Mission work is Lifelong commitment
By Ann C. Piasecki

For Joliet's Natalie Bayci, the word "missions" is more than just a thought or even a two-week stint standing shoulder-to-shoulder with someone down on his or her luck. It's become a lifelong commitment to helping those living in desperate poverty around the globe.

At the age of 80, this 5-foot-2-inch dynamo not only coordinates university mission trips for the Diocese of Joliet's Peace and Social Justice Ministry, she also actively joins in, lending a pastoral spirit with her open hands. She performs with a smile whatever mundane task she encounters, including bathing babies while their mothers benefit from make-shift clinic services, handing out food, or visiting the homebound.

Having completed nearly 30 mission trips to far-flung places such as Sucre, Bolivia and the Philippines, she also travels with college students and at-large mission goers—the term for which is missioners. read more