“The Call to Stewardship” is a periodic series profiling individuals and families throughout the Diocese of Camden who have shown an inspiring response to the call to Christian stewardship highlighted in 1 Peter 4:10: “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”
When she was a sophomore in high school, Yen Nguyen’s mom, Tuyen Nguyen, had an idea. She told her daughter about the Summer in the City Program for youth, sponsored by the Diocese of Camden, offering high schoolers a chance to serve others in various cities in the diocese. As Yen puts it, “I did not want to go the first year!”
But as moms often do, hers insisted, and by the end of the one-week program in Absecon, she was completely hooked. “I absolutely loved it,” she says. “It was eye-opening to see what you could do to help.”
Now a sophomore at Rutgers University-Camden, Yen is grateful for her mom’s influence and continues to serve as a mentor for Summer in the City, to be coordinated this year by José Rodriguez, who works with Hispanic Youth and Young Adult Ministries in the Diocese of Camden.
Father Joseph An Nguyen (no relation), pastor of Most Precious Blood Parish, Collingswood, knows the Nguyen family well, and sees Yen’s parents as the key inspiration for her willingness to serve others.
“In the Vietnamese way,” Father Nguyen says, “church is a second home … a second family,” he says.
He has known the Nguyen family since he served at the parish of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Woodlynne, which merged several years ago with the Church of the Transfiguration in Collingswood, to form Most Precious Blood Parish.
Over several years, as Tuyen has been in charge of the parish’s religious education program, the rest of the family has joined in serving in the parish as well.
Yen, along with her two younger sisters, became an altar server in her younger years, and still steps in when needed. She has also taught in the religious education program alongside her mom. She’s currently part of the team teaching a confirmation class, and also plays piano for Saturday night vigil Masses.
Whether it’s helping to plan for Vietnamese Lunar New Year, or filling in as secretary in the rectory office, Yen is always ready to lend a hand. As Yen describes her schedule, she is “always booked.” When she’s not at school, she can most often be found helping out at church. As Father Nguyen says, “She never says, ‘No.’”
Yen looks forward to leading students again this year at Summer in the City. Service is a core component of the program, and it offers high school teens many ways to help. They might find themselves on the way to a soup kitchen, a senior care center, a day care center or even a cemetery for some clean up. Or they might get to pitch in on housing rehabilitation, at a community garden, or at a food pantry.
The week includes nights for games, fellowship and prayer.
As Yen describes it, “The program is a good balance between community service and faith.” She adds, “This generation is going toward the materialist.”
She wants to be able to swim against the prevailing tide that has led many of her generation away from faith, and Summer in the City helps her to do just that. For her, evenings of worship and fellowship with the students in the program are just as inspiring as the service opportunities that fill their days. She describes a highlight of the week, a night of Eucharistic adoration sponsored by the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal of The Parish of Saint Monica in Atlantic City. This is a time of worship when all of the participants gather before the Blessed Sacrament. It’s a time of music, Gospel reading, sharing and prayer. For Yen and others, this night is the spiritual heart of the week.
But in the day, hands turn to service. Yen recalls with fondness the chance she had one year to serve at a soup kitchen that was open to the poor, the homeless and the whole community. The chef was professionally trained and “the food was really good,” as she recalls.
As Yen helped plate and serve the food, she enjoyed the chance to see how patrons reacted to having a meal that had been prepared with such care. But treating everyone with dignity was most important. The students were told that, “no matter what, you smile.”
Father Nguyen believes that Yen’s inspiration to exemplary stewardship comes from church and family. “She’s young,” he says, “but she’s growing a lot in her spiritual life.”
That strong foundation will serve Yen well as she awaits acceptance in the coming weeks into a nursing program. It’s a natural career path for a young woman who draws great satisfaction from helping others.
“What inspires me,” she says, “is to see other people smile.”
And it’s clear that serving others, in the church and in the world, will always be a part of Yen’s life: “I feel like my heart is full when I serve.”
The mission of the Office of Stewardship is to help the disciples of Christ who live in the Diocese of Camden to live out Christian charity in a sacrificial way that “we might understand the grace that comes from giving back from our blessings so that in all things God may be glorified.” For more information, contact Deacon Russell Davis at 856-583-6102.
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”
