“Dad, I think we’re lost,” says my daughter, Colleen, after waking up and seeing that we're in pitch black on a road somewhere west of Knoxville, Tenn.

“No, we’re not lost,” I reply. “Remember what Daniel Boone always said: ‘I might be a little bewildered, but I’m never lost.’” That, of course, brought sarcastic laughter from Colleen; my wife, Paula; and son, Sean.

The dynamic of our family is largely shaped by the fact that my wife, my daughter and I are all oldest children. Earlier on this particular Saturday last summer, my beloved son, the muse among us, watched as we oldest children dictated to each other last-minute commands about what we should take, how the camper should be packed, what must go in the car and other really important stuff.

So it was absolutely no surprise that we didn’t get into our campground at Tellico Lake, Tenn., until well after midnight, a good eight hours past our first-day’s objective.

Our overall goal, of course, was to spend a couple weeks learning as much as we could about the Glenmary Home Missioners “on the ground” in Tennessee and Mississippi. I was on the road to see first-hand what Glenmary was all about and then report on the visit for The Catholic Telegraph, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati where I am the managing editor. An added benefit was having my family along to discover just how big our Church really is.

Thanks to the Glenmary Communications Office, we were able to map out a route into the heart of Glenmary country that would give us a sense of the land Father William Howard Bishop identified more than 60 years ago as Mission Land, USA.

We planned to focus on two destinations: Madisonville, Tenn. (one of Glenmary’s newest missions), and New Albany, Miss. (one of its most established). Together they would provide an overview of the issues facing home missions today and the direction Glenmary—and perhaps the Church—will be headed in years to come.

We looked forward to exploring new country. We anticipated how different it would be to find entire stretches of countryside where there was only one Catholic church in a several-county area. (Living in Greater Cincinnati, we are used to being surrounded by dozens of Catholic churches within a few minutes’ drive from home.)

Our first stop was in the foothills of the beautiful Smoky Mountains, in the small town of Madisonville, where former vice-presidential candidate Estes Kefauver was born.

This town was identified by Glenmary as a community ripe for a new mission church. This is where Jay Gilchrist, now associate director of the Glenmary Pastoral Coordinator Program, cut his teeth with this mission society in one of its first efforts to establish a new mission church with a lay leader. Now, 10 years later, this is where we met Paul Witte, current pastoral coordinator and the second generation of lay leadership with canonical responsibility for this mission parish.

He and his wife, Ginny, who teams in this ministry, graciously showed us around Madisonville, where groundbreaking for their new church was just a few days away. We also took advantage of Paul’s offer to dish up a breakfast of homemade goetta. (Colleen, our goetta aficionado, gave it an A+.) While we ate, we talked about this mission community filled with Tennessee natives, retired couples from the north and a recent influx of Hispanics in search of the American Dream.

Most interesting to us was the community’s gathering for Mass on the Sunday after we arrived where a truly ecumenical atmosphere prevailed. The local Habitat for Humanity coordinator from a neighboring Methodist church was present to give the Catholic community an update. Paul Witte welcomed Glenmary Father Tom Field, who had recently arrived from Cherokee, N.C., to serve as sacramental minister for the mission. And folks swapped news of their comings and goings.

The liturgy was bilingual—first in Spanish for the Mexicans and Central Americans moving into the area at a rapid pace; then in English.

After Mass we met the Kavanaugh family. They joined the Madisonville mission after attending the closest parish—about 40 miles away.

We met Ross Burres and Joyce McWilliams, parishioners who run a llama farm outside town. Later we all visited their farm where we met another parishioner, Mexican native Jose Robledo, who worked the farm.

Time and time again we would remark about the tremendous number of Hispanics that were moving into the “new South.” Everyone we talked to confirmed that these “new Americans” were indeed changing the face of Glenmary’s mission work.

I chatted a long time with Madisonville native Charles Downs, who told me how he converted to Catholicism after driving by the mission’s storefront for a few months. The fact that it was on the main drag—like a billboard—probably raised his interest and helped get him inside, he says. This fact would have no doubt pleased Father Bishop.

Then, after exploring the mountain region of East Tennessee for a day or so, we were off to our next stop: New Albany, Miss., and St. Francis of Assisi Church. There we found Father Steve Pawelk and Brother Joe Steen.

On our first morning in New Albany, Father Steve introduced us to parishioners Freddy and Edith Stone. We spent an entire morning laughing and listening with fascination as Freddy, a former mortician for the community, regaled us with the history of the town, the state and the colorful characters he has known.

The parish with its beautiful new church, built in 1995, was nearly ready to be handed back to the Diocese of Jackson, when Father Steve asked that the transfer from Glenmary to diocese wait until a group of Hispanic workers were better integrated into the community.

“For many of the Hispanics, we are their only support system,” Father Steve says. “It would have been premature of us to leave just yet.”

I noticed right away that Father Steve and Brother Joe were always on the go. At lunch one day, Father Steve introduced us to several of his parishioners who were working at the region’s newest Mexican restaurant—a great success story. The owner (from Mexico) employed all his family and then expanded to other locations.

Father Steve spent a few minutes eating and most of an hour chatting with just about everyone in the restaurant, testimony to the fact that as a Glenmary pastor he sees the whole county as his parish.

We all agreed Brother Joe was one of the funniest men we had ever met. And although one might accuse him of being a slave-driver when it comes to his Habitat for Humanity projects, he’s really as gentle as they come. We spent a day working at the house being built for Brad Fowler’s family outside Pontotoc, Miss., where we met several area ministers and one of the best bunch of volunteers you could ever hope to work with.

Wherever we went, we were overwhelmed with hospitality and warmth. I was most impressed with the toughness and determination these Glenmary missioners possess—that they have to possess to do their jobs.

Our family talks about our trip all the time, a trip filled with great memories and a much better understanding of what Glenmary founder Father Bishop had in mind all those years ago.

Dennis O'Connor is managing editor of The Catholic Telegraph. Read the series of stories he wrote for this diocesan newspaper at www.catholiccincinnati.org/tct/archive/oct1300.htm.