Page 30 - Spring 2019 Extension Magazine

30 INSPIRE

Cover Story

Lay leader leverages
resources to shape

new leaders

LILI NIEDERKORN
FUELING THE DESIRE TO LEARN

s the director of Hispanic additional 15 priests who can cele- Lili Niederkorn, above, uses her own education
ministry for the Diocese brate the Mass in Spanish. to help train Spanish-speaking faithful.
of Savannah, Lidia Nied- The Diocese of Savannah
erkorn, known as Lili, is a hired Niederkorn in September In the Diocese of Savannah,
Ateacher, coordinator and 2012 through Catholic Exten- She helped to coordinate another
a bridge between the diocese and sion’s Hispanic Lay Leadership Catholic Extension program: the
the Hispanic community. Initiative, a program that helps Hispanic Lay Formation Program.
In a diocese where the popula- dioceses establish and grow This initiative trains and prepares
tion is largely rural, that connection Hispanic leaders by providing Spanish-speaking faithful to serve
is critical. Hispanics in Savannah funding to new positions. She in their local parishes. Through the
live in small, rural communities. Pri- sees her role as an opportunity program, congregants from almost
marily from Mexico and Guatemala, to bring education and growth to a dozen parishes across Savannah
many in these communities suffered these underserved communities. receive catechetical education via
in their home countries and came “I love being able to be a witness virtual training sessions. Almost 160
to the U.S. in search of a better life. to people’s lives changing, in small participants attend each session.
Most have little formal education things and big things,” she said. “They have a hunger to learn,”
and are often overlooked in their Niederkorn grew up in El Salva- she said.
parishes. dor with parents who encouraged The first class of Savannah’s
Southern Cross, the Diocese of her to empower herself through Hispanic Lay Formation Program
Savannah’s official newspaper, said education. She attended college graduates this August. She said that
in 2017 that although an estimated in El Salvador, then moved to the the reward comes when students
80,000 Hispanic Catholics live in United States and earned her recognize their own strengths and
the diocese, only 21 priests there master’s degree. For Niederkorn, can capitalize on them.
speak Spanish fluently, with an education is personal. “God gave us this brain and He
“I’m the woman that I am today wants us to use it — so use it!” she
because of my education,” she tells her students.
said.