ORIGINS OF LAY MISSIONER’S COMMITMENT DERIVED FROM PARISH PARTNERSHIP

Shannon Callahan from St. Michael’s Parish in Prior Lake had a really fine life in the Twin Cities. A registered nurse, Shannon loved to care for newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. However, last winter she left her family, her friends and the job she loved to become a lay missioner. She will return to people that she has also come to love—in Peru.

Shannon visited Peru several times through the Sister Parish relationship between St. Michael’s and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Chimbote, Peru. It was through those personal visits to Peru that Shannon felt led to deepen her relationships with the people of Peru as a lay missioner. She recently wrote during those trips.

“Though I knew little Spanish, the people warmly welcomed me into their homes and lives. The people are poor but rich in spirit and it is this spirit that set my heart on fire. It is the spirit of the people and their struggle to forge ahead despite adversity that draws me back to Peru. I’m not doing this in order to rescue or save the poor, but to learn from them and work with those who suffer from injustices in the world.”

Shannon noted, “I will be forever grateful to the Sister Parish Committee at the Church of St. Michael in Prior Lake for introducing me to the people of Peru.” Shannon will be part of a six-member Comboni Lay Missioner team who will live and work in Alto Trujillo, Peru, a large city in northern Peru, where thousands of desperate, materially poor families come to build a home and look for work. Shannon has just finished four months of intensive language training in Bolivia and now begins her mission assignment in Alto Trujillo.

For more information about becoming a lay missioner or other short-term mission opportunities please contact Mike Haasl at the Center for Mission, 651-291-4504 or haaslm@archspm.org.