Then in 1998 I went to Guatemala and have been there ever since working exclusively with indigenous children and teenagers. (For further information on David’s mission: www.kanoj.net)
Development of Our Commitment
At the outset neither of us realized we would give our lives to this form of mission. We started with a three year experience without contemplating any further commitment. We found ourselves shifting from an identity of ‘volunteer’ to an identity of lay missionary. A desire for continuity grew. We knocked on the congregation’s door asking them to consider further commitment. Neither the Incarnate Word Sisters nor we had the map.
We saw the need for long-term commitment in terms of structural change in society which is at the heart of the lay vocation. Our walking with the marginalized brought us to this understanding. We know we are on sacred ground walking a road together with the poor towards social change.
Why We Continue?
With the Incarnate Word, in their preferential option for the economically poor we found a very supportive community of committed sisters who by their example called us forward and encouraged us to deepen our commitment. Cultural and social change is a slow process. It calls us more to accompany than ‘doing for.’
Blessings of Being a Long-term Missionary
Uncountable! We have received the grace to recognize the Incarnate Word in the people we live and work with and to try to be the Incarnated Word to them in our actions and attitudes. By being long-term missionaries we can see a project all the way through: their birth, development and continuity. The people we walk with are a community. It takes years to build up trust and confidence with the marginalized communities. Being long-term gives us this time and space.
Our faith has grown. Our limitations hit us right in the face. To continue we have become more reliant on God and come to a deeper place of prayer.
We have had the joy of accompanying short term missionaries. Their energy, dynamism and conviction call us to renewed commitment and keep us young at heart. We are all on a journey; we all have a story, moving forward constantly, evolving, deepening our commitment and understanding. We can witness to the fact that when short term missionaries return home, they take their experience to another context, continuing their commitment to mission, walking in solidarity with the poor and working towards social change in different ways.
Challenges
David: In a church where new concepts are slow in evolving and being accepted, I felt few could relate to me as laity with a desire to live in solidarity with the poor through a sustained, long-term commitment. Many don’t understand me. The attitude is ‘It’s alright to spend a few years ‘on mission’ to get it out of your system but then ‘get on with life.’ It was as if what I am doing is not life. From the perspective of the religious, often the comment is ‘If you want to do this long-term why don’t you become a priest?’
We’ve got it all wrong. Mission is central to the church. It is not an outreach. The mission should have a church, rather than the church having a mission. It cannot be contained in a two year experience. It doesn’t end when the missionary returns home. Our life doesn’t have a pause button to do mission but is a foundation we are constantly building on. Mission IS Life and from this life changing experience we go forward. It’s a mindset, an attitude.
Miriam: I agree with David. I feel I have become a bridge between laity and religious, between laity and church as structure. I see two tendencies. Some young people are very comfortable with the existing dominant model of church as hierarchy. Others lean towards church as People of God and critically question the present way of working. How do we, as long-term laity contribute to an emerging vision of church where we walk this road together, developing a new model of belonging, participation and decision-making with a greater consciousness of social justice and living in solidarity with the poor?
To those interested in long-term mission...
If it’s right for you, it will jump up and hit you in the face! Welcome to the club.
We feel a need to be accompanied in our option and we are sustained by it. To be with people of like mind, living a similar option is a blessing and a grace.
