Shorewood's Gannon Gives Back

Summertime is supposed to be about vacations, beaches, sun tans, relaxing and spending time with family and friends. For Joliet Catholic Academy’s Katelyn Gannon, however, the Lord had other ideas.

As winter turned to spring, Gannon began to plan out her senior year. A former volleyball player, she was excited about being a cheerleader under coach Tina Osburn. She started thinking ahead to college, toying with the thought of becoming a teacher.

But during her junior year at JCA, another concept was whispered in her ear, and as the spring faded into summer, Gannon followed that voice on a mission to Zambia in Southern Africa.

Why?

“About a year ago, I decided that maybe I wanted to go on a mission trip,” Gannon said. “And I really felt that the Lord was calling me, not for the long-term, but to go on that mission trip this summer.”

Through Teen Missions International, an interdenominational Christian mission organization that specializes in short-term mission trips for youth, Gannon signed up for the Orphan Angels mission.

After two weeks of training in Florida, where the teenagers learn how to ride the dirt bikes that are integral to traveling in Zambia, Gannon joined a team of 15 that spent five weeks in a country where the poverty levels are consistently above 70 percent.“It was nerve-racking at first, but I know it was harder on my parents (Shaun and Kelli),” Gannon said. “They were the ones who had to let me go, but they had to trust in the Lord and that the Lord was going to keep me safe. I wasn’t as scared about going over there as I was about leaving my summer behind.

“You wait all year long for summer to arrive, to lay out and to have fun, but when I got to Zambia, it never crossed my mind that I was making a sacrifice. It was just such an amazing experience.”

That experience has paid dividends for Gannon, a Shorewood native, in her return to JCA. The perspective of five weeks has brought about a maturity level that students, teachers, faculty and staff alike have noticed.

“She’s unbelievable,” Osburn said. “She’s very hard-working, very dedicated, and even though she’s new to the team this year, she’s the first person I can turn to in regards to helping someone out. It’s always a case with her of, ‘Anything that I can do to help someone out.’

“When she told me she was going to Africa and for what reason, you never expect someone who is going into their senior year to give up their summer to do something like this. But she wanted to give back, and I think it has helped in leadership, her growing as a person and in her spirituality.”

The proudest part of the mission to Zambia for Gannon came from the evangelization process.

“We would ride our motorcycles for an hour or two every day to different orphanages called rescue units,” Gannon said. “We would teach the kids games and English phonics, play duck-duck goose, and we shared the gospel. Over 800 kids came to know Jesus Christ, and that was awesome to see.”

And for Gannon, that meant observing the words she reads in the Bible in real-life situations.

“I learned about being content in all circumstances,” she said. “It’s like Chapter 4 in Phillippians, about being content, and just seeing how grateful the children in Zambia were gives me a new appreciation for life and the things that I have. We have so much in America.

“They don’t have the schools and the education we have here. Kids lack the proper clothing and they don’t have shoes. You get to see the world, a whole other world, from a different light.”

When Gannon walked the hallways for the first time in late August, she also saw JCA in a different way.

“It was so cool to be over in Zambia and know that I had a core group from JCA praying for me,” said Gannon, who spoke with history and sociology teacher Krystal (Reinhardt) Matichak before signing up for the trip. “Ms. Reinhardt had gone to Zambia on a mission and she was very helpful to me.

“Knowing that she was praying for me and I had so many teachers at JCA supporting me, everyone so interested in what was going on and what happened and wanting to know what the mission trip was all about … it really makes a big statement about what JCA is all about.”

In four years, after graduating from JCA and getting her bachelor’s degree in college, don’t be surprised if Gannon returns to Zambia on another mission.

Why not?

“I want to go into education,” she said, “and someday take it back over there.”