May 30, 2015

Brotherly visit

Our good friends Bros. John McMahon, FSC and Edward Shields, FSC visited Trinity High School this past Tuesday.  Bros. John and Edwards are Christian Brothers and visit us 2-3 times a year to say hi, and to catch up with our staff and students.  Their spring visit usually is to talk with the students who went on our April vacation mission trips to Guatemala and Montana and to hear about their experience.  A former student of Bro. John's, Richard Shine '69, was also in town so he came to his alma mater to catch up with Bro. John.  This was the first time in 45 years that Mr. Shine has been back on campus as he now lives in Florida.  It turns out that Mr. Shine and his wife do a great deal of work with folks in Guatemala and when he heard the brothers were going to be meeting with our students who went to Guatemala, he asked if he could sit in.

Everyone arrived around 10:15am and I had a class until 11am so they spent time with Mrs. Henning and Mr. Mailloux '72.  During our two lunch periods, the students had their lunch in Campus Ministry and shared about their trips with everyone.  Mr. Shine also spoke about the work he and his wife do in Guatemala, especially focusing on helping people avoid being taken as slaves, either as sex slaves or slaves on farms.  Trafficking is big business in Guatemala (and around the world really) so I commend the Shines for their efforts here.  I wish I could remember the name of their organization.  I wrote it down but I haven't been at school much this week (my wife had a baby at 12:23am on May 27!) but I will find it and post about it later.

After the lunch periods, we chatted for a bit about Mr. Shine's time at Bishop Bradley High School and the Vietnam War era.  It was fascinating to hear a first hand account.  Later, we took everyone out for lunch at the Derryfield Restaurant across the street from Trinity where Mr. Shine, Mr. Mailloux, and Bro. John talked about the old days!  It was a lovely visit and I hope that we can connect with Mr. Shine when we start planning next year's trip to Guatemala.  We are always grateful to Bros. John and Edwards for visiting and always keeping us in mind.    

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