We have been kept very busy around the United States and Canada over the last few months, but now the Institute’s ministry is beginning to expand beyond North America. Our associate director, Sherry Weddell, will be going down under to speak about lay participation in the Church’s mission at the annual Eucharistic Conference in New Zealand on April 16–17 and 23–24. Sherry has also been asked by an Australian pastor to teach a gifts workshop in Sydney on May 1.
Meanwhile, Father John Nwanze, OP, a Nigerian Dominican currently working in Seattle, attended a Called & Gifted Workshop and became excited about the pastoral implications of gifts discernment. Father John spent time with Institute Director Father Michael Sweeney, OP, to find out more about gifts discernment before he returned to Nigeria for a visit. There he plans to give a presentation on the Institute’s work to Dominican students. We were further encouraged recently when a graduate of the Spiritual Gifts Discernment Program ordered a Called & Gifted tape set and a number of Catholic Spiritual Gifts Inventories to send to a priest-friend in Tanzania.