By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter
The introduction of Sisters Joan Barina and Joyce Ross to Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church in Kenai in 1979 is a reflection of the sisters’ induction to Alaska itself — they had some idea of what to expect, but were unprepared for the scope of the impact it would have on them.
“I was wondering what they would do. The church was going along fine at the time,” said Eileen Bryson, who was attending the church when the sisters arrived in 1979 — in pastel pants suits, as the story goes. “It was immediately apparent they would be very helpful. They became part of the church immediately. We’re at the point now of, ‘What will we do without them?’”
Bryson was one of many parishioners and friends cycling through an open house at Our Lady of the Angels on May 9 held as a going-away party for the sisters, who are retiring and heading back to their religious orders on the East Coast after 30 years at the Kenai parish. The sisters were surrounded by evidence of just how much a part of the church they have become — photos of their mundane tasks, like mowing the lawn, on up to the more meaningful, like performing ecclesiastic services and going on mission trips; a guestbook filled with page after page of well-wishes, words of thanks and declarations of how much they will be missed; and the parishioners themselves, who have taken the sisters’ message that they are the church to heart as much as they’ve taken the sisters to heart.
“You always say the church is the people,” Barina said.
“And they’ve proved it,” Ross said. “Hopefully we’ve helped them take ownership and realize that it’s their church. We always say the changes we have seen in the church are because of people’s ideas. They followed through on what they wanted to see. I think we’re the cheerleaders, encouraging them hopefully to pitch in and help.”
They’ve been more than just cheerleaders over the years. They’ve started and supported outreach programs locally and in missions across Alaska, in Mexico and Africa. Since the parish priest left in 1988, the sisters have been the constants keeping the church functioning, performing church services, serving as marriage counselors, administrating religious education classes and so on — in essence providing leadership, both spiritual and practical.
“They’re both so spiritual that it’s really helped us, and because we’ve had no priest for such a long time, we did really well with them. They’re compassionate, too. They’re involved in a lot of different things and they really care about people. I know that, for myself, I’ve cried on their shoulders several times,” said Nora Satathite.
“My kids, they call them their Alaska grandmas,” said Christy Franklin. With her husband in the Coast Guard, the Franklins and their seven kids move every few years. In the Kenai church, they immediately felt at home, she said. Franklin mentioned one example, when her 4-year-old got in trouble in catechism class, and Franklin went to scold him but was stopped by Ross.
“Sister Joyce came in and took him to the cry room and read him a book and told me to leave him be. She is really very protective of the children here. They’re family, and they make you feel like you’re family. They are just great people,” Franklin said.
The sisters’ contributions were recognized on a larger scale in Mass the next day, May 10, when the sisters were presented with the Holy Cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal, also known as the Cross of Honour, by Archbishop Roger Schwietz and former Archbishop Francis Hurley. Archbishop Schwietz began the process of requesting the medal more than six months earlier, before the sisters had announced their intention of retiring. Schwietz received the medal from Rome earlier that week.
“They have been a great example of how women have planted the seeds of our church, long before this diocese ever existed. We are able to thank all of those women through the recognition of these two sisters,” Schwietz said. “It will be the responsibility of the parish to look where God is calling the people to be, and to pick up some of that ministry. I think, in time, we will realize there is a lot we didn’t even realize (that the sisters were doing). … They are truly irreplaceable.”
Barina, from the Medical Mission Sisters based in Philadelphia, took a job at a hospital in Anchorage in 1976 after getting a degree in public health and spending four years in India previously. Bethel was another option, so she researched the hospitals and the different areas of the state before deciding on Anchorage. Even so, seeing the state firsthand was more momentous than she expected.
“Well, I think I knew that Alaska was a beautiful state, for one thing, and had lot of wildlife, and also had a big Native community, because I knew about the hospital before I came. Otherwise, I don’t think I had that many preconceived notions. I certainly didn’t believe people lived in igloos,” she said. “I expected the scenery somehow, but it was so overwhelming in many ways. The scenery was so marvelous.”
Ross remembers being similarly awed.
“As soon as I stepped off the plane and saw the mountains, that was it for me. It didn’t take much,” she said. “The first time I saw the color of the Kenai River, I couldn’t believe it.”
Ross is from the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas in Albany, N.Y., and is originally from the same area.
“One hundred-some miles away is as far away as you even went. That’s a drop in the bucket in Alaska,” Ross said.
She came to Anchorage in 1972 to work at the just-opened Saint Patrick’s parish on Muldoon Road, doing primarily religious education. She had taught school before, and remembers covering Alaska with her students.
“Alaska was a big thing in geology. I had taught about Alaska, and I always remembered talking about, ‘The glaciers are a river of ice.’ When I saw a glacier I thought, ‘That’s really not enough.’”
The same can be said of describing the sisters by just their job description as administrators of Our Lady of the Angels — it’s really not enough.
“Since they’ve been here, they have just really brought us closer as a community here,” said Phyllis Halstead. “They empowered us to do what needs to be done as a church. They also make us aware of other people. They really encourage us to sort of step out of ourselves and help other people. I think the way everybody feels is we’re not losing administrators of a parish, we’re losing a mother and a friend.”
Ross agreed to come to Kenai in 1979 at the request of then-Archbishop Hurley. He told her he wanted two nuns at the church.
“I said, ‘Who’s the other one?’ He said I have to go out and recruit one, and I didn’t think Kenai was the first place somebody comes,’” Ross said.
She asked Barina, who had a room with the Mercy sisters in Anchorage. She agreed to the placement, and the two set off on a job that would stretch into the next 30 years of their lives and become much further-reaching than either had anticipated.
Not that they’re complaining.
“When you like your job, it’s really not much of a job,” Ross said.
“It went very fast. We’ve certainly been fortunate. It’s never been dull, there’s always something new happening. Pastor work is very diverse. You never knew who was going to knock on the door or call on the telephone or what they wanted,” Barina said.
Father Robert Wells was the parish priest at the time, before he left in 1988, and the sisters did religious education throughout the western Kenai Peninsula, traveling between Kenai, Soldotna, Cooper Landing, Moose Pass, Seward, Ninilchik, Homer and Seldovia.
“We had a chance to really learn the peninsula and to know the people,” Ross said. “I guess that is one thing that always impressed us — the people were very welcoming and friendly.”
In their early years here they volunteered at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
“We thought we’d be out on the trails, but when they found out we knew all the trails we were in the visitors center. But that was fun. We got to know a lot of the people,” Ross said.
Their interactions with the community stretched far beyond the recreational, and the walls of the church.
“The thing that impressed me the most is the fact that they help people, not only in places like Africa, but they also look at helping the local people. There are just so many things that they do. They are so generous, loving, very involved and all that. It’s hard to say what they do because it’s so much,” said Margaret Menting.
Barina helped start the Clothes Quarters thrift store in the early 1980s, the proceeds of which went to buy food for people in need, since the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank did not exist at the time. Also in the early 1980s, the sisters helped start a local branch of Love INC (In The Name of Christ), a clearinghouse that organizes interdenominational outreach efforts for those in need.
The two have been active in prison ministry at Wildwood Correctional Facility, a calling that parishioners at the Soldotna and Kenai Catholic churches have taken up, Ross said.
Serving breakfast to students at Kenai Alternative High School, a joint effort with Soldotna Methodist Church, has been something the sisters particularly enjoy doing, Barina said.
“Meeting the kids, and I think they enjoyed it and appreciate it,” she said.
“It’s so fun because you go to Pizza Hut or one of the places where the kids work and they say, ‘Oh, we can serve you now,’” Ross said. “The kids ask, ‘Are they still doing breakfast? Oh that’s good, that was a big thing for me.’ Little things like that are really encouraging, because it’s not that big of a deal, but I guess for the kids, it is.”
About 11 years ago, the sisters started leading mission trips to Tijuana to work with the poor. After three years they decided to make the mission trips to Alaska villages, including St. Marys, Chevak, Marshall, Pilot Station and Toksook Bay. The sisters also have reserved one week’s vacation a year to travel instate.
“It kind of dawned on us, here we are living in the state and we don’t know anything about the Native people or their customs or history or anything like that. We thought we should bring the kids because they should know something about our state and Native people,” Ross said.
This summer will mark the parish’s ninth trip to a Bush village to conduct religious education programs. About six to eight church youth generally go on the 10-day trips, and the entire parish helps support the program through various fundraisers, including an annual Mardi Gras celebration and Christmas cookie sale.
In about 1980 the parish started supporting a mission in Korogocho slum in Nairobi, Kenya. The mission specifically focuses on helping handicapped children, although the mission has grown to basically adopt the entire slum. Getting children an education is a huge priority for the people there, the sisters said.
“It’s very important to see that real poverty, when you see how they have to live,” Barina said. “The big thing that is so important to them is having their children go to school. Education is a way to step up in society over there.”
Experiences like that have left the sisters knowing that, even though they are technically retiring, they won’t stop working.
“Exactly what we’ll do, we don’t know. We’re getting a lot of suggestions,” Ross said.
“We’ll leave that to the Lord. There is still plenty of work to do,” Barina said.
“I suppose we’ll be semiretired. I don’t suppose we’ll be sitting around twiddling our thumbs,” Ross said.
Although it will be difficult to leave, the time seemed right to retire, the sisters said, especially with new priests from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate now based in Soldotna.
“We’ve been here 30 years, and we weren’t 16 when we came,” Ross said.
“One of the parishioners said to me, ‘You don’t want to be carried out feet first,’” Barina said. “I think they all realize it’s time. Of course, we’ll miss them. If you’ve been in any place a long time it will be difficult to leave.”
The sisters plan to drive cross-country in mid-June, visiting friends and family on their way back to their respective orders. They said they’re looking forward to the trip and in being back with their orders, although before they can start new chapters in their lives, they must first turn the page on their current one.
“It’s hard to leave, I’ll tell you that,” Ross said. “We’ve enjoyed the people, I think, number one. The scenery.”
“And the variety,” Barina added.
“It’s been a chance to learn a lot, not only about the state, but the people,” Ross said.
Those lessons are the ones that will carry on.
“They started so much outreach and have recast the role of the church as one of service and loving inclusion. We just love them so much because they are so open,” said Barbara Christian. “They truly are supportive, truly wonderful people.”
Jennifer Ransom, with the Catholic Anchor newspaper, contributed to this story.
The Mouth of The Kenai 