Haley Katzfey, Missionary

Saints John & Paul Parish,

Thank you, for the many prayers and gracious donations. I went into this trip with an open mind, having no expectations, thinking nothing could outdo the previous missions I had gone on. Little did I know God had some amazing things lined up for me. The first day I went to a campsite located just behind the casino. I walked in with little to no previous knowledge on how bad the garbage would be. As we all walked forward the smell of the garbage hit us and now we were starting to see how much of a problem garbage is in our city. We continued to work for a couple hours, picking up sopping wet blankets which felt like 100 pounds. We hauled them down to the pickup location and went back to eat lunch.

No one from our group could stop talking about we had just done. My friend Lauren and I were talking about what the man who had lived there would think as we just moved 65 bags of garbage from his living space. My initial thought was “he will be thrilled, there's no more stench, its clean.” As we kept talking we realized how this man could either be thrilled or annoyed because now there's a spot right next to him for someone else to live. As this was running through my head I kept thinking what if he doesn’t want neighbors. This thought of did we really help or did we do more harm than good kept me up that night. I saw this man a couple days later and heard him thanking us for removing all the garbage from his living space.

For 5 days we stayed 20 minutes, maybe not even, from our homes and for me it felt just as if I were in Honduras. I completely forgot I was in Pittsburgh. This trip has impacted me, it’s shown me just outside of our homes poverty is occurring and most times these people come from the same backgrounds as us. Its shown me to never take my life for granted and to trust in God and everything will eventually work out. Thank you to anyone who has helped me in being able to experience this incredible mission.

—Haley Katzfey, Missionary