Sister María Elena Méndez Ochoa feels that the master’s degree she is pursuing through our U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program is already giving her “credibility and confidence” to empower other women. She will earn a degree in integrated studies with a focus area in human services and pastoral care.
In December 2023, Sister María Elena was elected to the position of provincial superior in her religious congregation, the Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit, which is based in Mexico. A provincial superior works directly under the mother superior, a congregation’s top leader, and guides all sisters located within a certain geographic region, called a province.
Sister María Elena now oversees 39 sisters within her province, which covers the United States and the Dominican Republic. In the U.S., the Missionary Guadalupanas currently work in Alabama, California and Arizona. Her new responsibility follows 40 years of serving the poor.
[The program] helped me to grow a lot, to discover myself, my vulnerability and how to use that vulnerability as an opportunity for leadership.”
She continued,
“I turned it into leadership, and I turned it into strength.”
As provincial superior, she aims to help the sisters recognize the values and gifts they bring to ministry.
“I have always believed that I cannot promote others to be trained if I am not a witness. So I wanted to be a witness for people who say, ‘I can’t, I don’t know, I don’t think I’ll make it.’ I can say to them, ‘If I can do it, you can do it,’” she said.
Building bridges in Alabama
Sister María Elena was “honored and overjoyed” to enter the U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program in 2022. At the time, she was beginning a new ministry as the director for Catholic Social Services of West Alabama, reaching over 5,000 people annually across seven counties.
In this ministry, she worked to help youth become the first people in their families to attend college. Sister María Elena played a pivotal role in guiding parents to shift their mindset to see the value of education for their children.
“The purpose was to change this and to say, ‘We have to help the young people to go forward because these young people are the leaders of the future,’” she said.
As a result, communities are beginning to transform. More Hispanic families are putting down roots and establishing businesses in Alabama.
The classes she took while serving in this ministry emphasized how to be a bridge for the Hispanic community—which she describes as resilient and motivated—to reach their potential in society.
“There is a great insistence [through the program’s coursework] that we take into account the people we work with, who are the most marginalized, and promote them, to pass on to them what we are learning,” she explained.
The coursework provided instruction that could be immediately applied to her ministry. Through one class, she and a group of sisters formed a nonprofit to help newly arriving families in Alabama from Latin America. She recalled one instance in which, through the nonprofit, she helped a family reunite with their two young girls after they were separated.
Catholic Extension Society also gave Sister María Elena the opportunity to meet Pope Francis in Rome with more than 60 women faith leaders and other sisters. The experience became “a human, spiritual and historical experience that transformed my life forever,” she wrote in an article for Global Sisters Report.
She found affirmation in Pope Francis’ words, seeing herself and her fellow sisters as diverse threads in the rich tapestry of the Church. It confirmed how crucial her work is in serving and inspiring “poor, marginalized and migrant communities.”
Preparing to be provincial
The U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program, Sister María Elena said, has prepared her for her new role as provincial superior.
In this video interview, she thanks our donors for investing in the leadership training of Hispanic women religious in Latin America and in the United States. The classes, she says, enabled her to “discover more about myself” and equipped her with the skills to make an “impact in our ministries and the communities in which we serve.”
She aims to be a leader who lifts others up.
Power, she believes, is greater when it is balanced by “love, humility, authenticity.”
As Sister María Elena prepares to graduate this year, she encourages other sisters to promote the program to great heights to create a bigger network of impactful women religious.
Let’s make [the program] a part of our lives first, and then let’s make our sisters grow in the community, in our service in the Church and in society.”
This story appears in the Summer 2024 edition of Extension magazine. The U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program is made possible thanks to the generosity of our donors. Please consider supporting our mission!
