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Arlington diocesan mission produces medical vocation

Katie Scott | Catholic Herald

Yohanser Contreras (left) chats with his father, Bolivar, April 19 during a visit to Pedro Santana, the Dominican village where he grew up. Contreras hopes to return to his homeland and provide medical care after completing his studies in the United States.

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Yohanser Contreras grew up in Pedro Santana, a small village
in the Dominican Republic, with no running water, spotty
electricity and no telephone service. Limited opportunities
for employment in the village often led to pervasive poverty
and alcoholism.

But Pedro Santana also was where Contreras grew strong in his
Catholic faith and felt the life-changing generosity of
people he’d never met.

Due to the
Arlington diocesan mission
, with parishes in
Bánica and Pedro Santana, “I was given not only the
opportunity to dream, but to achieve a dream – a dream that
seemed impossible,” said Contreras.

The 29-year-old and 20 other young Dominicans received
scholarships through a program organized by Father Patrick L.
Posey, pastor of St. James Church in Falls Church and
director of the diocesan Mission Office, who spent eight
years serving the mission.

The scholarship enabled Contreras to attend medical school in
Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic, and this
summer he will begin a medical residency in internal medicine
at Providence Hospital in Washington.

“The only thing Father Posey asked of (scholarship
recipients) was to help others in the future, and that’s what
I plan to do,” said Contreras.

Learning to dream

Contreras spent most of his childhood living with his
grandparents after his mother died when he was 2 and his
father was forced to leave Pedro Santana to find work.

As a teenager, Contreras was active in the church, helping
with catechism classes and assisting at Mass as an altar
server. When Father Posey came to the mission in 1995,
Contreras sometimes joined him on treks to the surrounding
mountain communities. The two diocesan mission parishes serve
more than 70 small chapels in the mountainous region along
the Haitian boarder.

During these trips, Contreras witnessed simple health issues
that, because of insufficient medical care, became
life-threatening. A sonogram, for example, could have
prevented the death of a breech baby, and the proper
medication could have cured what became a fatal case of
pneumonia.

These observations, along with the death of his mother,
grandmother and two aunts from cancer, “awakened my desire to
pursue a career in medicine,” said Contreras.

A motivational program for youths started by Father Posey
also provided an important stepping stone along Contreras’
road to medical school.

Growing up surrounded by poverty and a lack of opportunity,
“you’re not exposed to different possibilities … and
it’s difficult to have a goal, a vision for life,” Contreras
said. “When you don’t see anything different, you just follow
what is around you.”

The weekend motivational mini-retreats, which featured a
variety of speakers, challenged participants to consider what
brought them joy and how they could share their gifts with
others.

“It was a place where we learned to have dreams for the
future,” said Contreras.

Talents at the service of God

After returning to the United States, Father Posey created
the college scholarships in part out of an already existing
fund started by Msgr. Thomas Cassidy, then pastor of St.
Francis de Sales Church in Purcellville. Msgr. Cassidy, who
had served in the Dominican Republic in the 1990s, began the
Preferential Option for the Poor Fund to aid the needy in the
United States and developing countries. Father Posey was
named pastor of St. Francis in 2003, and with the support of
parishioners, the fund was redirected to aid the Dominican
college students. St. James Church and private donors also
funded the program.

Although the scholarships provided the opportunity to attend
college, earning a degree meant “dealing with a lot of
challenges,” said Father Posey.

Students rented small rooms, which often lacked privacy, and
took a nearly hourlong bus ride into Santo Domingo for
classes. They also worked 40 hours a week in order to accrue
some savings. Contreras was in class from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30
p.m. and then worked from 4 to 10 p.m.

And it was a big transition from high school to college. The
village school was a cinderblock building with no computers
and one globe. “Things we just assume all classrooms have
just did not exist,” said Father Posey.

Father Posey said it has been “beautiful to see” so many
people coming together to support Contreras and his 20
classmates, who overcame countless hurdles and graduated with
college degrees.

“Because so many people had one mind and one heart” –
offering financial assistance, advice and networking – the
students were able to achieve their dreams, he said.

In return, the graduates are coming back and helping youths
in their communities.

“That’s the ultimate success in the formation of the whole
person – mind, body and spirit,” Father Posey said.

With the support of St. James Church, Contreras has spent the
past three years in the United States preparing for and
taking five grueling residency admissions exams. He was one
of seven applicants out of 1,000 to earn a spot at
Providence.

Contreras will spend a month in Pedro Santana before starting
his residency, and he hopes to complete a fellowship in
oncology before returning to the Dominican Republic to help
in whatever way he can.

“I believe in God deeply, and a way that we can show God’s
love to people is to use our talents to help them. Jesus took
care of people – that’s the example He preached with His life
… and that’s the example I hope to follow.”

Diocesan mission scholarship efforts

The first pastor of the 23-year-old diocesan mission in the
Dominican Republic, Father Gerry Creedon, established college
scholarships for local students, and subsequent pastors have
developed the program as they’ve seen fit.

Father Patrick L. Posey, pastor of the mission from 1995 to
2003, said that while each priest’s approach is different,
all want scholarship recipients to be self-sufficient and to
give back to their communities.

Father Keith M. O’Hare, pastor of the mission since 2008,
created a scholarship program called Jóvenes
Misioneros (“Young Missionaries”), and 18 students currently
study courses in Santo Domingo on the weekends and serve as
missionaries on weekends.

A new scholarship at Marymount University in Arlington,
spearheaded by President Matthew D. Shank in collaboration
with the diocesan Mission Office, will enable an additional
student to receive a college degree. The scholarship
recipient will take English classes and testing this fall and
enroll at Marymount next spring.

How to help

To support the Arlington diocesan mission in the Dominican
Republic and the Jóvenes Misioneros scholarship
program, go here and click on
“Donate.”

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