Texas Missionary family to share their unlikely journey at Oct. 19 Children’s Mission Day Event

By Beth Donze, Clarion Herald

One American family’s experiences as missionaries living in fellowship with the poor of Nicaragua will be a highlight of the archdiocese’s 28th annual Children’s Mission Day celebration, set to roll Oct. 19 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the St. Mary’s Dominican High School gym.

There is still time to register for the event, conducted every October by the Missionary Childhood Association (MCA) and open to children in the Archdiocese of New Orleans in grades 3-7. The event’s $15 advance registration fee covers a T-shirt, bagged lunch and drink.

The Texas-based Moran family – Deacon Patrick Moran, his wife Dr. Katie Moran, and their children Benjamin, Rachael and Rebecca – will be the event’s keynote speakers. All five Morans will reflect on their 2 1/2 years of happy, and sometimes challenging, life in Granada, Nicaragua, the city to which they relocated after taking part in a Christ the Healer mission trip sponsored by the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

The Morans learned about Christ the Healer – an organizer of medical mission trips to Nicaragua since 1992 – through Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who founded the ministry as director of the archdiocesan Society for the Propogation of Faith and who got to know the Morans during his tenure as bishop of Austin, Texas.

Although security concerns forced the Morans to return to the United States in 2018, the family enjoyed immersing themselves in the life of their neighborhood. The three Moran children enrolled in the local school, became fluent in Spanish, played games with their peers and built up their parish’s music ministry; Deacon Moran worked closely with the local bishop as director of the diocese’s Caritas program; and Dr. Moran, whose specialty is internal medicine, assisted at clinics and provided health check-ups to local seminarians. The couple’s youngest child, Rebecca, made her first Communion in Nicaragua.

Although missionary work – like the Morans’ – is usually associated with being an adult and traveling beyond one’s own borders to spread Jesus’ message of love, Children’s Mission Day is designed to remind young Catholics that they can be missionaries – at home and right now – through prayer, almsgiving, service and learning how their peers in other countries spend their time at school and at play.

To foster solidarity, attendees will play games and sing songs from around the world, and make World Mission Rosary bracelets to take home to remind  them to pray for children living in every continent.

The day’s other keynote speaker will be Father Jimmy Jeanfreau, archdiocesan director of the Pontifical Mission Societies, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Marrero and a priest who served in Bolivia for many years. While dressed in character, Father Jeanfreau will tell Children’s Mission Day participants the story of Phileas Jarico, a 19th-century French missionary who served in Vietnam. Father Jeanfreau will also celebrate the day’s concluding Mass.

Music throughout the day will be provided by pianist/organist Roberto Matthews, a local minister of music.

In other MCA news, the office’s 2020 toy contest is asking students in grades 1-7 to create a musical instrument, game, doll, truck, car, float or animal out of recycled materials. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 14.

For more information on any of these activities, or to schedule a “mission animation” presentation at your school or parish, call Laura Arand, MCA director, at 527-5773 or email her at [email protected].