Even though September is one of our shorter months, it is packed with activities and memories. We always look forward to celebrating Labor day as we bid summer goodbye. It seems impossible that it has been 21 years since that horrendous day of 9-11-01. That day brought with it so much heartbreaking loss and it completely changed our world. The churches were filled to overflowing because we knew that God would get us through; God walked with us and we persevered.

Thinking about those days and how we managed, with God’s grace, to move forward brings our Center to my mind. This wondrous work began for me in 1988. As I remember those years, I am always baffled by how we have continued to survive. We are such a tiny identity when compared with the giants of the political and pharmaceutical world. We have no financial way to compete with them, but we have God walking with us! He has led us these many years. St. Gianna began in 2009 and despite all of the rational thinking that we could not possibly survive, we are still here. All the credit goes to God. We have been blessed with a selfless board of directors. Our Medical Director volunteers her time and services!! Our Spiritual Director, Fr. Kovanis, is one of our most loyal and strongest advocates. Add to that the amazing women that have chosen to become practitioners. They have paid tuition and attended our education programs; they have gone through the rigorous training that this requires. Their dedication is unparalleled because there is very little pay involved once they become practitioners. These practitioners are the lifeline for our work. There is a growing demand for what they do. The travesty is that so many of them leave this work after a few years. There are many reasons for this; the biggest of which is that they can not provide a living on what they monetarily receive for this specialized knowledge. These students are taught on a Masters’ level and it is a difficult course. Once they begin these courses, they are filled with excitement and anticipation of the positive impact they can have on their communities. Our center has had 42 students become practitioners. Some of them came from different states and are now teaching in their location. Currently, we have 17 active practitioners or practitioner interns. Of those, 4 are out of state.

You must be thinking, “what happened to all of the others?” Life happened. So many of these women are young, maybe just out of college. They felt a calling and they answered. Life moves on. They find their life’s partner; they get married and begin their family. They suddenly find that the time requirement of being a practitioner invades their family responsibilities. They discover that they need to contribute to the family income and they cannot make the money that is needed by doing the work of a practitioner. Mind you, they are specialists in this field and they are not being paid anywhere near what they are worth. They usually regretfully resign to get a job. There have also been a few more mature-aged women who came into the program. They too fell in love with this work. Their children are grown or almost grown and things look good. Then they find that their elderly parents need more time and attention. They, too, regretfully resign to devote that time to their parents. One of our most dedicated practitioners was diagnosed with an aggressive form of liver cancer. She worked for as long as she could before resigning. God took her home shortly after that.

It is truly highly improbable that we can go on, however that has been the case since we first began, yet here we are. God wants the St. Gianna Center to exist. He walks with us. He alone knows how many of his children have been blessed by these women who so generously share this wondrous knowledge. God will continue to support us and we will most certainly continue doing His work! Thank you for reading through all of this. Thank you, too, for your continued prayerful and financial support. If you have any ideas of how we can better compensate our practitioners, please, please let us know.

You are in our prayers.