Summer Mission Trip Journeys to Uganda
     A summer initiative to travel to Uganda, sponsored by Morris Catholic High School, Denville, NJ, (MCHS) is an opportunity for special service and Sr. John Paul Thorley, SCC, Math instructor at MCHS, was eager to join Mission Madera’s group of parents, students and teachers traveling with Sr. Cecilia Akol, LSOSF, (an Assumption College for Sisters graduate, 2018) to Soroti, Uganda from June 27-July 8.
      Sr. John Paul accompanied the group to help at three schools of the Little Sisters of St. Francis: St Ann’s Girls’ Primary School (950 students), and St. Francis’ Primary and Secondary Schools for the Blind (180 students, primary through high school). These are the only schools specifically for the blind in all of Uganda, a ministry particularly dear to Blessed Pauline and the SCCs.
    Mission Madera’s activities in the schools include: teaching, recreating with the children, painting and maintaining the buildings, working with the staff and community.
 
SCCs Gives Service at Respite Center
     Our Mission Statement calls us to “give and receive Christ’s love, joy, peace and healing for the life of the world.”  The SCC initial formation group and two of our Sister-Chaplains, Sr. Marie Jose de la Rosa and Sr. Gabrielle Nguyen, offered service in June at the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas.  Sr. Norma Pimentel, M.J., recipient of the prestigious Laetare Medal, is its executive director.
     The Respite Center receives refugees that have been released from the nearby ICE Detention Center by bus, about 400-500 each day. The staff provides clothing, supplies, food, overnight shelter, kindness and a listening heart to these sisters and brothers from the south, who are en route to towns, somewhere in the U.S., where families will help them to get a stable start.