Mission Trip to Kentucky Has Parish Teens Living Out Their Faith

Story by Shelley Wolf

For Father Glen Dmytryszyn, the summer brings not only sunshine and warm weather but the opportunity to show the young people in his parish what it really means to love and to serve one another, as Jesus has asked everyone to do.

The priest, 21 teens and six chaperones from Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Woodbridge and Bethany recently returned from a mission trip to the heart of Appalachia, where the young parishioners spent a week helping the poor in numerous ways.

“Their faith has to be lived out, not just at Mass, but in practice, helping the poor and the suffering,” says Father Dmytryszyn, pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Parish. “They also prayed with one another. It’s all part of a wholesome mission trip.”

From July 15 to 20, the group traveled to Harlan County, Ky., where the Catholic youths in grades eight through 12 were introduced to an area of the country where people are struggling to live in aging housing, including some homes without plumbing.

“The areas are definitely impoverished,” Father Dmytryszyn says. “However, the people are very rich in faith and love, living in a more simple way. They know true happiness is rooted in the interior life, in a richness that only comes from Christ.”

In Kentucky, the youths from Connecticut had the opportunity to see what Pope Francis and many saints have said, that “in the poor we see the face of Jesus Christ,” Father Dmytryszyn pointed out.

The teens were housed in the city of Cumberland on the campus of St. Stephen Parish, a Catholic community noted for its outreach to the poor.

The many work projects they tackled in a week included: hanging sheetrock and rebuilding a deck for a single mother; helping a local priest roof a Catholic school; visiting patients and praying the rosary with them; painting indoors for an outreach group that helps abandoned children; re-siding a garage that belongs to a food pantry; and organizing pantry food items and handing them off to needy recipients.

The highlight for Father Dmytryszyn was the time spent at St. Stephen’s food pantry, where his own faith was deepened. “That is a lifeline for food for the families. There were moms, dads and children lined up. That’s the heart of the church.”

The fact that the area is primarily Baptist country, he notes, makes the Catholic Church’s presence and outreach there even more special. “It awakened in me how Christ acted in the Gospel. And he continues to extend his hand. It made a profound spiritual impact on me,” he says. 

Time for Mass and prayer were also built into each day.

“We had Mass every single day, prayed the rosary and had Eucharistic adoration,” Father Dmytryszyn says. “There was a very big spiritual component. Every single night, the counselors also gave a witness talk.” The teens then divided into small faith sharing groups to discuss how God was working in their lives.

“The trip was 60 percent work and 40 percent for their spiritual growth, which was great,” the priest says.

Yet it wasn’t all work and prayer. There was time for recreation, with one free day spent swimming and picnicking at a beautiful, natural lake.

“It’s all the Lord’s work. It’s so powerful,” Father Dmytryszyn says. “This is an experience for a lifetime. It’s so worth all the work and the fundraising.”

Father Dmytryszyn says he is planning another mission trip in 2025 and plans to use Catholic Mission Trips Inc. (catholicmissiontrips.net) again to organize the trip.

For more information on Our Lady of the Assumption Parish, visit assumptionchurch.com.