When I think about my years in the missions, it is often the people I remember most clearly.
One of those people is a young altar boy named Dario.
Dario was about eleven years old when he became seriously ill and was admitted to a hospital in Santa Ana, El Salvador. He was well-liked by the other altar boys and by me. Everyone was concerned for him, and we felt helpless watching him struggle.
One Sunday, I decided that perhaps we could do something. I gathered the altar boys together, loaded them into the truck I used to visit the surrounding villages, and we drove to the hospital to see Dario.
We thought we were going to cheer him up.
Instead, he cheered us up.
Dario was weak, but he had not lost his trust in God. He greeted us with the same smile we had always known. Rather than dwelling on his illness, he radiated hope. By the time we left, it was we who had received the greater gift.
Eventually, Dario recovered, and life moved forward. As often happens in missionary work, years passed, and our paths no longer crossed.
Nearly twenty years later, I returned to Ataco, El Salvador.
As I walked through the town, feeling nostalgic about the years I had spent there, Dario suddenly appeared before me. The boy I remembered was now a grown man.
He smiled, and I smiled.
In that moment, I was reminded that we rarely see the full impact of the work God entrusts to us. We plant seeds, offer encouragement, and walk alongside people for a time. Then life carries us in different directions.
As a Franciscan friar, I never became a father or grandfather in the traditional sense. Yet over the years, I was blessed to walk with young people, families, and parish communities. I do not always know what became of the seeds planted in those years, but moments like my reunion with Dario remind me that God continues working long after we have moved on.
St. Anne and St. Joachim are remembered as examples of faith passed from one generation to the next. When I think about the people I met in the missions, I am reminded that we may never know where every seed will take root, but God does. That is enough.
