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Building and maintaining relationships happens one person at a time. This is also true for the five-year connection between St. Vincent de Paul parish in Albany and our sister parish, St. Anthony de Padua in Darien, Panama.

In 2006, Rev. Richard Broderick, who coordinates the "Pueblo to People" sister parish program in the Albany Diocese, sparked interest in how St. Vincent's might be involved in this work. We decided to partner with St. Anthony's.

Our parish has received visits from Sisters Joji Fenix and Melinda Roper, Maryknoll sisters who serve in Darien. St. Vincent parishioners have visited Panama five times.

St. Vincent's has built awareness of the spiritual and daily life in Darien through naming our sister parish during Prayers of the Faithful at Mass and honoring the deceased through a November "Day of the Dead" altar, as is done in Latin America.

We have held a meal with Latin decorations and cuisine. Our music group held a concert to raise funds. A sister parish committee coordinates these activities and uses email to keep people aware of activities and our connection to Darien.

For years, I have offered yoga classes at St. Vincent's, with all donations going to our sister parish. It has been a wonderful opportunity to offer my talents in service to my Church, to bring the benefits of yoga to the community and to send financial help to an area where money is scarce and needs are many.

In February, I was part of a team of five who visited Darien. Our work was in the Centro Pastorale (Pastoral Center), located just outside the small village of Sante Fe.

We spent time on a farm, learning about efforts to coax crops from the challenging jungle soil in an environmentally conscious and sustainable way. We also worked with members of the Medicinal Plants Project (ECODIC), a collective of small growers whose harvest is used in making teas, soaps, lotions and tinctures and sold locally. I even had the opportunity to offer daily yoga to children who were taking part in an arts program at the center.

Beyond all the "doing," there was the chance to just be with the women and men of Darien, to build bridges of understanding across the miles and across cultures. This is the "pearl of great price" I treasure from the experience.

I did not have to wait a year before reconnecting with Panama: From March 12-14, Marcelina Noriega and Maryknoll Sister Teresita Perez visited Albany.

Marcelina has worked with the Medicinal Plants Project since its beginning in 2000. She came to the U.S. to make a presentation at the United Nations about rural women's grassroots experiences and the challenges they still face.

Sponsored by the Economic and Social Committee of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, the program focused on the role of rural women in the eradication of poverty.

In Albany, Marcelina and Sister Teresita, a Maryknoll sister from the Philippines who lives in the U.S., made several stops. They visited my yoga class, toured Roxbury Farm (a biodynamic, community-supported agriculture farm) and the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany, and reconnected with people who had visited Panama on earlier trips.

St. Vincent's hosted a supper for Marcelina and Sister Teresita. Marcelina, a soft-spoken mother of 10, told of her work with plants and love of her land, and of the driving force behind her efforts: using economic self-sufficiency to empower women who face the scourge of domestic violence.

Powerful emotion caused her to pause as she reflected on the seeming immunity that abusers experience and the silence of victims who fear retribution.

Marcelina's story touched the hearts of all who heard her speak. She mentioned that her own son had questioned whether she should speak to the United Nations about these conditions in Panama. Her answer was simply, "I must do this."

My hope is that through this parish-to-parish relationship, through deep listening, one person at a time, we will all come to learn what we must do.

(Ms. England is a nurse, yoga instructor and parishioner of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Albany.)[[In-content Ad]]

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