The following story first appeared in the Autumn 2005 Glenmary Challenge.
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Serving Dickenson County, Va.
Trust in God led pastoral coordinator Christine Ramirez exactly where she needs to be.
By Jean Bach

OUTREACH: Christine Ramirez (left) in one of the outreach centers run by her Clintwood, Va., mission where, she says, “Ordinary people do extraordinary things.”

God puts you where he knows you’ll do best,” says Christine Ramirez, pastoral coordinator of Glenmary’s Clintwood, Va., mission. “It may not be doing what you thought you wanted, but if you trust in God, you will end up exactly where you need to be.”

This convert to Catholicism, mother of three, grandmother and great-grandmother started college for the first time at age 50 at Loyola-Marymount in California. She lived with first-year students in the dorms for three years as she pursued a degree in pastoral ministry.

From there she worked for a parish in California before serving as a pastoral associate in a small Iowa parish and moving on to teach family ministry for the Diocese of Lafayette, Indiana.

“It was in Indiana that I became familiar with Glenmary,” she says. She saw Glenmary’s ad in National Catholic Reporter for a pastoral coordinator. She applied, interviewed and for the last five years has led St. Joseph Church in Clintwood.

Dickenson County is far removed from the corn fields of Iowa and Indiana. Approximately 17,000 people, 50 percent over the age of 50, live in its 300 mountainous square miles. The unemployment rate is a whopping 15-17 percent. And the next closest Catholic church is 30 miles away.(For more statistical information on this county—and other counties served by Glenmary—click here.)

The numbers can seem daunting, but Christine chooses to focus on all the good she has found in this secluded area of Southwest Virginia. “I love mountain living,” she says. “I knew from the time of my interview that this was the type of parish that I really wanted to be a part of. There are multiple ministries and everyone is involved. It’s truly life-giving.”

There are about 35 people registered at the mission parish, with several families in RCIA preparing to enter the Church next Easter. “Many times these families bring their extended family with them,” she says. This is quite a change from some years ago when most local people looked at the Catholic Church with suspicion.

“People seem to be losing their fear of the Catholic Church,” she says, perhaps in part because of her weekly column for the local newspaper dispelling Catholic myths and providing basic information about what Catholics believe. And, she says, Catholics are very visible in the county: providing health care and home repair and providing computer job-skill centers.

One elderly Baptist woman told Christine that she isn’t sure if Catholicism is right or not, but “everything you write in that paper is right!”

The members of the mission also help other local organizations in their outreach ministries. All of this, Christine says, is part of Catholics being more accepted into the community and helping build a community that works together. Almost every one of the 35 registered parishioners is involved in some form of outreach.

St. Joseph members are also focusing on enhancing their liturgy as part of their celebration of the Year of the Eucharist. They have hired a musician, which they have never had before, and are busy learning to sing the parts of the Mass. In addition, they are studying about Eucharist and liturgy as the foundation of Catholicism. Glenmary Father Bob Rademacher also helps enhance their liturgies as the mission’s sacramental minister. “And we’re blessed to have him,” she says.

She talks a lot about the blessings of her life, including her family with whom she maintains daily contact via e-mail.

“The blessings carry us through,” she says. She believes that if we “are faithful in following where the Spirit leads, then things will flow no matter the obstacles.”

St. Joseph Church was returned to the Diocese of Richmond for continued pastoral care in July 2007.