Notes from the Field - After graduating from college in the spring of 2015, my husband, Ian, and I moved from Michigan to Kermit, West Virginia, to live and work at the Big Laurel Learning Center where we both help Sr. Kathy O'Hagan and Sr. Gretchen Shaffer explore ways to make it more sustainable by helping to host various work groups throughout the year.

GSR Today - Right now, Missouri executes death row inmates faster than any other state — reportedly about one inmate a month, outpacing even Texas’ per capita execution rate. Last week, prominent death penalty opponent St. Joseph Sr. Helen Prejean was in Kansas City to discuss Missouri’s capital punishment situation. 

Sr. Elizabeth Tran Thi Quynh Giao, former provincial superior of Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in Vietnam, has spent more than 15 years training and building the Apostolic Institute of the Annunciation. The institute aims to give chances to poor, uneducated women in northern Vietnam so they can become nuns and serve other people. It was founded by the late Cardinal Archbishop Paul Joseph Pham Dinh Tung of Hanoi when Vietnam started to open its doors to the outside world and ease its religious policies.

"Religious vocation is a gift from God, and God always calls, faithfully and constantly. The crisis of religious life is not a decrease in vocation. Rather, the crisis of religious life is that we do not know how to receive God’s gift."

Twenty years ago I was in a small group visiting with geologian Thomas Berry. We got to talking about the deplorable state of the planet. Our stories, statistics and images of widespread destruction, abject poverty, species loss and war piled high on the table around which we crowded. Many heavy sighs. “It’s hard not to despair,” someone said. I nodded slowly. Thomas cut in: “Despair is a luxury we can’t afford right now.”      

"Bless the waters that quench the thirst of the land. Bless the people who suffer raging storms. Bless those who use water wisely tending the future."

GSR Today - Afghanistan earthquake damage recovery is slow; Syrian Catholic priest released from ISIS captivity; honoring Charity Sr. Patricia Wittberg and the late Mercy Sr. Mary Ann Walsh.

Humility Sr. Anne Victory and some of her sisters started the Cleveland-based Collaborative to End Human Trafficking in 2007 after attending a conference on immigration and trafficking. The collaborative works with eight other agencies, including the FBI, to offer in-services and workshops and to provide speakers and volunteers. The idea is to create a safety net for those being trafficked. The collaborative also works to raise awareness among professionals like nurses, social workers, educators and local law enforcement officers.

NCR preview - Newly released U.S. Census data confirms that the country continues to face a national poverty crisis “straining millions of families and stalling our nation’s prosperity and growth,” said Dominican Sr. Donna Markham, president and chief executive of Catholic Charities USA,  in a press briefing Sept. 17.