‘I am living in a strange and wonderful world.” Maybe all Glenmarians and coworkers say this about their home mission ministry. But I know it certainly describes my feelings here in Mississippi. What makes this world so strange and wonderful?

Since 1999 I have served as a Glenmary multicultural worker to the Hispanic community of Vardaman, Miss., working out of the Glenmary mission in Houston. (Even though Vardaman is in Calhoun County, which is served by Glenmary’s mission in Bruce, people from Vardaman are drawn toward Houston,  in Chickasaw County. Not only is Houston closer to Vardaman, but it is a bigger town with a WalMart and a hospital!)

There are 50-plus Catholic families in Vardaman, all from the same rural area outside San Luis Potosi in Mexico. It is as if their small Mexican town has been transplanted into Vardaman—a town of only 1,000 in the middle of the Bible Belt.

These Hispanic families have brought with them their own religious customs, history, way of life, and intracommunity loves and jealousies. It is a unique situation and a particular pastoral challenge.

For most of my life I could never have imagined myself in such a place or in such a ministry. As a Sister of the Living Word, I have spent most of my life as an elementary teacher and then in parish religious education. But I always felt a missionary nudge. I remember reading Maryknoll magazine as a child and telling my grandfather how I thought I wanted to be a missionary someday. But he always advised me to stay right here at home.

It was that nudge that led me about 15 years ago to accept the challenge of ministering to Hispanics in the border areas of Texas. (My last ministry there was in a birth center in the Rio Grande valley.) Those years were very eye-opening for someone like myself who had always worked in Catholic schools and parishes serving mainly working- and middle-class families. The poverty, the needs of the Mexican and Mex-American people were overwhelming.

I heard about this job in Vardaman from some members of my religious community who were living in Canton, Miss. They alerted me that Glenmary was looking for someone with experience in pastoral ministry, religious education and social service to work with the influx of Hispanics in the Vardaman area.

Because of my ability to speak Spanish, my experiences in Texas, and my educational and pastoral background, the Holy Spirit seemed to be pointing a finger right at me: “Kris, I need you here in Vardaman.”

The mission statement of my religious community says: “We, the Sisters of the Living Word, are sent by God in the power of the Spirit to reflect and affirm the Word, the Word that frees the oppressed and gives new life.”  From the start I have felt a strong connection between that charism and Glenmary’s approach to mission ministry.

First, there is Glenmary’s emphasis on respecting the culture in which missioners try to communicate that freeing Word. This respect for culture is a prerequisite for ministering to the Latino people.

Latinos see God in one’s eyes, experience God in the care they are shown. If “Father” or “Sister” doesn’t care, God is not experienced in them, nor will they feel drawn to come to church. “If you look on my children with love, I know you love us,” Latinos typically say. That love builds confidence in the minister.

The Latino people I work with in Vardaman are in exile in some very real ways. Northeast Mississippi is not like Texas—where the culture is Latino and Spanish is spoken.

And, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s very restrictive stance toward new immigrants, the result is an underworld culture with no rights guaranteed; with tremendous needs for translation and help navigating the various systems of U.S. life; with overwhelming needs for health care, human rights advocacy and spiritual support for their faith.

My joy in working with Glenmarians in mission to Latino immigrants right here right now connects me to another important emphasis of Glenmary’s home mission ministry: reaching out to those struggling in poverty in America. It also speaks to my ministry challenges: finding the time and resources to help meet these immediate needs, since the numbers are at times overwhelming; second, entering into the social justice work of making connections with the powers that be and speaking out against what is wrong.

One example of what is wrong: Police erect barricades to check drivers’ licenses at the entrance to a scheduled fiesta. They know that many people will not have a license since Mississippi requires a Social Security number in order to apply for a license. In contrast, 40 other states (including Texas) require only a birth certificate.

The fines (up to $1,000) that result mean that ticketed workers give a lion’s share of their hard-earned wages to the State of Mississippi which continues to make it impossible for them to get a license—and therefore car insurance.

After some time for reflection and renewal this past August as part of the Glenmary Missionary Formation Program in Nashville, Tenn., I now feel ready to take some new steps into other areas emphasized by the Glenmary approach to missionary ministry. I plan to begin to look for opportunities to reach out to other Anglo Christians, the natives of Vardaman, to find possibilities for ecumenical cooperation and for supporting each other in our faith. Who knows how God may use these connections to build bridges between the Anglos and the Latino immigrants?

Father William Howard Bishop, Glenmary’s founder, heard the call to help the Catholic Church become strong where it was weak—that is, in the rural areas of the southern United States. Now, ironically, we are finding high numbers of Catholics in these very rural communities—Latinos whose faith is deep but whose Catholic formation is very weak. This is the new weakness where I think Glenmary is being called to help the Church grow strong.

What a challenge even to know how to plan to meet these religious educational needs! The staff at the Houston Catholic mission (myself and two other sisters working as pastoral ministers with Glenmary pastor Father Tim Murphy) struggle with this constantly. How do we grow in our understanding of how to aid religious formation in the Latino culture? How do we facilitate experiences through church that help Latinos of all ages know God more deeply and grow in the Catholic faith?

“The quality of one’s humanity is the quality of one’s holiness.” These words of Father Bishop say it all for me. They remind me that it is in my daily person-to-person meetings that God is experienced.

These words call me forth from my listening and being with to go out and connect with others to make their lives better and to build up the Body of Christ. For me, a Glenmary multicultural worker who is also a Sister of the Living Word, this is what it means to share “the Word that frees the oppressed and gives new life.”