April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
CATHOLIC SERVICE
Cupid strikes twice in Chile
Bill Jordan and Nancy Brennan each graduated from Notre Dame in the late 1980s and then volunteered with the Holy Cross Fathers in Chile. A few years later, they got married.
"We knew of each other, but we didn't start dating until after the experience," said Nancy Jordan.
Mr. Jordan wanted to work in agriculture. For Nancy Brennan (now Nancy Jordan), it was the economic situation and wanting to help the poor. But for both, the experience had the same effect.
"We came out with the 'what are we going to do?' aspect," said Mr. Jordan. "You become one in solidarity with their situation."
The couple returned home and was married in 1990 in Yonkers, where Mrs. Jordan grew up. They now live in East Greenbush and are parishioners at Holy Spirit.
A generation later in 2002, Cupid flew again to Chile. Shannon Kelly, another graduate at Notre Dame, also decided to volunteer with the Holy Cross Fathers in Chile.
"When I was a senior in college, 9/11 happened," Ms. Kelly recalled. "That affected me in two ways. One, I wanted to expand my world view, and two, 9/11 had kind of left a sense of life is short and the time is now."
There, she tutored students and worked with a program that funded services for women and children. While in Chile she met a native Chilean named Nelson Vasquez and in 2006, the two were married. They now attend Holy Family Church in Albany.
Just recently, the two couples met each other for the first time.
Both couples acknowledged just how coincidental the situation was.
Said Mrs. Jordan, "It's kind of ironic that Bill and I went through the whole experience then we met Shannon and it was like the next generation."
Both couples learned similar lessons.
"I learned a lot about hospitality," said Ms. Kelly. "My view on hospitality and how to treat people was profoundly affected by how they treated me and welcomed me."
"We formed our strongest bonds with people," recalled Mr. Jordan. "It's not me helping them. We're more a part of a common humanity."
The experience had such an impact that both the Jordans and Ms. Kelly wanted more. Though the program lasts two and a half years, Shannon decided to stay for five years, into 2006. The Jordans, then part of the Maryknoll lay ministry, went back in 1995, where their first daughter was born.
The extended time there allowed the Jordans and Ms. Kelly to experience rural and urban Chile and to see U.S. society more clearly.
"It made me think of consumption in the US and realizing what's 'a want' and what's 'a need,'" Ms. Kelly said.
Mr. Jordan was inspired to write a book on the small farmer movement in Chile.
The Jordans hope that Mrs. Kelly is not the last generation of students at Notre Dame to share the experience with them.
"It's really important to say our Church needs to make more opportunities for younger graduates," said Mrs. Jordan.
It certainly affected Ms. Kelly.
"I think the experience changed some of my priorities and made me reflect on my life and what's important," she said. "I got much more out of it for me than I could ever give to anybody else."[[In-content Ad]]
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