ATLANTA--As the first class of candidates for the permanent diaconate to go on a mission trip, members of the class of 2002 are heading to Kingston, Jamaica over Labor Day weekend to help the Missionaries of the Poor.

Deacon Loris Sinanian, director of diaconate formation, and 14 candidates will participate in the pilot trip Sept. 2-6. John McManus, a Corpus Christi parishioner and member of the class, is coordinating the trip. Father John Molyneux, CMF, will serve as spiritual director.

“We’re very excited about it,” said McManus. “We’re going away from the security of all things we feel comfortable with and we’re going down to a totally different place and we’re going to really put our faith to the test.”

Taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, Father Richard HoLung and members of the missionary order he founded in 1980 serve the poor, sick and abandoned by feeding, clothing and providing housing for them at no charge. As Jamaica has no welfare system, some residents were picked up from sewers where they were left to die. The diaconate class will live with the order and help the brothers care for residents and build additional shelters. The group will also participate in the prayer life of the order through daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours and adoration of the Eucharist.

Deacon Sinanian said he decided that the candidates needed a special group opportunity for summer service as part of their formation and chose this project because of the extreme poverty in Jamaica.

“We feel (the Missionaries of the Poor) have a very serious need to help the poor and the people that they take in. They also need housing to be built for these people which is what we’re going to do there,” said Deacon Sinanian. “We are going to be completely obedient to what they ask us to do.”

He said the trip is an opportunity for the candidates to better understand and carry out service to the poor. In the archdiocese, candidates have done pastoral work or other service individually in various parishes as part of the four-year study program for the permanent diaconate and are asked to devote time to a service project for at least one summer. Currently there are 45 candidates in four classes in the formation program.

The director hopes the trip will also be an opportunity for the group to deepen bonds.

“It’s a new experience and with that experience their formation will be much enhanced. I think that the excitement is twofold. It is the doing something together as a group. It’s a very special project-type trip with very spiritual undertones.”

After hearing Father HoLung talk at his Stone Mountain parish, McManus said he is very impressed by his ministry and his total dependence on God in serving the needy.

McManus said the trip is an opportunity “to learn about true faith in God from a man who places all of his faith in God on a daily basis.”

“It is an opportunity to take a risk and go to the slums of a Third World country to places where even the local police and fire departments dare not go--all because you love our dear Lord and want to serve those who are so much less fortunate than ourselves. It is an opportunity to give without looking for anything in return, and yet get so much in return.”

He hopes other parishes will consider supporting the Missionaries of the Poor in their work in Kingston following the trip, but said the most critical need is for prayer.

“That’s what we’ll be asking people to do, to pray for us on the trip and during our formation. That would be the best thing they could do.”