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Seminarian finds new experiences in mission

DIOCESAN MISSION: Fr. Mike Seis with the community at Potro Blanco, Dominican Republic. The Green Bay Diocese has had ties to the country for 40 years.

Editor's note: Next week, Bp. Robert Banks will be in Elías Piña, Dominican Republic (see story here), to celebrate 40 years of the Green Bay Diocese's mission involvement with the Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana. Walter Stumpf, a Green Bay Diocese seminarian from Darboy spent the summer in that Carribean island nation. Here is his account of his time there.

ELÍAS PIÑA, Dominican Republic -- When someone who looks like heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson talks to me, I listen.

So when my Spanish teacher in the Dominican Republic told me that like the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a large fish, "You were spit up on this island and you don't even know why," I paid attention.

In less than a week last May, I had gone from a Chicago area seminary to Santo Domingo, the capitol, to study Spanish.

I lived in a private home with a walled garden. The woman of the house, Milagros, which translates as Miracles, was in her late 60s. On my way to Mass one afternoon, she asked me to pray for her because she has terrible back pain. I told her I always pray for Miracles.

Her mother, Maria Jesus Rosario, also lived in the house. She is 103 and must use a wheelchair. We would sit on the front porch in the afternoons and review Spanish grammar, or go over the Scripture readings for Mass that day, or pray the rosary. When Maria Jesus would lead, each mystery of the rosary would get three to five Hail Marys, rather than the traditional 10 - at 103 years, who is counting?

Some 2 million people live in Santo Domingo which stretches for miles along a rocky cliff on the Caribbean. If one had to walk, like Jonah going through Nineveh, it would take three days.

But there was a chaotic selection of public transportation in the city. There are no bus route schedules so the driver leaves when he is satisfied with the amount of fares he has collected.

Others pack themselves like sardines into taxis - old Toyota Corollas with cracked windshields and broken door handles - which charge each person six pesos.

Motorcycle taxis are cheap alternatives for those who throw caution to the wind and like free-wheeling through the streets ignoring traffic lights, speed limits and traffic patterns.

Life in the city may include occasional visits to a colmados - neighborhood grocery stores - that also sell cold beverages and often have outdoor seating. They provided a good opportunity to meet people and to improve my conversational Spanish. People really opened up when I told them that I was preparing to be a priest. Some 92% of Dominicans are Catholics. We talked about our lives, family, faith, work (or lack of work). I made some good friends.

After four weeks in Santo Domingo, Fr. Mike Seis, a priest from the Green Bay Diocese and the pastor for the last several years at the mission parishes of Santa Teresa de Jesus in Elías Piña and San Isidro Labrador in El Llano, came to get me.

We drove 3½ hours to Elías Piña to an experience I will never forget. The parishes cover an enormous area of hilly land in the western Dominican Republic near the border with Haiti. The people welcomed me warmly.

My first day, I met Octavio, the director of the religion teachers, who was training some of the teachers in the church yard. He was on fire for the faith and trained his teachers with great zeal. This is important, since we have 100 communities, some in quite remote areas.

The next morning, Octavio introduced the scripture readings for Sunday Mass, then keeled over from a stroke. I was in the second pew. He lingered a couple days in the hospital and died at age 28. Within hours his home was the site of an intense wake service, that included wailing, praying and singing.

After giving a blessing, Fr. Seis and I went back to the parish for lunch and a little quiet time before the afternoon funeral Mass. We had just finished eating when the altar boys rushed in and excitedly asked for the keys to church and wanted me to come with them.

We got an armful of albs from the vestment closet, then a dozen of us hopped into the back of a pickup and headed to the dead man's house.

Before I knew it, I was in the solemn funeral procession. Thousands of people lined the dirt roads and streets as we marched back to the village and into church for the Funeral Mass. Octavio was a good man. And I was shown, by the way they accepted me and cared for the living and the dead, these are good people.

The parish has many chapels - often built by donations of parishes and individuals in the Green Bay Diocese - scattered across the country to serve remote communities. Roads are rough and many are passable only in the most rugged of vehicles, such as our Toyota 4-by-4. Some chapels can be reached only by motorbike, burro or on foot.

Many chapels had concrete floors and walls with a metal roof. Some were a canopy of palm branches.

We celebrated baptisms at most of these Masses. The proceedings were generally chaotic, even though the community leader and religion teacher had prepared a list of those to be baptized along with their parents and godparents. The use of nicknames is common, and the godparents often did not recognize the baptismal name when the child was called up for baptism ... and there might be 30 or more baptisms ... and the parents and godparents also have nicknames.

I was freshly immersed in this new language and culture, holding the baptismal basin or lighting candles. The Holy Spirit provided the grace, and the church grew each day.

I was impressed with the effort people made to look their best for Mass. Even though they live in homes with dirt floors, their shirts were white as snow and their shoes (sometimes one size too large) were polished.

I remember one Mass in particular, at Dos Bocas, close to the Haitian border. We sang hymns as colorfully dressed parishioners came across fields and pastures from every direction. We crowded under the palm branch canopy to protect us from the intense midday sun. I stood near the back where I could see signs of malnutrition and the daily struggles in many of the children: scaly scalps and patchy hair ... Lord have mercy ... lips inflamed at the corners ... Christ have mercy ... weeping sores, pestered by flies ... Lord have mercy.

During Mass, rifle fire rang out across the river in Haiti, where they are enduring a long-simmering civil war. More than once I heard the Dominicans say: "As bad as it is here, it's worse over there." With the sufferings of Christ visibly present, I really learned more deeply what it means to pray the Mass.

I spent a few days with a family on their farm and helped with some of the field work. They grew yucca, black beans, corn and coconuts. The family had three sets of twins. The men went into the fields early, and later the girls brought us hot breakfast. In the afternoon we rested, and in the evening we bathed in the river, prayed and played dominos. It was a simple and memorable experience.

I also found myself in a number of funny situations. I went for a haircut one day when the electricity was working. The young barber told me to sit in the chair. He seemed perplexed about my hair. I don't think he had ever cut a white man's hair before. I explained what I wanted. He proceeded with clippers that could have used a good sharpening. Things were looking OK. Then he switched to a smaller guard, and I ended up with a very short cut. He handed me a Honda rearview mirror to look at the back of my head. It looked like the rest - nice and short.

"How much?" I asked. "Sit over there," he told me, motioning to a bench that appeared to have come out of a Honda. He was figuring how much he could charge me, outsider and all. "Eighty pesos," he said. "Fifty," I countered. He wrinkled his nose.

"OK, I'll arm wrestle you for it," I challenged. (This worked for me in bargaining for melons, chicken, cab fare and shoe shines ... why not for a haircut?) I won; both left and right. I paid him 100 pesos anyway (about $3.) I hope he puts it toward new clippers.

The Diocese of Green Bay and the Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana will celebrate 40 years of cooperation in Christian mission on Oct. 15. We have much to be thankful for. Within our two sponsored parishes, we have 11 seminarians, four nuns and some young women aspiring to religious life, hundreds of lay religious teachers and volunteers for spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Fr. Seis, like the Good Shepherd, keeps watch over his flock.

And I learned Spanish and much more. Maybe that's why I got spit up on that island. Those I met are in my prayers every day.

(Stumpf is a second-year theology student at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Ill. He can be reached by e-mail at wstumpf@usml.edu.)