This article originally appeared in the May 2005 Boost-A-Month Club Newsletter

Nurturing Leaders In South Georgia

Alejandro leads an adult Scripture study session in Stillmore, Ga., as Sister Pat Himmer observes. She says the leadership potential in Glenmary’s Spanish-speaking congregations is “amazing.” Since her departure from the missions, she takes heart that many of the activities she led will continue thanks to the leadership of lay leaders like Alejandro.

“Nobody is so poor that they don’t have a gift to give.”

That’s the lesson Franciscan Sister Pat Himmer learned during her 20 years of ministry in South America. “I began to see people in terms of the treasure they had to share,” Sister Pat says.

She has integrated that philosophy as the multicultural worker for three Glenmary missions in south Georgia: Metter, Swainsboro and Stillmore. And she has seen an abundance of treasure and gifts within the Spanish-speaking congregations that are part of these missions.

Sister Pat left her mission ministry in February due to health issues and has returned to her community’s motherhouse in Rochester, Minn. But she takes great satisfaction in reporting that most of the activities she coordinated in these three missions are now being led by the lay leaders she helped identify and nurture.

“I think of what I do as helping people discover their gifts,” Sister Pat says. Her work was behind the scenes. “That suits my personality,” she says. And it gives her the added joy of seeing others thrive.

Sister Pat’s first involvement with Glenmary came in the 1970s when she worked with Father Pat O’Donnell in Vanceburg, Ky.

Then, after her years in South America and becoming fluent in Spanish, she was invited by Liz Dudas in Glenmary’s Department of Pastoral Services, to return to Glenmary as a multicultural worker in 2001.

In her years of ministry she sees herself drawing on her early experience as an elementary school teacher where she used a method of instruction focused on helping children discover their own gifts.

In Metter, this same method was at work as she held baptism preparation classes. By asking questions—and listening carefully to the answer—she identified possible leaders, some after the first class.

“I would commend them on the knowledge of their faith and ask them if they would help me give the talk the following week,” Sister Pat says. Between classes, “I’d help them prepare. At the next class I’d watch and listen as they did the talking. Then we’d talk about the class and things that went well and things they might want to do differently.

“The leadership potential [in the Hispanic/Latino congregations] is amazing,” she says. “We must continually invite and call forth their gifts.”

Sister Pat’s nurture of Spanish-speaking leaders has spread throughout these south Georgia mission communities. Parishioners are now not only teaching catechism and sacramental preparation classes, but they are also leading Sunday celebrations in the absence of the pastor, Father Vic Subb.

Sister Pat credits Father Vic and his deep care and connection with the Spanish-speaking community for the ease with which the community accepted her when she first arrived. “Father Vic took me to the different trailer parks and introduced me,” she says. She has never been hesitant to knock on a door. But when she asked “Do you know Father Vic?” doors seemed to open even more readily!

Spanish-speakers, who make up a large part of the Metter and Swainsboro congregations and all of the Stillmore community, also make a large contribution to the economy of the region as tobacco and poultry workers. “They often fill jobs that no one else will take,” Sister Pat says.

“In Stillmore, some Spanish-speakers will come and work for about three years in the poultry plant and then return home to Mexico,” Sister Pat says. But some men are eventually joined by wives and children and become pillars of their parish communities, she reports. Others come to work in the Vidalia onion fields, planting in the fall and returning to harvest in the spring.

Ministry to the ever-changing number of Spanish-speakers in mission communities offers challenges, but Sister Pat says the new faces also bring additional gifts to these faith communities.

Sister Pat’s “ministry of nurture” is a legacy that she leaves in Glenmary’s missions in Metter, Swainsboro and Stillmore, one that has enabled these congregation to stand strong—and push forward—without her.