Hi! My name is Zane and I’m from Homer, NY. I recently graduated this past May from SUNY Oswego with a BA in Spanish and started working part-time as an ESL and Catechesis instructor at a Hispanic parish in the city of Syracuse. While applying for a Fulbright Teaching scholarship and grad school, neither of which truly spoke to me, I was asking God what the next step would be. Upon telling this to a family friend, she pointed me towards Con-solatio, urging me to talk with her nephew who was a missionary in Argentina for two years. Throughout the call I noticed a rare feeling drawing me in, an excitement that comes whenever I start a new chapter in life. This work encompasses some of the things that give me the deepest joy: prayer, service, community, simplicity – and languages!

Throughout this trip on which I’m embarking I’ll be right with the people of Dakar, Senegal in every moment, the joyful ones and those of great sorrow. Jesus did the same, bringing the best wine to a friend’s wedding one day and weeping at the death of his dear friend Lazarus another. I’ll be at the door of the house welcoming those who visit – I’ve heard it’s a place of gathering for everyone – and also there in the moments of deep suffering – sickness, death, loneliness. While I can’t raise the dead or even end the suffering of others, I can be there in the midst of it all to do the work God has entrusted to me and in turn entrust the rest to Him.

I must start this work in complete poverty, and humbly ask you to be a part of the mission by offering what you can, either spiritually or financially. You will all be in my prayers regardless!

“And Jesus wept” – Jn 11:35

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission […] He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.” – St. John Henry Newman