Stories

By Ines San Martin

In her own words, Sister Laydi is “a lion in a cage.” For the past 45 months, this Mexican-born nun — who discovered her vocation after being deported by U.S. immigration authorities — has been living in the Diocese of Xuan Loc, in Vietnam’s Highlands.

Her presence is dearly needed. Working alongside the local National Director of The Pontifical Mission Societies, she helps train hundreds of Vietnamese religious sisters in door-to-door evangelization, forming them to better share the Word of God with people who, after decades of Communist rule, “often don’t even think there is a God — much less one who loved each of them so much that He died on the cross to redeem them.”

Sister Laydi’s parents entered the United States illegally when she was just a toddler, fleeing organized crime in Mexico. But after she finished middle school, the family returned south of the border. By then, Laydi had received her entire education in English and didn’t know how to read or write in her native language. One of her uncles allowed her to stay behind in the U.S., but without parental supervision, she soon fell in with, as she put it, “the wrong kind of people.” After a few months, a routine traffic stop revealed one of her companions was carrying drugs. Though her record was clean, Laydi spent a night in jail — and the authorities discovered her undocumented status.

“My criminal record came back clean; however, it also told them I was an illegal immigrant, so I got deported,” she said. “My uncle, tired of my misbehaving, sent me off to spend a weekend at a convent. Unbeknownst to him, they were hosting a retreat — training laypeople to become missionaries and preparing to send them out.”

That weekend changed her life.

The retreat was led by the Missionary Servants of the Word, a young congregation founded just over 40 years ago by Father Luis Butera, an Italian Comboni missionary assigned to Mexico. Seeing the rapid growth of Protestantism in the region, Father Butera began forming young people in the history of salvation, sending them to knock on doors and share the Gospel.

“That was his original idea,” said Sister Laydi. “But the young people he trained wanted to give more. So, he asked them for a year of commitment, to live in parishes as lay missionaries, in chastity, poverty, and obedience.”

Today, the movement includes more than 400 sisters and countless lay collaborators around the world. Their focus is not primarily on fostering vocations to religious life, but on igniting evangelizing zeal in all the baptized. “What we often say is that lay people can share the Word of God too,” she said. “It’s not something only priests do during their homilies. We are all called to live the Gospel.”

In Vietnam, that mission is carried out in silence and shadows. “We are here with tourist or work visas, working as English teachers or anything we can find,” she explained. “And then, we work as missionaries.”

“We cannot wear a habit, even if our congregation does. Foreigners can’t be too exposed,” she said. “Even though I blend in a little because I look a bit like a Vietnamese woman, I cannot go out on mission.”

Her days now alternate between teaching English to orphans and forming Vietnamese religious sisters in the congregation’s charism, which she has to do from within the safety of her community. “Our charism is to go from home to home, sharing time with the families, reading a biblical passage, and praying with them,” she said. “In the afternoon, we invite people to join us for our biblical courses on the history of salvation and life in the Spirit. I cannot do any of these things here in Vietnam.”

The children she teaches are more excited about helping her learn Vietnamese than they are about learning English. “But that’s okay,” she laughed. “They help me blend in better.”

There are currently four sisters in her community in Kon Tum. “At the beginning, we had seven sisters, and it wasn’t easy,” she recalled. “Families thought we were coming to kidnap the children. The key is having the support of the parish priest — and it’s important that he gets along with the local police.”

Despite their small numbers, their reach is wide. Over the past four years, they have trained more than 300 Vietnamese religious sisters to live as parish missionaries for a year, adopting their method of door-to-door evangelization. 

“The Church, by its nature, is missionary,” she said. “And a Church that is not missionary is not the Church of Christ. Jesus sent us to evangelize. Every member of the Church is called to this.”

The sisters who come for formation live in community for two weeks and follow the congregation’s daily rhythm. “We always put the Word of God at the center,” Sister Laydi said. “And truly, when you spend so much time with the Word, you are touched by it. Wanting to share it becomes easy.”

Still, for someone who spent her entire religious life in the streets, the current limitations are not easy to bear. “I currently barely leave my room,” she admitted. “I feel like a lion in a cage!”

Yet her flame for mission still burns — through online Bible courses, community life, and prayer. “To evangelize also means to give witness with your life,” she said. “We have a daily hour of Eucharistic adoration, and now I have more time to participate in it. Sometimes, my entire day, the only mission I have is to be in His presence in front of the Blessed Sacrament, praying for those whom my sisters meet, and living a life that embodies the life of a contemplative sister — which was the one thing I knew I wasn’t called to be!”

She smiled and added, “but clearly, God knew better.” Among the people she was asked to pray for was a couple composed of a man who had a bad temper, and his wife, who was contemplating suicide. The sisters continued to visit them regularly, and within a year, their family situation had stabilized, and both wanted to become Catholic.

What sustains her? “St. John says that love dissipates fear,” she said. “We are all afraid sometimes. I was scared coming here, knowing that the government does not want me here. But I focused everything on Jesus and His love, because that was His promise to us: ‘I will be with you until the end of time.’ That conviction, the knowledge that no matter what, Jesus will be there, dissipates all fears.”