Through the generosity and support of our Glenmary donors Brother Curt is able to work towards establishing a Catholic presence in a county where none has ever been before. Your support makes it possible for missioners like Brother Curt to build bridges between people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds through evangelization and ecumenical outreach.

Brother Curt’s chance meeting with Timothy Bazeman was a bit unusual. You see, they met in the spice aisle of a local grocery store! Timothy was searching for liquid smoke and asked Brother Curt for help. “Sometimes the Spirit moves in spicy ways!” Brother Curt tells me.

Their grocery store conversation eventually turned to the inevitable question asked in the South when you meet someone new: “Where do you go to church?” They discovered that despite being from different denominations they shared a strong Christian faith as well as a belief that there was a need to breakdown the prejudice between religious and racial communities in Bertie County. In the days that followed, the idea of the “people swap” was born. The first swap happened in February and there are hopes it will continue in the coming months.

Brother Curt and Timothy plan to explore future ways to gather their Baptist and Catholic congregations together for social events and perhaps even for action on justice issues.

For example, the Catholic Community of Bertie County hopes to establish a food pantry to serve those in need in the county. Timothy, on behalf of St. Paul, has offered assistance with funding and volunteers and the Baptist church will host a community meeting to discuss the project.

Brother Curt’s work with St. Paul Missionary Baptist is just one of the ways he works to serve the county. As a home missioner, he is called to serve all the people of Bertie County, so when he arrived in 2007, he searched for some way he could serve the county and meet the people living in the county.

The Mary Alice Day Care Center was the solution. For about six months he worked 20 hours a week as a janitor at the facility for adults with emotional and developmental challenges. (“I called myself a sanitation engineer!” he jokes).

But his job also included interacting with the clients of the center, most of whom are African American. Although it was short-term employment, his work at the center gave him the opportunity to make connections with families in the community whose family members spent their days at the care center.

Through his work at the adult day care center, his relationship with Timothy and the multitude of other outreach efforts he is involved in, Brother Curt continues to find new ways to build the bridges that have defined his ministry as a home missioner.

As the mountains in eastern North Carolina begin to show their new life in the colors and blossoms of spring—and there are few places in the United States where spring is more beautiful!—Brother Curt is witnessing the blossoming relationships between people who are learning that there is more that unites them than divides them.

As Glenmary works to establish the Catholic communities in these forgotten and neglected areas, we rely on the financial gifts and the prayers of Glenmary supporters across the country.

Our work—and Brother Curt’s work of helping establish a Catholic presence, a unifying presence in Bertie County—would not be possible otherwise.

Your brother in mission,

Father Dominic Duggins
Director of Development