Doug & Judy McWilliams

Joe and Kristen Klapatch

Joe and Kristen Klapatch moved to Omaha in January of 2014 when Joe received orders from the military. Through prayerful discernment, they felt God was calling them to join St. Columbkille parish in July of 2014. Despite discerning a call to be involved in marriage and family ministry, they contacted Deacon David Krueger and told him they were willing to help out in any capacity the parish needed. It just so happens that Deacon David, at the request of Father Damian, asked them to run a program in the area of marriage and the family.

Due to that request, beginning in the fall of 2015, Joe and Kristen began serving God and the parish by facilitating a program on Pope Saint John Paul II’s teaching on Human Love in the Divine Plan more commonly known as The Theology of the Body. Following that teaching, which lays the philosophical basis for the Church’s teaching on marriage and human sexuality, the Klapatches continued with a two part series on marriage titled Beloved. The first half of Beloved proposed the Catholic understanding of God’s plan for the Sacrament of Matrimony and the second half provided insights into how to live the free, total, faithful and fruitful marriage all Catholics promise each other and God in their wedding vows. In the Fall of 2016, they presented a program called the Choice Wine further expanding people’s understanding of Marriage as God intended it.

This winter they are facilitating a program on Prayer called Oremus. Pope Francis highlights the importance of prayer in marriages and families when, in Amoris Laetitia, he states, “The family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word of God and to share in Eucharistic communion, and thus to grow in love and become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells.”

The Klapatches also helped the parish by running the parish’s Lenten program, “Altaration”, last year with Nicole Cook. During this lenten season, Joe and Kristen, together with Jaime Mundt and Father Pat, are helping with the evening sessions of Lectio:Eucharist. Joe is an active member in the morning That Man is You Program led by Duncan Murray and is an RCIA sponsor. They also participated in the Spirituality Alive group hosted by Josh and Lisa Reisberg. Joe and Kristen feel extremely blessed to be able to follow Jesus’ direction at the end of Matthew’s Gospel to “Go and make disciples of all nations...” and they ask that each and every one of you answer His call and follow Him in whatever He asks of you.

Gift Giving Weekend & Thanksgiving Meals Ministries

Gift Giving Weekend as we know it began in 1991. At that time St. Columbkille participated in Adopt-A-Family and many of the families to be adopted were identified by Heartland Family Services. The Women’s Guild had introduced “circles” where women with common interests could meet and find projects to do and similar share similar ideas. Our circle focused on mothers with teens. The circle decided to take on a project to involve their teens and provide more families the opportunity to participate in giving at Christmas. With input from Heartland Family Services, we became involved in the Sarpy County Holiday Assistance Program. Our group decorated and hung paper ornaments requesting various gifts. Everything was collected, sorted and delivered to the annual Holiday Assistance Program.

As time has passed, we have changed the delivery method of ornaments from hanging on barren tree branches to a regular Christmas tree to our current version of a Jesse Tree. This year around 2000 ornaments were taken and we were able to help provide toys, clothing and gift cards to around 700 children in the Sarpy County area. A few years after we began the project, we partnered with the Tri-City Food Pantry. Gift tags are now requested for food and personal care items, which are sent to the pantry. Donations to the Sarpy County Children’s Fund and Adult Crisis Fund are collected to further help seniors and to purchase additional gifts for children. So for the last 25 years, this ministry has been able to continue to serve many families in the Sarpy County area through the generosity of the St. Columbkille parish community. We are truly blessed!

The Thanksgiving Meals Ministry began with the idea of an additional outreach to our community. It started around 2006 with a desire to serve 350 families and provide them with the groceries for their Thanksgiving meal. We decided to provide 75 families at the Juan Diego Center and 275 families from our community with these groceries. The families from our community are identified by Heartland Family Services and our parish.
This project takes a great many volunteers to be successful and every year the parish of St. Columbkille has shown great support. Everyone can be involved with donating food, sorting food, packing boxes, delivering meals, or donating money needed to purchase turkeys. We have heard many wonderful stories from our parish families as they encounter the families who are receiving these meals. Smiles, hugs, prayers and many thank you’s come with this project. We have all joined together to make a difference in the lives of our neighbors.

Becky and Pat Grant	Marie Svoboda
Libby and Larry Renfro	Pam Schmitz
Linda and Robert Gries	John, Diane, and Angela Ingalise
Cyd and Tim Hall	Jan and Steve Bode
Sue and Tom Gebhart