Sprucing Up Dallas

"Ecumenical" is the way Fr. John Stack, SJ, describes his unusual ministry in Dallas that Company first covered in the Winter 1994 issue. Every fall since 1987, Fr. Stack and many volunteers have been heading out to a section of Dallas to plant trees. When they started, the group planted about 88 trees on Jesuit High's campus.

Since then, hundreds of volunteers have been gathering every year on a November Sunday to plant hundreds of trees.

Fr. Stack confesses he's not sure where all the volunteers learn about the planting of the donated trees but says that somehow word gets out. Volunteers come from synagogues and churches; high schools, including students and staff from Jesuit High; girl and boy scout troops, among others.

The project began as a way to celebrate Thanksgiving, says Fr. Stack. The community does give thanks for the beauty the thousands of trees have added to their city.

Jesuit Refugee Service Starts Preschools for Burundians

A Jesuit Refugee Service project to educate refugee Burundian children that started less than two years ago in Tanzania has enjoyed success and has now opened three preschools.

"Each school is a secure, attractive, and stimulating environment where children can be children and grow and learn as children should," says JRS education resource person for Africa, Lolin Menendez, RSCJ.

By the end of the year two more schools will be built, making a total of five schools that will educate 2,000 preschoolers.

Festival of Fins: Loyola University's Iggy Fish

First, it was Chicago with its Cows on Parade, hundreds of them, painted and decorated by artists. Then, Cincinnati had the Big Pig Gig; and now New Orleans has fish, and Loyola University is making a splash.

Art student Valeria Kremser '00 entered her fish in the Festival of Fins that has over 200 sculptured fish on display along the streets of New Orleans.

Valeria's entry, Iggy Boogie Woogie, is a reference to Dutch artist Piet Mondrian's painting Broadway Boogie Woogie. Iggy's colors reflect Loyola-maroon, gold, black, and white.

Iggy's home, until later this fall when the exhibit ends, is fittingly on the median of Loyola Avenue in the downtown section of the Big Easy.

St. Ignatius College Prep Students Travel to Ireland

Darren and James from Derry in Northern Ireland loved hanging out with Brian Cotter and Alexandra Russell from St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco when they traveled to Derry.

Brian and Alexandra went there with five other students and two staff members as part of the school's Faith Tour program, which gives students an opportunity to experience a culture and socioeconomic group different from their own and to work and live simply in a faith community.

The seven students and their two adult leaders lived at St. Eugene's parish hall, cooked most of their meals, and slept in sleeping bags on the floor. The group worked at a play school for both Catholic and Protestant children, at a human rights center, and at a youth club that provides a safe, drug-free atmosphere for teenagers and offers computer training.

Ignatian Youth Festival and Pilgrimage

To kick off the World Youth Day gathering of over 1 million people in Rome this past summer, Italian Jesuit scholastics Andrea Macchia and Robert Maryks organized an Ignatian Youth Pilgrimage and Festival, with 3,000 young people participating.

The pilgrims, who started out from six cities in Italy, converged in Rome, with their progress covered daily on Vatican Radio. Each of the seven walking days had a theme based on the spiritual experience of Ignatius and was captured on video clips that were shown in Rome during the festival.

The festival, opened by Cardinal Carlo M. Martini, SJ, was attended by the youth who came from about 25 countries from all over the world.

Jesuit Alums Part of Presidential Politics in Central and South America

Recent elections in Mexico and Peru have involved candidates who studied at Jesuit schools in the United States.

This summer's presidential elections in Mexico saw Vicente Fox elected when he defeated Francisco Labastida of PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which had ruled Mexico since 1929. Fox attended Campion Jesuit High in Wisconsin for a year in 1956 to work on his English skills.

In Peru, University of San Francisco alumnus and economist Alejandro Toledo '71 ran for the presidency. Though he did not win, he emerged as a contender, rallying the support of millions of Peruvians and garnering enough votes to force a runoff.

After the first round of elections, Toledo received enough support to force the runoff with incumbent Alberto Fujimori. Toledo, though, withdrew from the May runoff amid accusations of a fix. The United States and other governments have refused to recognize the runoff, which gave the victory to Fujimori.

First Full Translation of Bible into Nepali Completed

The complete translation of the Bible into Nepali has been published. It is a project started in the late '60s by Fr. Francis Farrell, SJ, who, with help from many others, took up this translation task on a full-time basis.

The first major Bible work in Nepali, the New Testament, appeared in 1975. Fr. Farrell died in 1990, but the work was continued by Fr. William Bourke, SJ. With over 4,000 proper names and places in the Bible, settling on satisfactory spellings of these names was one of the first tasks facing the translators. The principle they used was to keep the Nepali spelling as close as possible to the Hebrew pronunciation, which they hoped would not only make pronouncing easier but also help to bring out the meaning of the name itself.

One of the translators, H. B. Chettri, said this of the experience: "Although I am a Hindu, I was deeply touched by the Word of God while translating the Bible, and I was more and more encouraged to do so."

Loyola Academy's Alumni and Students Keep on Marching

Loyola Academy (Wilmette, Ill.) grads James Mayer '83 and Thomas Kleeman '69 (in baseball caps) joined Dion Sarthy '00, Michael Welsh-Phillips '00, and Emily Ward '00, to make music at Loyola's homecoming game last fall. The "oldsters" were among 80 band alumni who joined ranks with the current marching band during halftime.

Last October the marching alumni reunited. They have plans for a Big Band Night, swing dancing, a mass, band rehearsal, and a cookout.

Loyola's band toured Spain recently, playing music by American composers. One highlight was a performance of a composition based on the Spiritual Exercises by composer Reber Clark.

Boston College Opens School Year with Ignatian Awareness Week

Boston College students made sandwiches for a homeless shelter in Boston as part of a week-long celebration of the school's Jesuit heritage. The fifth annual Ignatian Awareness Week was sponsored by the Ignatian Society, a group of Jesuit high school grads at Boston College. On-campus events range from a mass and reception to seminars on topics such as Jesuit education.

"We let people know what it means to be part of a Jesuit university," said past Ignatian Society President Andrew Curran. "We want them to know just what a Jesuit education means, what makes it special."

Creighton University students LeAnne Mistysyn and Brian Anzur, faculty member Kenneth Wise, and students Jill Wittrock and Barbara Masilko took some time to enjoy the scenery outside Cairo. They were there as a delegation to the International Model United Nations conference in Cairo and won two awards: best prepared delegation and best male delegate, which went to Anzur.

The conference strives to help students develop knowledge and skills in areas such as foreign policy, public speaking, and conference diplomacy.