OC students served by beach parish ministry
Robert Rydz was startled last month when he went to a free dinner for foreign students who work in this beach resort. He encountered a line extending 20 yards beyond the front door of Holy Savior Church’s hall.
“It was beyond my expectations,” said Rydz, a graduate student from Poland who is working here for a third summer. “In 2002 it was just seven of us. Two years ago it was more, but it was never as crowded as it is today.”
The line outside was just one sign of the growth of the International Student Outreach Program, a ministry that traces its roots back about seven years.
Almost 500 students came to this year’s first free dinner at Holy Savior; that caused Anne Marie Conestabile, who heads the program, to send for more food, since she had prepared for only 300.
“We have an ocean of students,” she said.
By the end of summer, Conestabile expects the ecumenical outreach program to have helped at least 4,000 students, most from Eastern Europe. The ministry helps students find jobs and lodging; provides free meals and a chance to socialize; gives out toiletries, bed linens, towels, sunscreen, sunglasses, and even furniture and bicycles; and assists with medical or legal issues.
The outreach has no budget but relies on donations to meet needs, said Father John Klevence, pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea-Holy Savior. Holy Savior and five other churches provide a series of meals. Parishioners at those churches and others, including St. Luke’s in Ocean City, donate toiletries, linens and other materials. Even Conestabile, who works more than full-time during the summer, is a volunteer.
This year the ministry has expanded to Sussex County in Delaware, where the Lewes Rehoboth Association of Churches - including St. Jude’s in Lewes and St. Edmond’s in Rehoboth Beach - is assisting foreign students.
Most of the students earn between $7 and $9 per hour, Conestabile said. They pay $1,700 to $2,000 to come to the U.S. to work. “Their hope is to make some money to pay for their schooling and hopefully to help out their families back home,” she said. Many, she added, come from areas where “there are no jobs for adults, let alone students.”
The ministry to foreign students began about seven years ago when a female Romanian college student knocked on Father Klevence’s rectory door one night about midnight looking for help. Her mother had told her that if she was ever in trouble, “always go to a Catholic church,” Father Klevence recalled.
Over the next few years the parish assisted other students who requested help. In 2002 the parish began its active ministry when Rydz and six other Polish students whose jobs had fallen through came to Holy Savior for Mass.
“Unfortunately, every year, some jobs are not honored and some jobs are not real,” said Conestabile, a St. Mary’s-Holy Savior parishioner. “It falls back on us to do what we can for the kids.”
In the case of Vadim Kazanbaev, a Russian college student, the church ministry is helping him find a job at a restaurant. When he came to the dinner late last month, Kazanbaev was getting desperate. Two weeks after arriving in the United States with promises of a summer job, he was unemployed.
“My owner (his potential employer) said there were too many people to give me a job,” Kazanbaev said. He had just paid his share of the rent where he and some friends live, and was out of money.
Intangible benefits
Father Klevence views the ministry to foreign student-workers as a way to improve relations between people of different faiths and different countries.
“We see the Gospel message in action,” he said. The volunteers from different churches, he said, “may have some theological differences, but we can agree on feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger - what Jesus told us to do.”
And the students gain new insights on Americans. Father Klevence recalled a conversation he had with a Siberian woman last summer.
“The young lady said she was told that Americans were all very rich and greedy, and hated foreigners. She said, ‘I found that is not true by coming to Ocean City and coming to dinners at the church.’”
“We are all brothers and sisters,” Father Klevence said, “and if we can break down some of the assumptions and prejudices that are out there, then the world can be a better place.”
Students at the June 27 dinner appreciated not only the churches’ efforts but the opportunity to meet fellow foreign workers.
“It is very refreshing to feel like someone is grateful you are here,” said waitress Benny Hiraldo, 26, of the Dominican Republic. “We didn’t have anything like this in New Hampshire,” where she worked last summer. “We felt like we were on our own.”
Martha Martsinovich of Belarus, a hotel housekeeper, came to the dinner in Ocean City “to save money and to meet different people. It’s a melting pot, to see all these students.” Her experiences may help in her career. “I am going to be an interpreter and also to help people get used to a new atmosphere - how not to be in culture shock,” she said.
“When I came here I felt, I’m such a small being in this big world,” Martsinovich said. “I don’t know what to do, where to look for a job, where to find accommodations. [But] when I talked to people and ask them, they were friendly. I felt I am not alone here.”
Malgorzata Szczepanska of Poland recalled how Conestabile picked up her and two Russian students at the boardwalk at 3 a.m. one morning this spring after they arrived in Ocean City and put them up overnight at her house. The next day Conestabile helped them find a place to stay.
“She is like a mother for all of us,” said Szczepanska.
One Sunday afternoon last month, Nick Falbodskay and David Sautiev of Russia stopped by the Holy Savior rectory. “I was looking forward to seeing them because I knew them pretty well from last summer,” Father Klevence said, “but I was surprised to have them knocking on the door 12 hours after they had arrived.”
“We love him,” Sautiev said of the pastor.
“We miss home. This is a second home. When we come back, it seems like we didn’t leave this place.”
source: cdow.org
