Lisa Lungren's blog
A constant in my life has been an innate drive to help others, particularly around the globe. As a child, these inner stirrings were a bit amorphous, and difficult to articulate. I did, however, feel certain that everyone on this earth was part of a human family and subjects of God’s love and concern. With time, my interest in walking alongside the marginalized continued to develop and mature. My vocation particularly rang true during my travels to impoverished urban areas of Latin America, where public security is tenuous, at best. Witnessing multiple cases of families fearful of venturing outside their homes due to mounting homicides, theft, and kidnapping eventually led to my work in human rights, rule of law, and crime prevention.
I finally understood my yearning to advocate for the oppressed as an intrinsic component of my faith during a theology course in Santiago de Chile. I was introduced to Catholic Social Teaching – a framework for responding to the world’s most pressing modern day challenges. Finally, my childhood vision of a “human family” made sense in the light of the Gospel revelation that humans are created in the image of God. The moral and scriptural imperative to protect the life and dignity of each individual, with particular urgency for the poor and vulnerable, became imprinted on my heart and soul.
Fittingly, Pope Francis declared 2016 the “Year of Mercy”, urging men and women of faith to live out the tender compassion that God lovingly shows us. His sentiments are a perfect articulation of my drive to work in the nonprofit arena, which has enabled me to make manifest the life and love of the Lord as a daily practice (on an extremely modest scale of course). This is why I profess such affection for my former nonprofit work in Panama, Colombia, and Mexico, collaborating with multiple sectors of society to denounce crime and seek justice. This is why I treasured the brief time I consulted for the International Organization for Migration in Santiago, Chile, supporting victims of forced migration. Most importantly, this is why I feel I have found my life's work at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as a member of the Anti-Human Trafficking Team.