By Renée St. Martin Wizeman

As he speaks about “my students,” a touch of near-fatherly pride infuses Alex Woelkers’ voice. The 23-year-old Carroll College graduate returned this June from his year of service at the diocese’s Guatemala Mission. He taught English at the mission school and was the “house father” for the boys and young men in the dormitory.

Decidedly philosophical about his time in Guatemala, Woelkers said he considers his mission a failure, at least from the American perspective of effecting a lasting change. But, sometimes God does more with our failures.

To Guatemala – twice

Spending a year in another country, working and living among people in extreme poverty may not rank high on most graduates’ to-do lists. But Woelkers isn’t alone in his pursuit. According to the Catholic Network of Volunteer Service’s website, 10,000 volunteers and lay missioners serve in 200 Christian volunteer and lay mission programs throughout the United States and in 108 other countries.

The second of four children, Woelkers grew up in Great Falls and attended Catholic schools from fifth grade through college. He was introduced to the Guatemala Mission through a Carroll College campus ministry pilgrimage in 2007. The following year, he graduated from Carroll with a degree in theology and philosophy. After a brief period of vocational discernment at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver, Woelkers worked at Intermountain Children’s Home in Helena.

While considering his next step, he heard about the missionary opportunity at the mission in Guatemala. After a series of conversations with Mark Frei, mission manager and diocesan Pastoral Services director, he found himself Guatemala-bound on June 1, 2009. “It was a chance to do international service in a place I had been to, and also a chance to serve the Diocese of Helena at the same time,” Woelkers said. “To have the connection with Montana was really important to me.”

He laughed when asked about the difference between his first trip to Guatemala and the second one: “The difference? I knew I wasn’t coming home in a week and a half!”

Guatemala gives new perspective

A campus ministry intern at Carroll and a counselor at Legendary Lodge, Woelkers described his relationship with God and efforts to live his faith as very important. He said he was introduced to Catholic social teaching in high school, and this all led him to seek the Guatemala opportunity to work with and be with the poor. “I knew that I would grow in my spirituality….I knew that it was true that poverty is really important (in spiritual development), and you can learn a lot from it,” he said. “I was really seeking that opportunity, without really knowing what it meant.”

What it meant, Woelkers discovered, was a tremendous gift for him. He counts his role as “house father” for the young men living in the dorm of La Asunción Institute as a particularly blessed, sometimes challenging experience. The physical living conditions were initially a big adjustment, he said, “but when you are focused on trying to serve and what your mission is, you don’t really notice these things as much.” Woelkers first lived in the mission’s Clinica Maxena complex, then in the girls’ dormitory and finally in the boys’ dormitory, which he described as “pretty rustic.” A 50-gallon water drum and a spigot served as a shower. Woelkers said upgrades to the facility were in progress during his stay.

“I never realized what it really means to need God; I still don’t know if I can in the way the people of the mission do, because I could always call my parents and fly home,” he said. “The gift the people of the mission taught me is they don’t have anything but God, and he’s always enough for them. If they have enough to eat that month, they’re thankful, and if they don’t have enough to eat, they’re thankful still, because they have God.”

Extreme culture shock hasn’t been part of his re-acclimation to the United States, he said. He credits this to having ample opportunity, while in Guatemala, to reflect on the tough questions of inequity, poverty and what to do about them. He said he came to understand that there is Guatemalan reality and U.S. reality, there is life in Guatemala and there is life in Montana and they are different. “It’s very hard to see these things and not feel guilty, but I came to realize that selling all of my possessions wasn’t going to solve the problem. It’s not that simple,” he said.

One person at a time

Woelkers said he came to believe that change in and for Guatemala comes one person at a time. “People have to have a vision of what their life could and should be. You can’t instill this with just a certain political or economic system. You have to address the whole human person.”

He said he was struck by the fact that the diocesan mission has ministries that address the whole human person and assist families, from the churches, to Clinic Maxena, La Asunción and other ministries and services provided by the mission’s dedicated staff. Father Jim Hazelton, Sisters Mary Waddell and Ana Priester of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and clinic director and registered nurse Sheila McShane have given many years of service to the mission.

The Church’s emphasis on the dignity of every human person is easy to take for granted in the United States, Woelkers said, but not so in Guatemala. “My students didn’t have a sense of their own dignity in the same way I did. They didn’t believe they had the same dignity I did, because they were Guatemalan and I was American.”

And that, Woelkers feels, is what the mission is all about. “It’s that I’m there, and I’m treating someone like a real human person…because that’s what my faith means,” he said.

Initially, Woelkers was frustrated because he felt his contributions to the work of the mission were so small. “I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do, so it was challenging to really take the initiative and figure out how I could contribute,” he said.

As the house father for the male boarding students of La Asunción, he emphasized self discipline and the importance of making choices. “I really pushed them to be disciplined and take pride in doing things for the right reason, not just because Alex wants them to,” he said.

Woelkers also assisted with aspects of the diocese’s Guatemalan student sponsorship program, in conjunction with the Pastoral Services office.

Other highlights of his year in Guatemala included visiting students’ homes as part of the scholarship selection process. He was also invited to the profession of final vows for eight Sisters of the Misioneras de la Eucaristía at their motherhouse on Lake Atitlan. “That was amazing to see the local Church and how strong and alive it is,” he said. Four sisters are currently serving at La Asunción.

Spirituality sustains

Woelkers said he attended Mass as much as possible, in addition to praying the rosary daily and frequent Eucharistic adoration. “I was able to find some solid prayer time, and stayed close to the Lord and the Church,” he said, noting that this continuity with his typical spiritual practice helped him face the challenges of missionary life.

He found that things he anticipated as a challenge – the physical setting, living arrangements, limited food options – were not problems. The biggest challenge was learning to accept the limitations and unforeseen circumstances that could and frequently did limit his effectiveness, a big shift from the results-oriented American way.

“You can’t make a plan and stick to it, because Guatemala has a way of ruining your expectations,” he said. “But I learned that sometimes that’s enough. I don’t think God wanted it (the missionary experience) to be about what I could do there. Sometimes God can do more with our failures. In America, it’s harder to experience that because we’re so in control of our world.”

Our mission matters

The importance and relevance of a mission thousands of miles from Montana can be difficult to comprehend. When asked why the mission matters, Woelkers said the responsibility to help those living in abject poverty must be met, whether that poverty is in Montana or Guatemala.

“It’s a profound gift to be able to have the relationship with those people…and realizing that we are part of a family. The Church is God’s family, and that family is bigger than we can imagine. “When American Catholicism engages Guatemalan Catholicism, they both realize so much about what Catholicism is and what it means,” he said.

Woelkers said he believes the most important thing people of the diocese can do relative to the mission is to live in solidarity with the people of Guatemala through prayer. Other actions may spring from this, such as financial support of the mission’s various ministries. And this can beget further change “on the ground” in Guatemala. The students who have sponsors in the United States feel an incredible sense of gratitude and joy that someone outside of their village cares about them, their education and their future, Woelkers said.

“It reminds them that they have something to give to others, too,” he said.

Editor’s note: To learn more about the Guatemala Mission, join Father Hazelton and Alex Woelkers for Hazy Day at the Brondel Center of the Cathedral of St. Helena on Sunday, Sept. 12.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 8, August 20, 2010.