Students do mission work with acts of love

Friday, Nov. 06, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY — Fifteen Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center students deepened their spiritual lives Oct. 12-16 on a mission trip during fall break at the Saint Therese HIV Outreach Center in Henderson, Nev.  

The outreach center has been in service for more than 15 years and serves the southern Nevada community, providing about 350 tons of food each month to about 6,000 HIV clients. It is run by Dominican Father Joseph and his assistant, David, who is HIV positive. 

The St. Catherine students assisted the volunteers at the center by picking up donated groceries, sorting the groceries and doing odd jobs such as mailing newsletters.

The students would work from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and in the evening would discuss the day.  

“One night we were talking about St. Therese of Lisieux, whom the center was named for, and how she wrote in her diary about doing little things with great love,” said Julie Bellefeuille, Newman Center campus minister. “We did small tedious, sometimes monotonous jobs like sorting spoons or boxes of Craisins or putting stamps on newsletters, with the realization that these really small things were meaningful. All of this work served people who are in sad situations; we put great love into these little acts we participated in all day.” 

The students were “humbled by the experience and inspired by the people they worked with, the stories they heard and the amount of perseverance they witnessed,” Bellefeuille said. “They found a sense of gratitude in their own lives and a true sense of Christ in service. They bonded with one another and they are incredibly selfless.”

The mission trip was planned so the students could see how the faith they learn at the Newman Center can translate into specific acts of mercy, said Dominican Father Lukasz Misko, St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center pastor. 

“The St. Therese Center seemed to be the perfect location for such a trip,” Fr. Misko said. “The students encountered suffering, yet they were able to see hope. We had four full days of work, and at the end of the day as we debriefed, we could see how they were being transformed.” 

During the trip, the group prayed, attended Mass, prayed the Liturgy of the Hours and overall “we could see how faith and prayer informs direction,” Fr. Misko said.

Ally Shea Sexton, a University of Utah freshman, went on the trip because “getting into a new groove of going to school, I’ve been so wrapped up in myself that I decided to go and get outside of my little world and do something good for other people,” she said adding that as a Juan Diego Catholic High School graduate, she is familiar with service hours and mission trips.

At the Saint Therese grocery store, “the clients can pick up whatever they want so it doesn’t feel like a hand out,” Sexton said. “They are treated with respect and dignity; I liked that. They all have really neat stories. Some of the workers are HIV positive, while others are not, but they are inspired by the cause or a family member or friend with the virus. To hear their stories is very humbling. It made me grateful for what I have and for my opportunity to attend the University of Utah; these people are grateful and they have so much less than I do.”

The people at the center were overwhelmingly joyful; “they had come from despair, finding out they had the HIV virus, but by working at the center, they found hope and joy and a purpose in life,” said Bellefeuille. “It was beautiful to see the people interact; it was clear how much love and support was being shared between them, and they shared it with the students.”