This Giving Tuesday, all gifts to the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province will benefit Jesuits in formation like Joe Laughlin, who shares his story below. If you want to help ensure we can continue to provide these formative experiences, please visit bit.ly/giving-tuesday-2024.
By Joseph Laughlin, SJ, Jesuit Scholastic
I want to share with you a few of the encounters from my ministry in the Dominican Republic this past summer. Before I left, I had a conversation with one of my professors at Loyola University Chicago, where I am in first studies (the second stage of formation after the novitiate):
Professor: “So, what are you up to this summer?”
Me: “I’ll be in the Dominican Republic.”
“Oh, cool! Working on your Spanish?”
“Yeah, sort of …”
I spent the summer in the Jesuit community of Dajabón, a town of about 25,000 people on the border with Haiti. The Jesuit apostolates in Dajabón are diverse, including a parish faith community, 27 outlying chapels, a large polytechnic and agricultural school, a Catholic radio station, and a social ministry serving Haitian people living in the Dominican Republic.
After a year of being focused on my studies, I went to Dajabón with a desire to be a generous collaborator in the mission. Thankfully, the Jesuits had plenty of projects for me!
On my second day in Dajabón, I was asked to fill in as a co-host on a radio program for Catholic youth – one that would start in just a few hours! I had never imagined being on the radio at all before, let alone in a different country, but I was too polite to decline. Through playful radio banter, we shared news from the Vatican, social media trends of the week, ecological tips and songs, and I was invited to continue with the program for the remainder of the summer.
The parish also had their inaugural four-day “Eco-Cristo” summer camp for parish youth up in the mountains. These joy-filled days reminded me of my own youth group days in high school in St. Louis, with choreographed dancing, silly games and hearts touched by God’s love.
The transformation of those days carried forward to the following Sunday, when we gathered after Mass to go clean up trash along the river between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. This spirit continues to inspire the ongoing youth programs in the parish.
The most significant project was providing food to Haitians awaiting deportation from the Dominican Republic. I delivered meals prepared by parishioners to an outdoor migration processing center. There, I joined a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that sought to offer medical assistance, monitor for human rights violations and prevent the illegal deportation of unaccompanied minors, a near-daily occurrence.
One day at the processing center, I recognized one of the men who was sitting on a long metal bench, waiting to be deported. A couple of weeks earlier, another Jesuit and I had shared a meal with him and two other Haitian men. We had prayed through the Psalms together and enjoyed a spirited discussion of St. Ignatius’ First Principle and Foundation. Now he expressed a sense of hopelessness. He had been a leader among his neighbors, animating the faith life of his community. Now, here we were together again, this time sitting on a metal bench as he contemplated his uncertain future.
There’s not a succinct way to explain the manifold ways that being in Dajabón formed me. It helped to form my heart, my instincts, my imagination about the Church, about what it means to be a Jesuit, to be a priest, to be a human being.
As I rode on the back of a Haitian friend’s motorcycle, I learned what it is like to feel vulnerable and to place my trust in someone else’s hands. When I made mistakes in Spanish live on the radio, I learned to let go of my ego. As people made assumptions about me as a U.S. citizen, I gained a sensibility to what it is like to be misunderstood as an outsider. As I listened to prayer circles responding to each day’s Scripture readings, my imagination was expanded to what a synodal Church can look like. Dancing bachata for hours, I made memories and connections that carry forward in occasional messages with my Jesuit companions and others. As I watched a Jesuit priest stop to help someone with a flat tire, saying ‘this is our vocation,’ my sense of priesthood was enlarged.
When I witnessed a border reality different from that of the U.S.-Mexico border, I gained more context for the reality of immigration in our country. Getting into debates at lunch with Jesuits from the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Italy, my appreciation for the global Society of Jesus and our common spirituality deepened. When a sudden downpour prevented me from attending Mass one evening, but a fellow Jesuit scholastic suggested we break open the Scriptures together instead, I learned how to take greater ownership over my own faith life.
Was I there to work on my Spanish? Well, sort of.
Thank you to all of those who support my vocation by contributing to the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province. Thank you for your continued generosity that has allowed for God’s grace to manifest in these ways, and many others, in my Jesuit formation. I thank God for our shared mission and the privileged experiences I owe to your support.
