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ATLANTA--St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Smyrna completes its eighth annual
Lenten drive on Good Friday, collecting over 9,000 pounds of food and also
other essential items for its sister parish in Kingston, Jamaica.
In 1991 St. Thomas the Apostle originally developed the partnership with the
Jamaican missions served by Father Richard Holung and the order he founded, the
Missionaries of the Poor. The order serves the poorest, most helpless people
and the unwanted sick and dying in the slums of Kingston and also has mission
houses in Haiti, the Philippines and India.
Father James Caffery, MS, pastor, said, “This is a wonderful way for
all our parishioners to prepare in Lent for the coming Easter season.”
In the first four weeks of Lent, St. Thomas families contributed two food
items weekly and, during the fifth week, made pledges to the Missionaries of
the Poor. The four and a half tons of food collected included flour, canned
vegetables, dry beans, potato flakes, canned meats, pasta, peanut butter and
breakfast oats.
“This is a five percent increase over last year’s
contributions,” said Brian Durham, chairman of the Jamaica Outreach
Program.
Youth from all grades in the parish school of religion collected over 300
soap bars, 300 toothbrushes, 200 tubes of toothpaste, several hundred rolls of
bandage and gauze and over 100 tubes of antiseptic cream. Members of the
Jamaica Outreach Team collected diapers, powdered bleach and plastic bags,
which are used to pack donations and then reused by Jamaicans to carry food
home from the missions each week. For the fourth year, a parishioner
anonymously donated funds to buy 100 egg-laying chickens.
The Missionaries of the Poor distribute small amounts of food weekly to
those outside the mission house in Kingston.
Father Caffery has led a group of 28 parishioners to work in the slums with
the Missionaries of the Poor.
“In many ways, the poor, the dispossessed, the forgotten in the slums
have a great lesson to teach their wealthier brothers and sisters about
God’s love. They seem to be much closer to Christ than many of us,”
he said.
In October, Father Eugene Barrette, MS, parochial vicar, will lead a group
of about 25 teens and other parishioners to the Kingston for a week.
“The teenagers always come back from Jamaica as great advocates for the
twin parish in Kingston and wonderful ambassadors for Christ and the parish of
St. Thomas,” according to John Boyle, who will be completing his fifth
mission trip in October.
In addition, a medical team of St. Thomas parishioners, led by Dr. Bob
Roche, will go a few days earlier to distribute medical supplies donated by
Atlanta hospitals and pharmacists, and to provide medical relief to people in
Kingston.
Boyle said Father Holung insists that the most important gift St. Thomas can
give the Jamaicans is prayers. He and all 110 Missionaries of the Poor
worldwide are grateful for the aid from St. Thomas and have reminded them that
they are living the Gospel words, “Whenever you do this for the least of
my brothers and sisters, you do it for Me.”
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