Meet some Good Sams at work

Geraldine Kearney SGS

Geraldine Kearney is the Delegate for Social Responsibility within the Good Samaritan congregation. Gifted artistically, Gerry finds creative ways of advocating and networking with groups concerned with climate change, Indigenous affairs, campaigns against human trafficking and racism.

Gerry is also a counsellor and facilitator. Her Burmese and Irish ethnic background is a rich resource in her cross-cultural ministry. She offers workshops in communicating across cultures and transition programs for groups and individuals.

Her work, she says, takes her to the “edge”, to those who live on the margins. “More and more as I work with those on the margins I realise that this is ‘the grace margin’ to which I am called. I am required to cross boundaries, to stop and encounter the other as guest, stranger and host and continue the journey to build neighbourhoods, to heal and be healed.”

Gerry believes that her own local Good Sam community is the “well-spring for my sustenance and embodies the spirit that is at the heart of my ministry, the spirit of compassion”.

Germia Tocama SGS

“To be in ministry is risk-taking. In my ministry I have learned to go beyond my comfort zone,” says Germia Tocama, a young Filipina Good Sam who works with the poor in Bacolod. The poverty is extreme. “There are times when all I can do for the person is to pray and accept my own poverty because I cannot help,” she says.

Yet help she does.  Germia’s work takes her to the squatter areas of her city where she teaches catechetics and supervises a feeding program.

“The people welcome me in their homes and in their hearts. Hospitality opens the door of friendship among us,” she says.

Germia also assists the teachers and “does the books” for the Kinder school.

Coming from a family steeped in a commitment to social justice, she finds time to advocate for those caught in the pernicious web of human trafficking.

Germia finds her ministry rewarding and satisfying. “I am learning many things from the people – the children and adults – with whom I am involved. Their simplicity, hope, faith, joy and struggle teaches me to become more of a neighbour for them.”

When asked who is a neighbour to her, Germia is quick to reply, “A neighbour to me in my work is that one that makes me smile even in the hardest times.”

Germia believes that her life and ministry “is a sort of life-long on the job training,” she says. “My ministry reminds me that Jesus is alive and he has many different faces. To seek Jesus’ face among these people is always my desire and my joy.”