The Catholic School of Evangelization in St. Malo, Manitoba
is a camp and retreat centre less than an hour from Winnipeg. It provides full
week summer camps (July & August) and weekend winter camps (February)
for English and French youth ages 8 and up, and is available for groups to rent
privately as well. In its past it had hosted a small number of year-round
students in a discipleship formation program, as well as organizing an outreach
team to go do mission work in various communities and Catholic parishes around
the province of Manitoba, but those programs are currently not operating.
The facility has fourteen air conditioned rooms, each with
anywhere from two to ten bunk beds, and at its maximum capacity can sleep
around eighty people. An older yet functional commercial kitchen allows for
meal preparation, and a modern chapel provides a setting for spiritual
nourishment as well. Opportunities for outdoor activities are numerous, with
the large backyard and an expansive school field next door. Just a short walk
across the highway one finds a Lourdes grotto on the river bank, along with a
provincial park with a beautiful beach on St. Malo Lake.
My family has had many positive retreat and camp experiences
at the CSE. When they posted in the spring of 2018 that they were looking for a
new Missionary Family to take up residence there, both my wife and I heard the
call independently of each other. Upon discussing it together, we were somewhat
surprised to learn that the other was open to it. We discerned (that was a big
process, which I won't get into detail about here), applied, went through some
interviews, had background checks done, and were chosen by the CSE’s director
in consultation with the staff and board. We've committed to serve through the
end of June 2020.
We have a house in Winnipeg, and the perfect renters came
across our path in a way only explainable by the existence of a God who
orchestrates events to facilitate obedience to his will.
In addition to hearing this call to serve as Missionary
Family, we also heard the call to have another child (our eighth) …. because
this wouldn’t be hard enough already! We answered that call too, and Raphael
was born on March 30, 2019. We had him baptized here in the CSE’s chapel on
Easter Sunday to cap off the annual Triduum Retreat there. To the best of our
knowledge, this was the first baptism ever to happen in the chapel since it was
built nearly twenty years ago. He's probably also the first baby ever to take a bath in their kitchen.
The Missionary Family serves two roles for the CSE. The
prime duty is to be a welcoming presence for retreat groups throughout the
off-season by preparing the facility for their arrival and supporting them in
their time in the building. We are not expected to do the cooking or cleaning
for the groups - we simply stock the washrooms, unlock the doors, show them around,
confirm they understand the commercial dishwashing procedures, be available for
support as they use the facility, and do a final walkthrough to ensure all is
in good order when they leave.
The secondary duty is general upkeep of the building and yard,
requiring a total of 20 collective hours of work every week. The CSE staff
budget is slim, so a formal custodian isn’t possible, and there is an added
benefit for security and insurance to have people living on site. Snowblowing
the parking lot is of prime importance in our Canadian winters, and rooms need
a fresh coat of paint from time to time, but beyond just maintenance we are
also doing some proactive beautification. Our eldest daughter is a gifted
artist and has been using her painting skills to adorn the doors of each dorm
room with a painting of the saint for whom the room is named.
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| Our daughter Libby, painting the door on the St. Agnes room |
In return for providing this service, the family is allowed
to live rent-free at the CSE, occupying a few of the rooms. There are ten
people in our family, and we chose to live in the older suite of four bedrooms on the second floor. These are more removed from the main common areas of
the facility, making for a quieter environment to have our young children in
when there are groups here.
The summer is the CSE’s peak camp season, and they need us
to vacate temporarily to make room for the campers. They allow us to keep our
personal items in one locked bedroom, and they have a storage area we can use
as well. At the time of this writing, we are living away from the CSE while the
summer camps program is running. A nearby family we know through mutual
acquaintances had planned a European vacation, spanning exactly when we needed
to be out of the CSE. They have a small hobby farm with laying hens requiring
daily care, and our availability to house-sit was as good for this family
as it was for us. Checkmate, atheists!
In a few weeks, camps will end and we’ll be back there for
another year… and after that, who knows? God seems to light our path only in
small increments.
