By Brendan McDonald ’25
The strains of “Magnificat, Magnificat” rang through the hot Jamaican air. An assembled class of children with mental and physical disabilities, with caregivers and volunteers standing by, listened as a group of TMC students and recent alumni sang the opening words of Mary’s praise to God at the Visitation. This particular piece features prominently during the annual pilgrimage Thomas More students attend in the fall. Regina Thompson ’24, who chose the song after being prompted by the priest leading the group, explained her selection a few days later. “It seemed the bit of us Father wanted us to share,” she said. “That’s why he asked us to sing in the first place and that seemed like ‘our song.’” A few minutes prior, the children had sung two songs honoring the greatness of God with the students listening.
The meeting of the two worlds―American college students and Jamaican children―took place during the students’ visit to Westhaven Children’s Home for the Disabled, one stop on their week-long mission trip to the island nation of Jamaica.
Leaving Boston’s Logan Airport on Sunday, January 15, 2024, the students traveled to a convent in Montego Bay, home to the Compassionate Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. The sisters’ charism consists of acting as nurses and distributing humanitarian aid and donations to the poor, especially people kept in communal homes, away from family and friends. Part of their outreach is to host monthly missions. This mission was their first group of college students.
During the week, the group prayed with the sisters, attended daily Mass, and assisted the sisters in their vocation of caring for the poor. Rising time? Just after 5 a.m. for Morning Prayer and Eucharistic Adoration. Prayer was infused throughout the day, especially the Divine Office, Rosary, and Divine Mercy Chaplet.
The trip—which featured visits to homes and schools for autistic children, facilities providing care to the elderly, and various poor villages—was organized by Josephine Moorman ’24. She and her sister Ashley Moorman ’24 had twice attended similar mission trips while in high school. Josephine got in touch with Father Brian Kerr, a missionary priest who is a family friend and native Jamaican, who connected her with the sisters. Once in Jamaica, Father Kerr guided the students, introducing them to the situations they encountered. Those situations were often distressing. “Having come before, I knew what to expect,” Ashley said when asked to consider the trip to Westhaven. “There wasn’t something I hadn’t seen before, but there was still that level of revulsion, being unsure of what you should do.”
The places the students visited were home to strange sights for American eyes, where amenities considered fundamental to us are distant dreams for the Jamaicans. For instance, none of the homes had air conditioning—with the daily temperature (in January) reaching 87℉—and they rarely had running water. But despite not being rich in material goods, the children were prosperous in something much more precious. “It stops being you fulfilling their material need,” Ashley said, reflecting on the experience, “and it becomes them giving you joy.”
“We are not all called to give of ourselves in the same way as the sisters, but I hope that from the experience of this trip, we are reminded that we are called to be missionaries in each of our lives, becoming a reminder of God’s love to those around us.”
–Josephine Moorman ’24
The idea of a mission trip being an exchange of love was also emphasized by Father Kerr, who described missions like these as allowing lay people to “experience the Broken Body of Christ through the poor by engaging the suffering of the poor.” The students experienced the Broken Body through four trips to different children’s homes and daycares throughout Montego Bay, greeting the children, singing songs, feeding them, and standing by their side, if only for a few hours.
However, children were not the only ones the students visited. On two occasions, the students were taken to greet the elderly, many of whom had been abandoned by their families. The sharp distinction between the previous visits to children and this mission was not lost on the group. “With children, there’s an excitement that expresses itself through smiles and laughter,” remarked Benjamin Wassell ’23. “With the elderly, there was a deeper and very genuine sadness that it was us and not their families who were present to them. [It] immediately put me outside my comfort zone.” Comparing the experience to working with the children, he continued, “What we were doing with the elderly was the same thing, but it wasn’t simply what we were giving to them. They can actually recognize the motivation behind the action, which is more healing to them.”
Some see mission trips as the more fortunate ministering to those who have not been as blessed. After returning home, however, Ashley has a different perspective. “We talk about the problems in the United States,” she explained. “We complain about everything we can possibly complain about.” But traveling away from home and prosperity, “to go to a third-world country and see actual poverty―because we don’t see actual poverty―gives us perspective on our own lives.” As a result, mission trips produce spiritual growth “because you see people who are deeply religious and poor. And you may not be deeply religious and have everything you need. We claim that we need a lot of things—an experience like that opens you up to the truth that you need very little.”
The trip has left a lasting impression on the group that expands beyond short encounters. “We are not all called to give of ourselves in the same way as the sisters,” Josephine said, “but I hope that from the experience of this trip, we are reminded that we are called to be missionaries in each of our lives, becoming a reminder of God’s love to those around us.”
Asked to comment on the trip as a whole, one student recognized the unity of Christ as forming an unbreakable bond between the students and the people they visited. “Although we had never seen one another before and may never meet one another again, I know that I love them and that they love me,” Regina remarked. “We are truly united in the love of Christ in Whose name we served them and Whose face we saw in them, and I pray they saw in us.”
For further reading:
Ora et Labora: TMC Students Give their Summer to Build a Shrine in New Mexico
