Guests this summer…
Fr. John Horn, the rector of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary contacted me early in April. He asked if I had room in the rectory for two seminarians. They are both Vietnamese, and are studying here at our seminary for their home Diocese in Vietnam. “We’d like them to live together for mutual support, if possible. Khanh Van Phan will be taking ESL (English as a Second Language) classes at the UMSL, and we were hoping for a place close by. Quang Van Dihn will be there to do whatever he can to be helpful to you – communion calls, visits to shut-ins, manual labor, etc. We will help defray some of the food costs while they are there.”
In your name, I was happy to say “Yes” to this request. This Khanh and Quang will be here for the months of June and July. I do not have the official starting dates yet, but will let you know when I do know. I trust you will give them your usual warm St. Ann welcome. Khanh’s English is passable, (thus the ESL classes), but Quang ‘s is very good, nearly fluent. Though I am sure I could think of some manual labor for Quang to do, my two month task for him is to get our Cemetery Records in order. With a bit of patience, and the help of the personnel from Calvary cemetery (I haven’t asked them yet – but from past conversations, I trust they will say yes) I believe we can find out where ‘most of the bodies are buried’, and computerize our listings to make the maintenance and upkeep and expansion of the cemetery a much less time consuming task.
On a different note: What a wonderful evening was had by all this past Saturday night. Mother Nature cooperated, the food was excellent, the band was rocking the classic oldies dance tunes, so many of you donated wonder items to bid on, and our Newman Center students did their usual amazing job of keeping track of everything behind the computers. A huge tip of the hat to Nicki Island who chaired the event, and to all those who stepped in and did what they do best. Thanks to Jennifer Bahan for the amazing decorations, and all who labored to create and set them up. Thanks to Bob Reid and Matt Waterman for using the Z-man donated equipment to strip the floors and then to manually apply the 3 coats of wax. Thanks to Al Durand who found some matching floor tiles and replaced the broken ones right as you enter the hall. Thanks to Kay for “rescuing” Nicki when it was time for the long expected joke, plus for supplying so much knowledge and so many hours of work helping to pull it all together.
I’ll let you know totals, hopefully, next week, as well as recognize more of the people who make this such a great, great evening.