A missioner named Church

NORTH HALEDON  It took but an instant for Anthony’s “silly and smiley” personality to capture Katie Church’s attention three years ago.

Every day, the sprightly four-year-old boy visited a compound run by the Salesian religious order in his impoverished village of Masaya in Nicaragua, where Church and fellow missioners tutored and played with him and other local children. Anthony was short but still wanted to do what the older kids did, so Church lifted him up to the basketball hoop so he could take a shot with the ball.

From Dec. 27 to Jan. 5, Church, 24, a theology teacher at Mary Help of Christians Academy (MHCA) here, returned to Masaya to visit Anthony, now 7, just as “silly and smiley.” On this, her third mission trip to the village, she once again joined other Salesian missioners in helping to tutor, feed, form the Catholic faith and spend time with the local children who visit the compound — all in the missioners’ efforts to give them a modest “lift” from their poverty to get a better shot in life. Church’s group was one of several that visits Masaya throughout the year — part of the outreach of the Mama Margarita Foundation, operated and co-founded by a Salesian priest.

“We are there to be present to the people who have very little, spend time with them, love them and make them laugh and smile,” said Church, a second-year Salesian lay missioner and 2014 graduate of the Salesian-run Mary Help of Christians Academy, where she also works in campus ministry. Last month, she solicited financial assistance for her latest trip from her parish, Our Lady of Consolation (OLC) in Wayne, which contributed generously. “Serving the poor and seeing the joy of the children brings the biggest smile to my face. Everyone deserves a chance and a future and it is wonderful knowing that we help bring them so much joy. The children are so excited to learn,” she said.

With each return to rural Masaya, Church, also a graduate of the former OLC school, enjoys checking on the progress of her former students, such as Anthony, who is “doing well” and has moved with his family to Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, about 20 minutes away. His English pronunciation has gotten clearer, thanks to instruction in public school there. The Salesian missioners, which included a medical doctor, serve children up to 19 years old and many of their parents, Church said.

Missioners stay in dorms on the Salesian compound in Masaya, which offers lessons in English, math and catechism in the afternoon before 3:30 p.m., when they pray the rosary, have a meal that is served by cooks there and play together. Each day, up to 100 kids learn by playing counting games and working with puzzles. Outside, the kids enjoy playing soccer — called “football” there, basketball and jump rope and on playground equipment and with scooters. Generous donors to Mama Margarita make these outreaches possible, said Salesian Father Manny Gallo, who runs the foundation, which started in 2012.

Church and her fellow missioners also helped prepare the pouring of a foundation of a house for a family of four. Next month, students from Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, also run by the Salesians, will continue building the house on their mission trip. So far, Mama Margarita has built six houses for poor villagers, Father Gallo said.

“We strive to serve our friends in Nicaragua through friendship, service and humility. In the past years, I have had the gift of being able to travel around the world and I have never seen the poverty and injustice that exist in Nicaragua,” said Father Gallo, youth ministry director at Corpus Christi Parish in Port Chester, N.Y. He started Mama Margarita with his parents, Manuel and Vicky Gallo, natives of Nicaragua. Church met the priest, when he served MHCA when she was a student. “This foundation is committed to bringing justice to families without hope. [It is] rooted in the Gospel [and] is committed to changing lives,” the priest writes on Mama Margarita’s web site, www.mamamargaritafoundation.org.

The foundation helps ease the poverty in Masaya, a small village with gravel roads and small tin huts that have roofs that leak in the rain. People usually earn less than $5 a week by picking garbage from a local dump to sell, operating snack stands in the village or assembling shoes in their huts, which often makes members of the family sick from the flumes of the glue. Over the past two years, Nicaragua has experienced widespread protests against the government that keeps its citizens impoverished and barely educated, Church said.

In 2015, Church first got involved with Mama Margarita Foundation with Father Gallo and continued her involvement as a member of a young adults group, while studying at Benedictine College in Kansas, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in evangelization and catechesis in 2018. The foundation is named after the mother of St. John Bosco, the founder of the Salesian religious order, who took in children in need, Church said.

Born for mission work and serving others, Church gained inspiration first from her parents Lydia and Andy, former OLC parishioners who recently moved to Indiana. Her parents — along with her three siblings and her — were involved in ministries and events at the Passaic County parish. Church served as a peer minister and conducted summer internships in youth ministry, under the leadership of Laura Haftek, the parish’s youth ministry director.

“Youth ministry at OLC helped my faith grow into something new and inspired me to keep my faith going in a world that tells you to stop,” said Church, who noted that she also grew in faith as a student at MHCA, which offered monthly Mass, Adoration and retreats.

After college, Church felt God calling her to do more, giving her a “heart to do missionary work.” So she became a Salesian lay missioner, spending her first year teaching English in Cambodia in a food technology program. Most of its students enter Cambodia’s thriving hospitality industry, she said.

Impressed with Church, Salesian Sister Marisa DeRose, MHCA’s head of school, called the teacher “a great example of what a young Church is called to be today.”

“Katie lives her faith in a way that is accessible to people. She is prayerful and makes faith and life come together. At Mary Help, she is the fulfillment of the academy’s promise to its young women here — to educate them to become faithful leaders,” Sister Marisa said.