Annual trip marks decades of friendship between St. Mary Catholic Central High School and Central American community
MONROE — On June 12, Tim Maag said goodbye to friends in San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala, not knowing when he might see them again. He admits he shed a few tears.
Maag retired at the end of June after 27 years as a campus minister and theology teacher at St. Mary Catholic Central High School (SMCC) in Monroe. This was his 23rd and final mission trip to the Guatemalan community where he had forged relationships and led 348 students and 37 adults to form their own connections.
Maag first traveled to Guatemala in 1999 with St. John’s Jesuit High School in Toledo, Ohio, to explore the area as an option for future SMCC mission trips. There, Maag learned about Fr. Greg Schaffer, a Minnesota priest who went to Guatemala in 1963 and stayed until his death in 2012.
“In the 1960s, Pope John XXIII said that he could not sleep at night knowing there were Catholics in third-world countries who were not receiving the sacraments. And so he called on bishops of first-world countries to send priests as missionaries to these places,” Maag explained.
Fr. Schaffer was one of the priests who answered that call, serving the Guatemalan people for nearly 50 years until he died in 2012. After his passing, his work continued with Friends of San Lucas, a nonprofit organization that supports development in San Lucas Tolimán and surrounding communities.
Working with Friends of San Lucas, Maag takes rising seniors to Guatemala each June for a 10-day mission trip. Students build homes, work in coffee production and assist in the mission’s school. This year, they were invited to shadow medical students from the University of South Dakota Medical School who were providing care at a health clinic for several weeks.
Being at the clinic was enlightening for 17-year-old SMCC senior Leona Knudsen, who is considering a career in medical research.
“Many of the Guatemalan people who came told us how their local hospital struggled to help them,” Knudsen said. “For many of the patients, all they could do was provide pain medicine because they don’t have access to every medication there and they can’t perform surgery.”
On another day, she helped deliver baskets of food to families that the mission had identified as being most in need. The first house they visited left an impression on her.
“It was all mud and dirt, and the house was concrete with no windows. The dad had no shoes, and he walks 4-5 hours to work every day,” Knudsen said. “The baby was about a year old, and he was not healthy. It made me really sad because they didn’t have proper medical care or enough food in the house. That little baby reminded me of my little sister; that could have been my sister but for a difference of location.”
Knudsen is the oldest of six children; her youngest sister is 2 years old.
Maag has seen the change that takes place in students during the trip. After just a day or two, students start to draw lessons from the experience. Often times, the lessons aren’t what they expected.
“When we go down there, they see that we’re all just people wanting the same things — safety, security, food, education,” Maag said. “But most of all, we learn from the people there that it’s your faith and your family that are the most important things in life. That’s what gets you through.”
As part of their trip, the group visited the church where Blessed Stanley Rother was martyred. Blessed Rother, a priest of Oklahoma City, was the first U.S.-born priest martyr. Like Fr. Schaffer, he went to Guatemala to serve in the 1960s and fell in love with the people in his town of Santiago Atitlan. His archbishop brought him back to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City out of fear for Fr. Rother’s safety during political unrest in Guatemala, but after a few months back home, Fr. Rother insisted he return to Santiago Atitlan to serve the people.
On July 28, 1981, three armed men broke into the rectory at the parish and murdered Fr. Rother. He was so beloved that the locals requested his heart be returned after his funeral in the United States; it rests in the church’s sanctuary.
Joe Boggs now serves as the campus minister at St. Mary Catholic Central. He joined Maag and the eight students on this year's mission trip. Boggs attended high school at SMCC, but did not go on the trip to Guatemala as a student.
“This trip impressed upon me, through Fr. Stanley’s example, what it means to be a servant leader,” Boggs said. “In my new role as a campus minister, I have to love and serve the students. That’s what a true leader does, like Jesus himself. I need to humble myself. That’s how we bring people to the Gospel.”
Among the many lessons, Boggs also sees the time as an opportunity to grow closer as a group.
“Once you’re there alongside the Guatemalan people and seeing how they live, you naturally learn to listen and observe and then love people where they’re at. That includes not just the local people, but the people you’re traveling with as well. This is a unique opportunity for them to get to know their classmates better,” Boggs said.
The students and staff at SMCC don’t forget their Guatemalan friends during the school year. They hold regular fundraisers to pay for the food baskets they deliver each June, and take up collections after Masses at area parishes. The school also sponsors eight to 10 Guatemalan students per year to attend high school through the Friends of San Lucas. The SMCC missionary students and the scholars they sponsor spend time together on their trip each year.
Since the trip, Knudsen’s view of serving others has changed.
“I used to think it was all about service — how much time you’re are you giving them, what you’re doing for them. Now I know it’s more about the connections and about respecting the human dignity of the people you’re serving,” Knudsen said. “As much as the things you’re doing for them is important, making them feel like they’re worthy of respect and dignity and love is more important.”
While in San Lucas Toliman, Knudsen observed that people aren’t in a hurry like Americans often are. Instead, the Guatemalan people are present to one another, placing an emphasis on relationships instead of a busy schedule, she said. On the trip, she noticed Maag frequently stopped to visit with people on the street, even if that meant the group would be a few minutes late for their next commitment.
“I think that’s something we’re missing here. We don’t take time for each other. When we’re in the store, we don’t ask the cashier how his day is going,” Knudsen said. “So now, instead of just doing an hour of service to make specific people feel loved, I want to make as many connections as possible and make everyone around me feel loved every day.”
Before he left for this year’s mission trip, Maag received a special honor at SMCC’s Senior Recognition Night: the 2025 Sandersen Excellence in Teaching Award.
The school’s president, Sean Jorgensen, said of Maag when presenting the award, “The breadth and effect of his ministry here over the past three decades has had a greater impact on who we are and whose we are as an institution than just about anyone associated with SMCC since its founding.”
Maag doesn’t speak Kaqchikel, the local Mayan dialect, but he does know one word: matyox. It’s the word for "thank you." On behalf of his students who’ve joined him in Guatemala over the years, he says matyox to the people of Guatemala who have taught him and his students so much, and to Boggs, who will carry on the tradition at the school.
