To Tennessee with love
story + photos by john feister It’s summer, so it must be time for Vacation Bible School in the Glenmary mission in Lafayette, Tenn. Every year Jesus the Good Shepherd parish in Owings, Maryland, packs much of its youth group into a few vans, complete with a week’s food and supplies, and heads down the highway—12 hours—to Lafayette. Every day for the next week, the vans will drive children of all ages from surrounding counties back and forth to a local school for daytime classes and recreation with the Maryland volunteers. It winds up being about more than “Bible class.” This school’s all about the living Bible, the relationship of people together, touched by God. It all started back in 2001, when Glenmary Father Neil Pezzulo was in training in Washington, D.C., spending his diaconal year at Jesus the Good Shepherd nearby. He noticed their lively summer Bible school. Julie Gartrell, the now-retired religious education director, remembers when Father Neil took over his first Glenmary parish, in Arkansas. “I wish we had something like that in our parish,” Father Neil commented to her. That was all that Julie needed to hear. She started the annual mission trip for her youth
group—a week to Arkansas, a completely different environment for the Maryland youth to have a service experience. When Father Neil left Arkansas, Julie brought her program to another Glenmary parish, Holy Family, in Lafayette, Tenn., where Father Vic Subb is pastor. None of the Marylanders seem to mind the long drive to Tennessee. Deacon Paul Fagan, one of a handABOVE: Volunteer Sarah Donaldson poses with two Vacation Bible School students. BELOW: Father Vic Subb delivers his homily during a Mass for Holy Family's Vacation Bible School.
Summer 2019
GLENMARY CHALLENGE
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