The following comes from a July 31 story on the Catholic News Agency website.
Thirty-year-old Heather Quinlan will soon be leaving her home in California to spend a year in Rwanda serving as a mentor and English teacher at a Catholic boarding school for girls ages 11 to 19.
“It seemed like a suitable time … in the last four years I had wrestled so much with my vocation – I spent a couple years praying about the consecrated life and a couple years discerning a relationship, so for four years I felt just so focused on myself,” she told CNA July 29.
Quinlan will be at the School of Our Lady of Providence of Karubanda as a missionary with Fidesco, a Catholic organization of the Emmanuel Community which provides volunteers to assist in developing countries.
“My prayers were about my life, my thoughts were about my life, and so when I was thinking about Fidesco I thought, man, it would be so good … to stop thinking about myself, and go someplace where people need so much love and are in so much need, that my prayers revolve around them.”
“So I look forward to that, to stop being selfish, and to just live for these others,” she said.
The Karubanda school houses 600 girls and is located in Butare, a cathedral city of some 77,000 people in southern Rwanda….
“I’ll be present to the girls, play sports with them, take them on hikes in the little forest on the property. Through those interactions, I’ll talk about life with them, and faith. So those are the two things I’ve been told – a mentor and an English teacher.”
Quinlan leaves next week for six days of Fidesco training in France, and has already had considerable missionary experience to help prepare her for her year in Rwanda. She has served as a campus minister at a university and as an evangelization director for a parish in Minneapolis, Minn.
She also spent a year in the Emmanuel School of Mission, a program of evangelization in Rome that also included shorter missions to Ireland, the Netherlands, and Lisbon, Portugal.
Quinlan is a member of the Emmanuel Community, a public association of the faithful will three pillars, Adoration, compassion, and evangelization. She described Fidesco as the community’s “compassion” or “humanitarian” branch. It was founded in 1981 after a group of African bishops requested missionaries of the Emmanuel Community who would bring both professional skills and a “good Christian witness” to their countries….
“I just wanted to care for Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor.”
She said the words of Pope Francis, “go to the fringes,” are exciting for her, “as I leave the comfort of my home, and just go, where things are radically different … just to be available to meet them there….”
To read the entire story, click here.
God bless you, I’ll say a prayer for you. : )
God bless her heart!
I recommend that She and others contemplating work in Rwanda (or other similar locations) read the outstanding compilation of essays by Dr. Anthony Daniels (writing as Theodore Dalrymple) in his book “Anything Goes”.
Dr. Daniels has himself been a world traveler and ‘do-gooder’ for quite some time, and is also one of the Finest Authors ever to work in the english language.
His discussion of Rwanda blends personal knowledge with professional observation and analysis – but always seems to find the core of Humanity (both good and bad) at the crux of the subject.
I strongly recommend reading Dalrymple / Daniels on Rwanda, and if that isn’t too horrific a read to handle – possibly another book “A Time for Machetes”, which is a lot tougher – albeit just as true.
God Bless All such Missionaries – who bring the Word where it is truly needed.
A few years ago I had lunch with a group of Bishops from Uganda that were at their ad limina visit at the Vatican. Their main request was “send us teachers”.
God bless Heather Quinlan’s mission.
Heather Quinlan has a lot of courage. I wouldn’t go to Ruwanda without carrying a mini-gun around with me (like the one in Predator which deforested a jungle in only moments).
How wonderful that she is living her dream of spreading the faith. I was reading a chapter out of Pat Buchanan’s most recent book that deals with a”crisis” in Catholicism. He laments that the Church will be dark by mid-century. The Pope residing in Rome with the faithful at south of the equator. He draws the picture to stress his disapproval. Face it and get over it, I say; Guido culture and that Guido liturgy are history, for a new chapter in the Church’s history is being written, with help by people like Heather.
South … twinkle in the eye … side, your blog lines up good with literature’s “noble savage” character laced thoroughly into the Romantic age of lit. Evidently you live in an ivory tower.
More missionaries are desperately needed in front of American abortion mills in order to save the lives of girls and babies.
JOHN,
What you write above is true, but there are many callings and some are called as Heather seems to be called to the Missions in Ruwanda. Pray that she is a true Missionary and not a social worker. The last thing those poor people need is a Community Organizer!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Wonderful woman. This is what the True spirit of self giving. May she be abundantly blessed.
Heather Quinlan seems humble, and that gives her a distinct advantage in carrying forth the Great Commission. The world does not need a big tent show over in Africa, so these ideas and images of the Church are pretty much useless to those who are not mezmorized by Hollywood. These humble missionaries go to out of the way places and convert souls to Christ … no fanfare, but often with lots of blood and martyrdom.