When Sigifredo Bonilla joined forces with the Glenmary Home Missioners more than two years ago, he didn’t figure on the huge amount of driving he would be doing. Sigi, a Glenmary multicultural worker serving two counties in northern Mississippi, has been logging an average of 3,000 miles per month. But it’s a job he clearly loves.

“With so many Hispanics moving into the area, my role has become more and more important,” this native of Cali, Colombia, says.

Ripley, Miss., where Glenmary’s St. Matthew Church is located, is one focus of his ministry. Here, Sigi points out, “about 80 percent of the congregation is Hispanic, with families from Mexico and El Salvador.”

On many Sundays Sigi also assists Father Don Tranel, pastor of Glenmary’s St. Francis of Assisi Church in New Albany, with the Spanish Mass there. That’s about an hour’s drive from Ripley, where Sigi lives with his wife, Dora, and two daughters.

A typical week takes this road-warrior to the many small towns that dot the landscape of northern Mississippi: Walnut, Fulton, Blue Mountain. These are the places where newly arrived

Hispanics have settled, and it’s where you will find Sigi plying his special brand of ministry.
He knocks on doors, introduces himself and does what he can to help ease the transition to a new country and a new culture. Speaking in Spanish, he offers assistance with immigration and daily living issues. He introduces folks to the local Catholic church and sees to it their children are enrolled in religious education classes. He invites the adults to attend Mass and become active in the Ripley mission parish.

Sigi’s formal ministry training started in Cali, Colombia, where he studied for five years in the seminary. He worked for the Church in many ways in Latin America, including serving as the liaison for the Diocese of Bogotá and the Diocese of Boise, connecting Idaho parishes with “sister parishes” in Colombia.

Glenmary recruited Sigi as a multicultural worker in 2000. He and his wife then moved their family to Mississippi.
But they already had Glenmary ties. Sigi grew up in a parish in Cali where Father Leo Schloemer served (1986 to 1991) as a follow-up to his earlier role in Glenmary’s 10-year-effort to help the Diocese of Bogotá establish a home mission society on the Glenmary model.

New Hispanics continue to come to Northeastern Mississippi in search of a better life, Sigi says. This is a place where a majority of companies have begun to realize that Hispanics are willing and able to work hard and that they are good people.

Of his work so far with Glenmary: “Sure, it’s challenging,” he says with a soft smile. “But it’s rewarding. I’m needed here.”

Dennis O’Connor is a freelance writer from Park Hills, Ky., and the managing editor of The Cincinnati Telegraph, newspaper for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.