Travelers on St Mary’s Parish ECUADOR IMMERSION TRIP 2-15-2017 TO 2-25-2017

Once a year in the spring and sometimes in the summer, pilgrims from St. Mary’s join with BVMs and associates to participate in an immersion trip to our missions in Ecuador. This effort is coordinated by the St. Mary’s Partners in Mission Core Team whose members include BVM associates Carol and Francis de Carvalho.

We ask your prayers for the following twelve who will begin their journey on February 15, 2017. and return to the US on Saturday, February 25th.

If you would like to read their complete bios go to https://bacar2.org/1250-2/ where there is a link to a PDF.

Marcia Green —  A nurse with a Masters Degree in Public Health.  Marcia retired in 2002 from nursing, and helped her husband in their Navastro business, which supported a Stanford project researching Einstein’s theory of relativity. Marcia also volunteered at Santee Mission in San Jose working with immigrants. For the past 3 years, Marcia has been part of the University of San Francisco Vietnam Nurse Project and has taught nursing care in the hospitals of Ha Noi.

Catherine Gallagher — A retired state court judge in Santa Clara County. Catherine now works with an organization called JAMS resolving court disputes. In essence, she is a “Rent-a-Judge,” primarily settling cases through mediation, with some arbitration and judging work.

Valerie and Ed Lozowicki — Valarie — Volunteers as a St. Mary’s Eucharistic Minister and visitor to the homebound.  She also does spiritual care visiting at O’Connor Hospital and volunteers in her grandson’s classroom. Her career path was in education, teaching, fundraising and academic and college counseling. Valerie is discerning BVM Association with Associates and BVMs in the area.  Ed — Retired from private practice after 40 years as a business trial lawyer,  and now works as an independent arbitrator and mediator. Both Valerie and Ed have been members of St. Mary’s Parish  for over 30 years.

Jill and Kristin Montanari — Jill — Is making her 5th trip to the Working Boys Center! She is on the Partners in Mission, Ecuador core team at St. Mary’s. She’s in charge of shopping for the Ecuadorian Crafts that are brought back to the US and sold at the St. Mary’s Ecuadorian Soup Supper in November as a fund raiser. Kristin — Works in the acquisitions department  at a startup called SHIFT in San Francisco. This is her second immersion trip; the first was to Brazil.

Julia Schmidt — Lives in Dubuque, Iowa. She is  currently a sophomore majoring in Elementary Education at the University of Dubuque. Julia has been a Teacher’s Assistant at a daycare ffor the last three years. She was drawn to this immersion trip because of the variety of activities and places the group will be visiting. After graduation she is interested in working internationally, in some sort of service field, and this trip would be a unique, affordable and fun way to learn more about other countries.

Helen Stone — Served as a nurse in the US Navy. She has been to the Working Boys Center twice before. Once with her daughter before she started college.  This year Bronwyn, her daughter, now graduated from college,  her son and his girlfriend will join Helen.

Bronwyn Stone — Studied molecular biology at Berkeley, and has just started a job in Sonoma County doing sustainability consulting for vineyards. She visited the CMT once on a St. Mary’s trip, then returned for a month while at Berkeley. She’s stoked to be returning to Quito.

Mike Stone — Graduated from San Luis Obispo, then moved to Santa Cruz to work as an engineer. Mike is currently living in a pickup truck with his girlfriend Lyndsay, driving through Central/South America. When in high school. Mike participated in Amigos de las  Americas in the Dominican Republic.

Lyndsay Babbitt — Graduated from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, majored in Kinesiology. After college she worked as a personal trainer and yoga teacher in Santa Cruz. She participated in an immersion trip to Tijuana, where they helped build new houses for impoverished communities.

Denise Leffers —  A therapist in private practice and volunteers in non-profit board work and fundraising. Denise wants to experience volunteer work in another country and to grow and deepen her faith.