Evangelization via parachute: another kind of holy war.

May 17, 2011.  You never know what small reminder of faith might be the tipping point for a person who is on the brink of accepting Christ. God can speak through so many means—a conversation, the witness of another person praying, a phrase on the radio, a billboard on the highway… or even a parachuted faith pack floating down in Colombian guerilla territory. Yes, even that.

Divine Mercy writ large

Three weeks before Divine Mercy Sunday, a Regnum Christi women’s team in Cary, North Carolina decided they had to do something to give the Divine Mercy greater visibility, and to spread the message “Jesus, I trust in You.”

As a team resolution, they opted to post a billboard along a major interstate highway in North Carolina. With the clock ticking and three weeks to go, they started fundraising, approaching individuals on a person-to-person level, inviting them to help support the billboard.

“The people who knew about the Divine Mercy devotion were quick to respond,” said Alice DeGennaro, a team member, noting that even fundraising became a means of evangelization, since it was a way to introduce the devotion to those who were not familiar with it.

Three weeks later, they had gathered the necessary funds. Another idea had come up along the way, a chance for synergy with a new Catholic radio station that happened to be called the Divine Mercy Radio, Inc. (www.wdmr.org), which has the ingenious motto “A station of the Cross.” To give people a go-to web site for more

	This Divine Mercy billboard was seen by thousands on a major interstate highway.

information about Divine Mercy, the Regnum Christi team members asked the radio station to post a few paragraphs of text about the meaning of the Divine Mercy on their web site, and to include the name and contact information for a member of the team for those who wanted more information about the Divine Mercy devotion. In return, they would give Divine Mercy Radio free publicity by putting its web site on the billboard—a win-win solution all around.

The billboard went up successfully and will stay up until May 22. The women are currently fundraising to put the image up again for June, the month of the Sacred Heart. Again, the goal is simply to bring a touch of grace into the most ordinary of places, like a gentle reminder that God is there, and this love is stronger than sin.

“The billboard is located right near a night club,” DeGennaro observed. “You never know how God might use something like this. It could reach just the right person at the right time.”

Parachutes into guerilla territory

As a second initiative, the  team is working on putting together 10 parachutes in association with a Christian organization called Voice of the Martyrs. The organization, which is evangelical Protestant in origin, focuses on spreading the Gospel to people in countries where religious liberties are limited or absent. In Colombia, for example, Christian missionaries are working among the FARC guerillas, hoping to bring Christ to people steeped in Marxist ideology and also to the villagers whose lives

	The Regnum Christi women's team working on their parachute project.

have been disrupted by violence.

One of their initiatives in Colombia has been the distribution of Spanish-language Bibles, Christian books, and… solar-powered Galcom radios that are pre-tuned to a Christian station and turned on prior to deployment.

Voice of the Martyrs invites newsletter readers to help sew the parachutes that will be dropped from a plane over FARC territory. So, to support the ministry, the team is making 10 parachutes, one for each woman on the team. Each parachute will say Dios es Amor (God is Love) on it, and the women are planning to send rosaries and Catholic prayer cards with the parachutes when they send them back to Voice of the Martyrs, with the request that the Catholic items be included in the packages.

From billboards to parachutes, this team of apostolically oriented women is finding creative ways to bring reminders of God’s love into the most ordinary or unexpected places. It is their hope that these parachuted packages—and the prayers that went into them—will be an instrument for God to touch hearts scarred by violence, opening up a window of grace, hope, and healing.