Ten-year-old Luke Luttinen walks alongside seventeen-year-old Kyle DiSalle during missions.

By Kelly Luttinen

August 5, 2010. Pontiac, Michigan -- On one of the hottest days of the summer in the metro-Detroit area, 17 missionary families brought the message of Christ’s love to a local neighborhood.  At the request of Fr. Jim Kean, pastor of St. Damien of Molokai parish, the Regnum Christi families visited about 100 homes on the border between the cities of Pontiac and Waterford to invite people to Mass at the local parish.  The missionaries also represented the parish earlier in the year, inviting local residents to Holy Week services.

During a morning Mass on July 17, 2010, Fr. Jose Rivas, LC, commissioned the missionaries at Everest Academy in Clarkston, Michigan and blessed the crosses they wore around their necks.  Then the missionaries braved over 90 degree temperatures and barking dogs to go door to door to visit residents.  Most were “warm and welcoming” according to those who participated. 

	Missionary families walk the neighborhood in 90+ degree heat.

Though mostly Baptist, some Catholic residents who had not settled into a parish received helpful information, including the bus route to one of St. Damien’s three church locations. 

The missionary children also found a dying bird in one of the resident’s yards that they placed in a small box and cared for during its last hours. “It had an injured wing,” said 10-year-old missionary Luke Luttinen.  “It made us feel good to take care of it.”

For more information on participating in the future Detroit missions, contact Kim and Tony DiSalle at missionfamilydetroit@gmail.com.