At the corner of Division and First streets.
This reads like the name of the crossroads of many small-town USA intersections. At this particular corner in Stilwell, Oklahoma, you’ll find a hardware store. If you head two blocks east and hang a left, you can take U.S. Highway 59 north and not much later run into the Oklahoma-Arkansas border. It’s a quick exit out of town.
But many are not looking to leave. Instead, they are looking to gather. Next to that hardware store on Division and First is an abandoned storefront. Its windows up high are boarded. However, if you look closely at the picture below, you will see a small sign in front of the closed curtains that reads “San Juan Diego Mission.”
For 20 years this is where Catholics have come together to worship—with attendance steadily growing. Nearly a decade ago, it was decided that the pastor of St. Brigid in Tahlequah—just 30 minutes away—would serve the mission.
With a priest traveling to Stilwell frequently, more and more people began showing up not just for Sunday Mass held in the front of the building, but for reconciliation and holy hours as well. Spiritual formation and community gatherings are reaching their space limits in the back of the building—an old storage unit.
This abandoned storefront at Division and First streets is deteriorating on the outside. But it is the furthest thing from desolate; it is bursting with potential thanks to the community that gathers inside.
Their commitment is strong, and now with the help of Catholic Extension Society and the Diocese of Tulsa, they will soon have a new church—a sacred, permanent space where they can celebrate Mass, deepen their faith and bring their young families.
“This is a community that is hungry and thirsty for God,” said Father David Medina, pastor of St. Brigid Church and San Juan Diego Mission. “We have been talking about building a church … Now that it’s happening, the dynamic of the community will change.”
Opening doors to all
San Juan Diego is a mission that many Latino families in Stilwell and surrounding towns call home. Yessica Alvarado has done so since the mission’s beginnings in 2002. And she continues to see it as a place where its people come together not only for prayer but also to help one another through any hardships.
“If we see or know that somebody in the community is having difficulties, we accompany that person or family through prayer and whatever resources we have,” said Alvarado. “Through this, a vibrant faith community is what we are experiencing now.”
Despite San Juan Diego Mission’s location in what is statistically the poorest county in Oklahoma, Stilwell’s people still find resources to help the most in need among them. Through prayer, food, comfort—they are there for each other regardless of their daily economic and material struggles. “They are poor, but they look for the means not only to help themselves, but others,” confirmed Father Medina.
“One of the huge impacts here besides the spiritual change is that the Catholic Church is becoming a bridge to reach others who are in need.”
The principle of “accompaniment,” helping one another, and rich faith that have been lived by Alvarado and scores of other longtime parishioners at San Juan Diego are rubbing off on the next generation.
These values include helping one another; the principle of “accompaniment;” and the rich faith that has been lived out by scores of other longtime San Juan Diego parishioners.
According to Father Medina, these young people include those outside of the majority Latino community who call this church home, showing the true, beautiful universality of the church.
“The oldest kid of an English-speaking family, who is 15 years old, said that he enjoys more going to the mission for Mass because ‘he feels God there,’” Father Medina said. “He doesn’t speak any Spanish at all. His brother and sister serve at Mass here, too. That was beautiful to hear from a teenager.”
The new mission church for San Juan Diego is a place where Alvarado hopes her family can gather for generations. We can dream that they will continue to be joined by families of all backgrounds like the one Father Medina described, those deeply inspired by the faith-driven, selfless attitude of the founding community members that laid the initial foundation for this vibrant faith community in Stilwell.
In Father Medina’s eyes, the church’s people are intertwined with its namesake, San Juan Diego—the 16th-century indigenous peasant to whom Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared. “God our Father always chooses the humble and poor to serve as an example to others,” Father Medina said.
San Juan Diego represents that no matter where we are, it doesn’t matter if we lack things. God is always there and God opens the doors for us.”
Soon those doors will open wide to a new church building for a people that have already firmly established a loving, self-sacrificing community driven to walk in solidarity with one another. A foundation that began humbly, in structure and soul, at Division and First.
Catholic Extension Society works in solidarity with people to build up vibrant and transformative Catholic faith communities among the poor in the poorest regions of America. Please support out mission!
