Kenn and Laura Cramer organized a highway cleanup to dispose of roadside trash on the Ft. Belknap Reservation.
SAFE program developed to improve the lives of the people they serve.
Kenn Cramer enjoys working out in the new “home gym” in the rectory basement.
By Judy Held, President, Catholic Foundation of Eastern Montana
Something wonderful happened about this time last year in our diocese, and I’d like to tell you about it. First, do you know about Catholic Extension? This wonderful organization has been helping poor mission dioceses across the United States since 1905. According to their website, “a ‘mission diocese’ is one where the faith is thriving but the resources are scarce.” Catholic Extension believes our diocese fits that bill. Fortunately, we receive their generous support each year, helping with everything from ensuring we have priests in our rural communities to renovating and furnishing our churches. We have a lot for which to thank them!
Part of the reason they are a great organization is that they also have an amazing group of employees. One day last December, the office phone rang; it was Rob Anderson, Director of Mission at Catholic Extension, calling with some exciting news! He wanted to let me know that the good people who work at Catholic Extension had selected our diocese as the recipient of a special Advent Gift.
Rob explained that since 2011, instead of doing Christmas staff gift exchanges with coworkers, Catholic Extension employees instead elect to use what they would have spent on those activities to provide a special gift to somewhere in the mission dioceses that Catholic Extension serves. Nominations are collected from staff members who submit a few sentences about a person, place, or ministry in a mission diocese that they have visited or gotten to know over the last year, writing about what really touched them and why that place would make a great recipient of their Advent Staff Gift. “Those nominations are shared and we then vote among our staff for which nominee will be the recipient of that year’s gift. Each year our goal is for 100% staff participation in the gift, so that it truly can be a gift from all of Catholic Extension’s staff. The final grant amount is then provided as a Christmas gift above and beyond any other funding from Catholic Extension to the diocese,” Rob said.
Rob told me the “winners” in our diocese were Kenn and Laura Cramer, Parish Life Coordinators on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, based at St. Paul Mission in Hays.
Laura remembers their response when Catholic Extension called them, “Surprised, for sure! We were, like, how do they know who we are? We were definitely honored that we had been recognized, even though we’d just been in our ministry for a couple of months – we started in September and were only four months in. We figured they were mostly inspired by our decision to leave our comfortable life in Denver and move to the reservation.”
It turns out, Laura was correct. “Kenn and Laura’s story was especially inspiring to our staff last year because of their sacrifice and dedication to making a difference for the people at the Fort Belknap Reservation,” Rob said. “Catholic Extension has provided support for ministry at the reservation as early as 1989, and the Cramer’s willingness to give up everything they had to be a valuable presence of the Catholic Church to the people in this very isolated area really spoke to us about the mission of what Catholic Extension is meant to support.”
The gift was given to St. Paul Mission, for needs to be determined by Kenn and Laura.
“We select an Advent Staff Gift recipient without any restrictions or obligations placed on the funding. We want the money to truly be an unrestricted gift that the recipient can use in whatever way they want,” Rob explained. Once the Cramers were selected, Catholic Extension arranged a time for them to call in and speak to a gathering of their staff over the phone and talk about what kind of things the gift would make possible for them. “This was really special for our staff to hear and I think inspired people to give even more.”
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