After nine months of missionary work in the North West Region of Guyana among the Amerindian people, Therrol Joseph, now 20, returned home with his two companions Bridget Edmund and Joseph Wells, on June 16. They had been sent to Guyana as part of an Antilles Episcopal Commission (AEC) youth missionary initiative. Catholic News spoke with Therrol about his experiences.

CN: How did you become involved in the AEC youth mission?
Therrol: It was not planned. I had no pre-knowledge of it. I was going through a rough time and messing up in certain areas of my life, especially my studies.

I went in with my Mommy to speak with Kyle. (Kyle Dardaine is one of the leaders of GANG, acronym for God’s Anointed New Generation and coordinator of the AEC Missionary Institute.)

Kyle asked Mommy to be house-mother for the Missionary Institute. She accepted. Later on she found out that one of the applicants from Suriname was unable to attend and asked whether I would like to participate in the formation programme. So I said, “Yes”. This was two days before the programme began. It was understood that I would not be going on mission.

Therrol Joseph

So I spent the six weeks at the Institute. Afterwards I said to Kyle: “I feel this burning desire to go on mission, I know I wasn’t supposed to go but I really want to do this.”

He said to me “you go and pray to God about it.” I remember one Sunday at Mass, at St John’s (Diego Martin) saying to God, “if you really want me to go on mission, you have to tell me today.”

I was waiting for the answer in the opening song, waiting for Fr Paul to say something, waiting for some confirmation. … I had already put the thought out of my mind, saying to myself, “well, you done know you not going anywhere,” but towards the end of Mass a lady came up to do the announcements, and the very last thing she said was: “God is not concerned about ability but availability. He will give you the proper gifts to attend to his vineyard.”

At that time I felt my belly turning and all the weird stuff I probably never felt before. I said, “Thank you Lord,” I felt that I got my answer because for me not having the ability was my greatest fear.

CN: How many participated in the training programme?
Therrol: Twelve of us from all over the Caribbean: Barbados, Grenada, Suriname, St Vincent, and three of us from Trinidad and Tobago.

CN: How many actually went on to do missionary work in Guyana?
Therrol: Three of us. I was the only one from Trinidad; the two others were from Tobago.

CN: What is the ultimate goal of the missionary activity?
Therrol: One of our slogans is: “Go where you are sent”, but really and truly it was to get youths involved, to get youths from the Caribbean to minister to other young people.

CN: Did you remain in one area for the duration of your stay in the interior?
Therrol:  We were sent to the North West of Guyana, to Region One, one of the better-developed interiors of Guyana. We stayed for the first four months, mainly in Hosororo.

Our programme was not well developed at this time. But after four months we each worked in different communities although continuing to live in Hosororo. My community was Koberimo.

CN: How far were these communities from Hosororo?
Therrol: About three or four miles.

CN: Not far, then?
Therrol: No. But the only way to get to my community was by paddle-boat canoe, paddling upstream for half an hour. Joseph and Bridget (Therrol’s colleagues) had a good bit of walking to do to get to their communities.

CN: What did your ministry entail?
Therrol: The two Filipino priests in charge of the parish gave us particular assignments. Bridget and myself were put in charge of youth and liturgy, while Joseph was put in charge of catechesis.

I helped with the altar servers and Bridget who had been a choir member assisted the choirs. Also each of us in our own communities would do home visitation. We would also assist according to our own circle of interest.

Joseph who had attended Bible study classes held Bible study sessions. I, with my interest in sports, organised activities for the different communities and villages to come together.

We would also help out in any way possible—on the farm or in any other way we felt called. But our programme was first of all youth ministry, house visitation and liturgy.

CN: With all these activities and only three of you, it seems there had to be a bit of criss-crossing?
Therrol: Yes. But, people would often come together at a specific point for these activities.

CN: What was the most challenging aspect of mission for you?
Therrol: The most difficult part for me was getting accustomed to the culture and way of life. It was very different to how I knew it. Having to travel on tractors, buses, canoes … It was a whole different lifestyle.

Getting accustomed to that lifestyle, or getting comfortable in it was really very difficult. Especially, around Christmas and New Years’ when you were accustomed to certain things and you had to adjust to this setting. I think that was the most challenging.

CN: What was the most enjoyable part of this experience?
Therrol: I remember on the first Sunday when we arrived we had some praise and worship with some of the youths, but all of them stood around watching us as if to say “what these people doing?” But then, on the weekend before we left we invited all the youths from the communities to come together at Hosororo.

For me the most enjoyable part was to see them praising God, to see young men singing and dancing. So, I believe the most rewarding part for me was to see that my presence had an effect.

It was perhaps not something really big, but just to see them in this little way opening up to God and being able to praise God was the best part for me.

NEXT WEEK: Getting to know the Amerindians and their way of life.