A Chaparral AMA Reflects: "Take part and make an impact on the world around you."

After graduating from Assumption College (Worcester, MA) in May of last year, Kristen Penkala signed on to be an Associate Missionary of the Assumption (AMA) in Chaparral, New Mexico. Her experience as a service director of the Reach Out Center and of Campus Ministry's Mexico Mission convinced her that growing in her faith through service to others was the way to go.

She served at Casa Maria Eugenia in Chaparral with her fellow AMA, Katy O'Brien. Kristen is from Cumberland, Rhode Island. Katy hails from Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Kristen reflects on the first few months of her AMA experience:

Hanging out with Sr. Anne and Chaparral youth

Following in the direction of St. Marie Eugénie, we work primarily with the youth in Chaparral with particular attention to education. The children lead lives faced with economic strains, violence in school, drugs in their neighborhoods, and blurry visions of a better future. With such great need in so many different areas of the community, each day we wake with the motivation to use every interaction and moment through the day as an opportunity to form relationships and serve others. Whether we are working in the schools, leading Confirmation class, visiting neighbors, or entertaining children on a Friday night, it is an essential desire that both the community and myself walk away bettered by the interaction. The Assumption Sisters in Chaparral have made amazing achievements in their time here. It is exciting to see Chaparral growing and the community strengthening. The Sisters prove to be a vital source of strength and encouragement for us AMAs.

I wholeheartedly believe that it is necessary to leave one’s own world and experience the lives of others. I have come to understand that when one is placed in a life drastically different than their own, it is only then that person can fully grasp who they are. Suddenly, the person becomes stripped of the superfluous complexities of life, and in true simplicity, can begin to see the things that really matter. Life in Chaparral is quite different from the comfortable life that I left in New England. There is such a beautiful strength in the suffering, a strength that is incomprehensible to many people. For those who do not know a life other than their own, I invite you to step into the experience of another. I invite you share a meal with a family who welcomes you into their home whether they have enough food or not. I invite you to experience the sorrow of a family of children whose parents have been deported. I invite you to feel the strength in the embrace of a dying woman, with her children crying by her feet. I invite you to sit in a family’s home, see beyond the cracks in the walls and holes in the floor, and breathe in their love and happiness. I invite you to hold the hand of a child through the fence that divides the United States from Mexico. I invite you to take part and make an impact on the world around you."

—Kristen Penkala
Assumption College Graduate 2007
AMA ‘07-‘08, Chaparral, New Mexico

Volunteer Stories - Andrea de Castro

In a Small Church in Las Cruces: "I found my faith and everything I stood for." 

Andrea de Castro graduated from Assumption College (Worcester, MA) in May of 2006 with a triple major in Spanish, History, and Latin American Studies. Is it any wonder that she is spending this year as an AMA at Casa Maria Eugenia in Chaparral, NM where she, her co-AMA Tina Grzeczkowski and the Assumption Sisters serve the youth of this border town with Mexico? Andrea wants to go on to Law School and be an advocate for immigrant families. This year is teaching her many lessons that she could never learn in the classroom alone.

Here she shares her experience in a small church in Las Cruces on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe:

"It was December 12th, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Tina and I visited Las Cruces to see the elaborate celebration. Many people gathered in a small area called Tortugas to celebrate Our Lady and give thanks to her. The natives dressed in their traditional costumes wearing headdresses and carried instruments as they danced. And I realized that all this song and dance was for one immaculate woman. It was a spectacular sight to see.

Andrea and Chaparral youth at Halloween

Tina and I entered the Church there, to say a prayer and to escape the commotion for a bit. As I knelt there, my thoughts wandered and I was suddenly overcome with emotion, a mix of sadness and joy. Until now, I had been drifting so long, not knowing what to believe or think. I was like a fish in a big empty sea being carried by the current and at any moment something bigger than me was going to swallow me up.

But here on the border, I found my soul again. I found my faith and everything I stood for. Here, I was reminded by these simple people, whose faith is stronger than most, what is means to just believe. Here, hope lies in the face of a stranger. The border, a place of faith and a symbol of hope has inspired me to believe again. And so in that quiet little church I gave thanks and praise to Our Lady."

—Andrea de Castro
Assumption College Graduate 2006
AMA ‘06-‘07, Chaparral, New Mexico

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Volunteer Stories - Maggie McCormick

Remarks of AMA Maggie McCormick: “These communities now provide me with the strength and confidence to continue the mission that God has put before me.”

"My year as an AMA was full of amazing stories as I’m sure all AMA experiences are. As I began looking through my pictures for some inspiration, I came across one that I feel most encapsulates my experience there and the impact that it had on me.

Picture two girls, barefoot with their toes digging into the impossibly cool and comfortable sand despite the hot and heavy July sun. Around us you can see nothing but sand dunes. Beautiful white gypsum sand dunes. Beautiful but barren and simple in the way only a desert can be ...

In so many ways my choice to move to the desert of New Mexico as an AMA was driven by a desire to escape the spiritual and emotional desert experience I was living the year before. After graduating college, I was adrift in a world of interviews and meetings and profits. I lost my bearings completely and everything around me looked the same. I felt myself becoming lazy and apathetic in all aspects of my life including my relationship with God. I felt a sense of emptiness and loneliness. In the most ironic way, moving to the actual desert of New Mexico, though scary at the time, gave me new perspective and new life. The heat that before brought laziness and apathy now brought a slowness of living, allowing me time to notice and appreciate the little things that God has given us. The silence of the desert that before brought emptiness and loneliness now brought a chance to listen more closely to everything around me ...

… Those two girls exchange a knowing look and back away from their comfortable spots in the sand, side by side they get ready and instinctively grab each other's hands ...

Maggie with fellow AMA Robin and young friend from Chaparral community

One thing that I believe is true for all AMAs is the sense of community. I learned how to live in community with Robin, the other AMA, and the sisters. I learned how to become an active member of the community of Chaparral. I felt for maybe the first time a genuine sense of connection to the larger communities of which I had always been a part: the community of our Catholic family, the community of our Christian family. Being an AMA in Chaparral meant building relationships and learning how to hold each other's hands to expand and strengthen a community of respect and trust. I was given an opportunity to take an entire year to put everyone before myself and in return I received more than I ever could have imagined. The community of Chaparral, the community of the Assumption sisters, the community of the AMA’s: these communities now provide me with the strength and confidence to continue the mission that God has put before me. No matter how scary it may seem at the time.

… Those 2 girls with their hands firmly clasped begin to run. Their grip tightens as they approach the edge of one of the tallest dunes. They see the landscape and the blue sky open up before them and without a second thought, together they jump ... and click ... there's my picture. The two of us mid-air able to jump knowing we would be there to support each other.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity and the courage to jump then and in the future. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help others learn how to jump as well. Finally and most importantly, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for making it possible for AMA's to take that jump year after year.

—Maggie McCormick

Reflections on the End of an AMA Year: "I am genuinely happier than I ever have been."

Liz Supple with young friend Kenny in ESL program.

There are no sufficient adjectives to sum up the past 11 months. They are all too vague, and most are too hokey for me to feel comfortable using them. Instead, I’d like to share the story of my Tuesday and Thursday morning routine at our English as a Second Language classes. It’s only a small snippet of an enormous year that has been packed with moments and stories, but I think it illustrates some of the overarching emotions and themes I’ve personally experienced this year.

At English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, I was responsible for the pre-school aged kids whose parents otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend. Most regularly I had two kids – Nana, a 4 year old girl, and Kenny, a 4 year old boy. Occasionally other kids would come, and I’d be watching as many as 4 or 5 kids, but almost always there was Kenny and Nana. But regardless of how many there were, it was inevitable that at some point during those two hours of classes, their tiny little bladders would fill. So I would have to take them down the stairs, through the back of the lower church, to the bathroom in the very back.

Liz participating in the Worcester Mentoring program.

As I walked behind them, I often looked to the Tabernacle and thought, “I know I probably shouldn’t let them run, Jesus. But you understand, right?” About this same time, Nana would be about halfway up the church, pause, look back at me, and motion for me to come on and catch up with her, Kenny, and whoever else might be there that day.

This routine filled me with peace, and I soon came to think of it as less a routine and more a ritual. Standing there in the back of the church, one eye on the Tabernacle housing the Eucharist, other eye on my children, I knew that God was there, with us, around us, within us. I am just about the farthest thing a person can be from a mystic, but for me these moments could only be described as transcendent.

Unfortunately time and space prohibit me from sharing with you similar stories of the things I’ve experience, like the preschooler who insisted that she hug me goodbye 3 times on my last day at the preschool, or watching the garden kids faithfully turn the compost that was stinky from a lack of “browns” (carbon-rich materials like yard clippings).

I am tempted to say that I am a different person today than I was 11 months ago. But while it is true that I have changed and grown, I am not really a “different person.” Rather, I am simply more myself, more the person God created and calls me to be, than I ever have been before. With a little luck and a whole lot of grace, I believe that the tools I’ve been given during my AMA year will help me to continue up this path.

I am genuinely happier than I ever have been. And I owe so much of that to you – the Assumption Family and Friends. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for all you do and have done to support me, the AMA program, and the Religious of the Assumption. Thank you for all of your kind words, your welcoming, and your prayers. Thank you for your generosity to AMA, the Assumption Center, and all of the programs we are able to run with your help. Thank you. My hope and prayer for all of you is that you may feel the overwhelming abundance of blessings and grace which I’ve experienced this past year. Thank you and God bless."

—Liz Supple, AMA (Worcester) 2011-12

Volunteer Stories - Pierre Tardivo

A French AMA in Worcester: "If you are looking for God: He is everybody, He is the society, He is Life."

Pierre Tardivo

Worcester, MA is an unlikely destination for a young man from Cannes (France), but for one year Pierre Tardivo has chosen to make it his home as an Associate Missionary of the Assumption (AMA). He tells us about his experience below:

"I arrived in Worcester at the beginning of September 2007. It was a long exciting trip from France. It was my first time in the United States and it was a wonderful sunny day. In the first few days, I met hundreds of people, fantastic and very generous people, everywhere. Everybody seemed to be looking at me like I was an alien from Mars. I can understand that: I couldn’t understand people well because of my English and I was the French guy who nobody could understand what he was doing here and why did he come to this place, Worcester! 

In fact, I didn’t know some of these answers either. I always knew why I became an AMA but the thing I couldn’t explain was why this place and what I could do. So those were two big questions.

Working with Sr. Mary Ann on removing wallpaper at the new Assumption Center

This thinking is a part of my experience here. Of course, your job when you are an AMA is to help. But if you want to help well, the first thing you have to do is to understand what you are doing, why, for whom and how to do the best work. You have to know everything about yourself before trying to understand others.

So, the first question was: What I am doing here?

That is a pretty difficult question: the place. For that, let’s have help from better sources than me:

“The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there."  (Gen 12)

Of course, I am Pierre, I am twenty one, I am not married and have no children. But when you are a volunteer and you read that, it makes sense.

Since I have been here, I have done many different things: ESL, food pantry, work in the new house, basketball coach… But there is also mentoring, a breath of fresh air! Twice a week, Sister Mary Ann and I organize mentoring. I arrive at the beginning of the afternoon. I set up the room while Sister Mary Ann buys some donuts and carries them to mentoring! The children arrive generally just before their mentors but in a few minutes, each mentor arrives and everybody can work in pairs. The first hour is for homework. After that, I open the gym (I think one lung of the program is the gym and the other is the donuts). So, they have the choice between the gym, games or work for the end of the program. Our goal is to help the mentors and the mentees develop positive relationships. In each situation (gym, games, work), they can learn something from each other. At the end, everybody goes home. The children can walk because they are from the neighborhood. Some of the mentors take their mentees home.

What I am waiting for? What can I do? Those are the questions I can ask for each thing I do here, not just mentoring. Because, sometimes, I ask myself: why I am doing this, now, in this place, with these people?

In France I always had enough of everything; I had a happy childhood, a happy life… I never needed anything. So, in each task I have here, I think about that. It is the reason why I became an AMA. It’s the reason why each day I am here, I wake up and I want to do my best with all of these people.

And that makes more sense in mentoring because I try to give to those kids more chances in life, the chances I had. I never wait to receive something back. I do everything for them. But one day, I received a “thanks” from a 6 year old kid and at that moment I knew what I was doing made sense. If you are looking for God: He is everybody, He is the society, He is Life. You see Him each time you feel some gladness from a person: for a child, it’s easy. You can see God in every smile.

God bless you!

—Pierre Tardivo

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Volunteer Stories - Liz Clayton

Two Months in Worcester: An AMA Reflection: "I thank the Lord for bringing me here..." 

Liz Clayton

"When I first arrived in Worcester almost 2 months ago, I told a girl in the St. Peter’s Church Youth Group that I had moved here from Florida. She looked at me incredulously and said, “You moved here from Florida? You fool!” And I have to admit, when I started wearing long sleeves and jackets in August I started to wonder if she was right.

Coming to New England from Florida has definitely been a big change. But it seems that everyday I find something new to love about Worcester that has made the transition so much easier and enjoyable. Things like chipmunks, apple picking, Friendly’s ice cream, the brilliancy of the changing leaves, and most of all the family I have found at St. Peter’s and the glowing faces of the children in our mentoring program.

Every Wednesday and Thursday I am blessed to spend with about 70 neighborhood kids and college volunteers. It is hard not to feel welcome in a place where faces smeared with chocolate from Dunkin Donuts and stained red with fruit punch smile, laugh, run, and play with seemingly endless energy. Their great joy is infectious and those 4 hours of noisy chaos have quickly become the highlight of my week!

At a youth car wash

Mentoring is just one of the programs I am involved with here and each one brings with it a unique joy. It is a joy to work with the determined students in our ESL program and watch their progress each week. It is a joy to work with the people of St. Andrew’s, our mission parish, who have such a devotion to keeping their struggling church alive. And it is a joy to spend time with the college students at Clark University who make their faith a priority in their busy lives.

There are so many people who have helped to make Worcester a home to me and I thank the Lord for bringing me here for this year of service and growth. I am so excited at the opportunities that are available to me and at the chance to take part in the great work that is being done in Worcester. So am I a fool to come here from Florida? Ask me again in December!"

— Liz Clayton

An AMA Experience in Newcastle, England: "A big part of this volunteer year is opening ourselves up to see God’s light in our own lives."

Kathleen Gardner, like her three other AMA companions, was sent off to her mission in Newcastle, England by the Assumption community of Sisters, Brothers and friends at a commissioning Mass last August.

A graduate of the University of Virginia and a native of Reston, VA, Kathleen has this to share with us after four months of living and serving at Kids Kabin, a project of the Assumption sisters for children living in Newcastle, an old industrial city in Northeast England.

Well, the camping trip turned out to be tons of fun and quite possibly my favorite experience so far. We spent the night in Rupert’s Wood, about an hour’s drive from Newcastle. We set up our tents, let the kids play and explore the words, and then cooked dinner over the fire. At 7:00 p.m. it was so dark that we decided to go on a “midnight” walk through the woods with our flashlights. The woods themselves are actually quite small, but our leisurely stroll turned into an hour-long trudge through the underbrush when we realized we’d lost our campsite. We would turn all flashlights off periodically and peer into the darkness desperately seeking a sign of our campfire. Most of the girls thought it was a great adventure but one was convinced we would never make it back; she spent the hike crying loudly. After more than an hour, we finally spotted our camp. Surprisingly, it was the jack-o’-lanterns we’d lit earlier that saved us. (The large fire had already burned down and was invisible.)

With fellow volunteers in Newcastle.

Not knowing exactly what to expect from this year has allowed me to be more open to everything and to be able to appreciate so many new experiences. When I have a tough session at Kids Kabin, or when I can’t understand what people are saying to me in their infamous Geordie accent, it can be tough, but then little things show up to brighten my day. Kids showing me how they remember the fingerings on piano to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” or a really good conversation with one of the asylum seekers here – and many other experiences -- help me to remember the candles we drew on our shirts and our hope that we would find light along our way. It seems so fitting that when we were literally lost in the darkness, it wasn’t the big campfire that brought us home, but rather the smiling pumpkins lit by a single candle."

—Kathleen Gardner

Volunteer Stories - Rececca Ickes