New SND-USA efforts in Texas

July 25, 2014

At the summer 2013 Toledo Province Assembly, Sr. Mary Delores Gatliff invited the sisters to submit ideas for new ministries in new places in light of the Church of the future. After hearing suggestions of ministries with Hispanic persons, and discussion with the provincial council, Sr. Delores sent letters to Texas and four Bishops responded with an invitation.

Sr. Delores soon spoke of the Texas initiative with the SND-USA provincials, who liked the idea and decided that Texas could be the first SND USA ministry. All USA sisters were invited to consider missionary work in Texas.

The field of sunflowers the sisters saw as they approached the town of their new ministry, Slaton, Texas.

Today, Toledo and Chardon sisters are moving forward with new ministries in the Dioceses of Corpus Christi and Lubbock, TX.

Sr. Kerstin Maria Deubel will serve at The Ark, an Emergency Shelter for children in Corpus Christi, which is also where Sr. Magdalen Westrick will be in ministry at the Mother Teresa Homeless Shelter.

Sr. Pamela Marie Buganski will also serve in the Corpus Christi Diocese at a Human Rights Center, detention centers and prisons. She will also engage in social justice and immigration work with the Catholic Charities office.

Sr. Pamela Marie talked with locals about immigration in Texas and was told, “People just keep coming. There is no place for them to go. No shelter. No place to bathe, use the bathroom or place to rest.”

Sr. Kerstin Maria assisting with the installation of a water station in the desert near Falfurrias, Texas

In the Lubbock Diocese new school leaders are needed and Sr. Mary Brenda Haynes has accepted the Principal position at St. Joseph School, Slaton TX. The school has 42 children, some with special needs. Sr. Patricia Marie Keefe will also be at St. Joseph as a Teacher’s aide and religion teacher in Grades K-2. All St. Joseph students receive diocesan tuition aid.

Sr. Mary Loretta Pastva from Chardon will assist seminarians with their English and serve in other outreach programs in Lubbock.

Sr. Patricia Marie said, “The closer we got to Slaton we saw ranches, horses and even cowboys rounding up cattle! As we reached Slaton, we saw fields of new cotton plants….and one field of Sunflowers as far as you could see.”