Residents in this diocese in western New York respond to a question asked of Jesus.

FOR VIDEO OF BUFFALO IN MISSION (including twinned parish work in Haiti)        CLICK HERE

As you enter Buffalo, a sign greets you: “City of Good Neighbors.” And so it is. Even as the city in western New York has fallen on hard economic times with the closing of its major steel mills and industrial factories in recent years, the generosity of its residents to neighbors near and far has been undampened. “Buffalonians have come to realize their neighbors are worldwide,” says Eileen Charleton, a Buffalo native and former Maryknoll lay missioner.

Across the diocese, people are extending a hand to the poor in places like Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan. At the same time, they are welcoming those seeking refuge among them. As Christians become increasingly aware of their baptismal call to serve others, Buffalonians exemplify mission as being good neighbors. Ann Marie Zon is one such neighbor. She has turned her home in the northeast suburb of Amherst into a center of mission outreach to the people of Nicaragua. Standing in her garage amid mounds of donations destined for the Central American nation, she tells visitors how the Nicaragua Mission Project has grown. “In 1982 my father sent 22 boxes of school supplies for the children I was teaching in Nicaragua,” says Zon, who now yearly sends 42,000 boxes of clothing, household items, canned goods and other necessities—all donated by her Buffalo neighbors—to the Nicaraguan diocese of Grenada. “It is truly a miracle,” says the former Felician Sister, who alternates her time between Nicaragua and Buffalo, where she visits parishes, schools and civic organizations to raise people’s awareness of the needs of poor Nicaraguans. “I am overwhelmed by the response.”

Every Tuesday her home is abuzz with volunteers sorting, storing and packing the goods their neighbors have dropped off for shipment to Nicaragua. Several Buffalonians have visited the people they have helped and learned much in return. “The Church is alive in Nicaragua,” Zon says. “The people have nothing except what you really need.” In south Buffalo, in the town of West Falls, Frank Lewandowski, Cheryl Kelly and fellow members of St. George parish have been similarly enriched through their mission to Haiti. It began in 1993 when St. George Church joined the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas and was partnered with St. Michael the Archangel parish in Coq Chante. When St. George parishioners visited thoseneighbors, they found them living in one-room dwellings and suffering from malnutrition and disease because of the lack of medical care. “Amid all the problems, the people had a remarkably strong faith that God is with them,” says Lewandowski. “Our goal was to strengthen our spiritual bonds with them and support their other needs as well.”

“We consulted with Maryknoll’s Cross-Cultural Services on how best to help the people,” says Kelly.

Over the years St. George parishioners recruited medical teams from their area to do shortterm care in their sister parish. Eventually another Buffalo parish, Nativity of Our Lord in Orchard Park, joined the twinning project.

With an annual budget of $30,000 for their Haitian neighbors, the two Buffalo parishes have been able to open a medical center at St. Michael’s staffed year-round by a local doctor, nurse and four healthcare workers. Partnering with Food for the Poor, they opened a parish school for 250 students in grades one through nine. St. George/Nativity children have become pen pals with the Haitian students while older parishioners continue to visit Coq Chante to help where needed. “What God has given us is to share,” says Lewandowski.

Sharing resources is the modus operandi of this diocese, despite the fact that Buffalo is ranked behind Detroit and Cleveland as the third poorest large U.S. city, says Buffalo native and Maryknoll promoter Paul Bork. The city’s population is 260,000, with a per capita income of $17,000. “The people here have always been generous in giving to those less fortunate, including the people Maryknoll missioners serve,” says Bork. Administering the Maryknoll Mission Education and Promotion Office here, he continues the Society’s presence as a service catalyst that began in 1942. Seventeen Maryknoll priests, nine Maryknoll Sisters and three Maryknoll lay missioners all got their overseas mission vocations in the Buffalo Diocese.

Buffalo’s Bishop Edward Kmiec, who serves on Maryknoll’s bishops advisory board, is proud of the mission-mindedness of his people not only in reaching out to neighbors overseas but also to newcomers in their midst. He cites the ministry of Father Ivan Trujillo to Hispanic migrant workers in the diocese. A growing community of Catholic Koreans, he adds, now has its own parish, St. Andrew Kim, served by a native Korean priest, Father Jae Hun You, who grew up in a Maryknoll parish. “When we were looking for a place to build a chapel where we could worship in our own culture, the Buffalo Diocese gave us space and didn’t take a dime from us,” says grateful parishioner Paul Choi.

And the Newman Center at Buffalo State College, Kmiec says, calls students “to nurture development for all people...”

Perhaps Buffalo’s most obvious efforts to “welcome the stranger” can be seen in its outreach to refugees, many of whom come from Africa. “In recent years, Catholic Charities has settled more than 500 refugees in Buffalo,” says Kmiec. “They come from places like Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan. Our office has a staff of 25 people who try to get education, employment and general orientation for the refugees as well as housing. And there is the great work that the parishes are doing.” He points to St. Martin de Porres, a predominantly African-American parish on the east side of the diocese.

Father Ron Sajdak, pastor of St. Martin de Porres, explains the parish’s outreach to African refugees, Reaching Out 2 Africa (ROTA), which he started in 1995 after meeting a Sudanese refugee in Buffalo and being sensitized to refugees’ plight. “Our first goal is humanitarian assistance involving as many parishioners as possible in direct service to our newfriends,” says Sajdak, explaining that his parishioners have helped prepare apartments for refugees and even met them at the airport. “Our second goal is assisting African clergy visiting Buffalo. Our third goal is helping the refugees’ homelands, such as we are doing now in Sudan.”

The church itself, replete with symbols of Africa, is a sign of welcome to those far from their homelands. The Sunday liturgy resounds with African rhythms as a Gospel choir praises God in spiritual song. Longtime Buffalonians and recently arrived refugees embrace each other in an extended exchange of peace.

Who is my neighbor? If asked that question today, Jesus might well point to the good neighbors of the Buffalo Diocese and say, “Go and do the same.”

FOR VIDEO OF BUFFALO IN MISSION (including twinned parish work in Haiti) CLICK HERE.