Presentation Academy students joined the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth to build a home for a family in Belize, honoring Sister Edna Fabre and a connection that reaches back nearly 200 years.
Before the Presentation Academy students left for Belize, Sister Edna Fabre placed a candle in each young woman’s hands. At their Sept. 20 commissioning Mass at Nazareth, Sister Amina Bejos read their names as they prepared for a journey that would connect a family in Las Flores with generations of women in Louisville. The home they were going to help build would honor Sister Edna, whose years at Presentation had helped shape the lives of so many Pres girls.
For the family awaiting that home, helping others was already a familiar part of life. Javier, who works in landscaping and construction, had volunteered his time to build houses for other families while he and his wife, Ana, continued renting and hoping for a permanent home for themselves and their children, Jose and Deisy. This time, others were coming together to offer his family the same support he had given his neighbors.
Through Nazareth Volunteer Ministry, the students traveled from Louisville to Las Flores, Belize, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 9, 2026. Sister Amina led the group and provided spiritual guidance, with Johna Fortener accompanying the young women. Working alongside local partners and community members, the students helped turn a project planned in Sister Edna’s honor into a home for Javier and his family.
A Strong Connection
The relationship between Presentation Academy and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth began in 1831, when Mother Catherine Spalding and the Sisters founded the Louisville school. Nearly two centuries later, that connection continues through prayer, education, and a shared mission. The Belize project brought that history into the present, inviting students and alumnae to take part in work rooted in the values that have connected their school to the Sisters across generations.
Sister Edna taught Spanish at Presentation from 1979 to 2007, a teacher to generations of young women. Her compassion, practical wisdom, and quiet generosity offered an example of how to care for others, both within the classroom and beyond it. Building a home in her honor gave students an opportunity to carry that example into relationships of their own.
Presentation Academy alumnae were major supporters of the home build, helping make the project possible through their generosity. Their involvement connected former students with the young women now carrying the school’s mission into the world. Supporters of the Sisters also contributed through the Give for Good Louisville campaign, helping provide lumber, roofing, doors, windows, and other building materials. Together, those contributions supported work that depended on the efforts of the visiting volunteers, local partners, and the community in Belize.
Learning From One Another
At the worksite, the students had opportunities to contribute while learning from the people beside them. “I had no experience using power tools, much less building a house, but together we were able to build a house for a family in need of one,” one student wrote. “But we didn’t just build a house, we built a home.”
The lessons extended into encounters that might not appear in a photograph of the finished building. Another student remembered the patience of people who listened as she stumbled through Spanish, the assistance offered when a task became difficult, and the kindness she encountered throughout the visit. “Though these interactions may seem insignificant to some, the connections I formed truly taught me a lasting lesson on community and selflessness,” she said.
Those experiences also prompted her to reconsider how she understood wealth. She began placing greater value on the ways a community welcomes strangers and treats people with respect and compassion. The family’s need for secure housing was real, and so was the generosity the volunteers received. The students had come prepared to give their time and labor, but they found themselves receiving help, hospitality, and lessons they would bring home.
Faith became part of how the young women understood those encounters. One student wrote that the trip deepened both her relationship with God and her connections with the friends and teacher who traveled with her. “Throughout the whole trip I saw God in every person that I met,” she reflected. She also described forming a bond despite a language difference, discovering that “love and appreciation can be communicated with no words at all.”
A blessing of the completed home brought the work and prayer of the journey together. For Javier, Ana, Jose and Deisy, the result was a place of their own, made possible through the cooperation of people near and far. For the students, it was also a reminder that their contribution belonged to something shared: a family’s hopes, a community’s efforts and relationships that had grown through working together.
‘We All Have a Mission’
One phrase surfaced repeatedly during the trip: “We all have a mission.” A student recalled that, before leaving Louisville, she had been familiar with those words without identifying a particular purpose for herself. After returning, she understood them as a responsibility to carry what she had learned into everyday life.
“Now that I have returned to the United States, my mission is clear: to pass the torch and relay my experience not just through storytelling, but through actions that reflect the integrity, giving nature, work ethic, and strong Catholic identity of Belize.”
Her reflection returns the story to the moment at Nazareth when Sister Edna placed candles in the students’ hands. They had left with the prayers and support of the Sisters and their school community; they returned with their own accounts of generosity, friendship and faith. Honoring Sister Edna had become something they participated in, not simply something they witnessed.
The home they helped build honors Sister Edna. The way they carry those lessons into their adult lives offers another way for her example to reach others.
For the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, that exchange reflects a mission rooted in the love of Christ and the Vincentian tradition of responding to human needs while respecting each person’s dignity. The young women helped build a house, but their reflections also describe learning to listen, accept help and recognize God in the people they met. Those are practices they can continue long after the construction work is finished.
The story leaves an invitation for others, too. Perhaps a teacher, parent, friend or loved one comes to mind when you think about the people who taught you to care for others. What would it mean to honor that person, or remember someone you have lost, by helping a family have a home of its own? A home build can connect that gratitude with practical help for another family, just as this project connected Sister Edna’s example with the lives of people in Las Flores.
Perhaps you can imagine gathering friends, relatives, classmates or members of your parish to take part in such a project. Or perhaps the next step is yours alone: joining a volunteer group, meeting people you do not yet know and making room for an experience outside your familiar routines. Nazareth Volunteer Ministry offers opportunities to explore those possibilities through service, prayer and work alongside local communities.
The students’ reflections show that the value of such a journey cannot be captured only in a finished house or a collection of photographs. It can also be found in a new understanding of community, a deeper relationship with God or a clearer sense of what one person can offer. The question they brought home, “What is my mission?” is one others can begin exploring, too.
To discuss a home build in someone’s honor or memory, bringing a group or joining a volunteer trip, contact the Nazareth Volunteer Ministry. Learn more about opportunities through the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth at nazareth.org/volunteer.
As these young women prepare for adulthood, their time in Belize gives them something to carry into the choices ahead: firsthand experience of what it means to contribute, to listen and to learn from people whose lives differ from their own. They tried unfamiliar work, accepted help, built relationships across language differences and saw their faith take shape in everyday acts of care. These lessons can influence how they approach new classrooms, workplaces and communities, with confidence in what they can offer and humility about what they have yet to learn. The home they helped build honors Sister Edna. The way they carry those lessons into their adult lives offers another way for her example to reach others.