Seeing God's Hand at Work

Friday, Apr. 24, 2020

Last Tuesday deadline, Linda Petersen came into my office with a happy smile and a nervous expression. Linda is one of the staff reporters for the Intermountain Catholic, and it was nice to see her showing some happiness.

Smiles are rare in these days of the pandemic. We are all affected by the news that seems to daily grow more grim: the increasing number of people infected by the COVID-19 virus, the rising death toll, the inconvenience imposed by the measures put in place to try to prevent the spread of the disease.

Here in our office, we are continuing to produce the paper, but the staff is working from home except for deadline day. When Linda walked into my office, it was obvious she had more on her mind than just the usual greetings after not having seen each other for a week.

“So,” she said, “I know it’s deadline day, and I already turned in the story, but …”

These are not words an editor ever wants to hear. Linda knows this, and that accounted for her nervousness. At the same time, she’s a seasoned journalist, and she would never say those words without good reason.

What Linda wanted was to make changes to her story  about Father Tai Nguyen, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, who had begun sewing face masks to donate to people who needed them for protection during the pandemic. With the help of some parishioners, Fr. Nguyen had sewn several hundred masks. Linda had done her usual excellent job in reporting and writing the story, which she turned in on Monday for deadline. I’d edited the story and, on Tuesday morning, was ready to put it on the page. The story already had been translated into Spanish, as well. Linda saying “but” meant all that work would need to be redone on a day when every minute counts as we try to get the paper to press before deadline.

These were my thoughts as Linda said, “But. …”

What followed the “but” was worth all the effort. What had happened, Linda said, was that she has a friend who posted on Facebook a request from her daughter, Kali, for people to donate masks to the Navajo Nation. After reading the post, Linda agreed to make 100 masks herself, and texted Fr. Nguyen to tell him about Kali’s request. Fr. Nguyen responded Monday night, offering to donate 500 masks – unbeknownst to either of them at the time, that was the exact number of masks that the person at the Navajo Nation had asked for. 

Tuesday morning, telling me this, Linda said, “I see God at work.” 

On Facebook a couple of days later, Linda told this tale, adding, “Until then I didn’t know how much I needed this, to understand that God has not forgotten us during this pandemic, that he is bringing great things to pass through small and simple things. I was one of those simple things. I can’t do much but I can sew; I can respond to a request from a friend to help. The odds of Fr. Tai and Kali, members of different faith congregations, connecting are probably one in a million. I was that connection — and I will be forever grateful for the privilege!”

To this I can add only my little part in the saga. I heard about Fr. Nguyen’s efforts through Dominican Fr. Francis Le at St. Catherine of Siena Parish. I immediately wanted to write about it myself – it’s an uplifting story of the kind that’s fun to write and invariably gets positive feedback. But my schedule was such that I didn’t have time, so I assigned it to Linda, who just happened to have a friend whose daughter was collecting for the Navajo Nation precisely at the time when the story was due. 

From Fr. Le to me to Linda to Fr. Nguyen, from the daughter to Linda’s friend to Linda, from Linda back to Fr. Nguyen, from Fr. Nguyen to the Navajo Nation – these are the kinds of fine threads that God weaves together to create a web that we sometimes can see. And when we do, we smile as widely as Linda did when she walked into my office and said, “I know it’s deadline day, but …”