At the close of this academic and fiscal year, I will conclude my time serving with the Benedictine Volunteer Corps. My tenure, which began in July of 2022, will formally end on June 30, 2026. While what comes next is still unfolding, it is my hope to continue serving Saint John’s Abbey in a new capacity, with particular interest in the work of Abbey Development.

Serving the Benedictine Volunteer Corps over these past four years has been one of the great privileges of my life. To walk alongside young people as they discern a call, prepare to depart, immerse themselves in service, and eventually return, changed, stretched, and newly awake to the world, has been a profound joy for me. The BVC did not simply give me work; it gave me purpose, belonging, and a front-row seat to Benedictine hospitality lived boldly and globally. It will always remain part of who I am.

The strength of this program has never rested in any one person. Since 2003, the Benedictine Volunteer Corps has endured because of a community willing to believe, year after year, that prayer, stability, and service still matter, and that young people are worth trusting with real responsibility. Because of that collective faithfulness, more than 350 Johnnies have been sent into monasteries, schools, clinics, parishes, villages, and communities across the world. They have returned shaped for a lifetime of service, carrying with them relationships and lessons that cannot be quantified.

I have been continually humbled by the breadth of people who make this work possible: monks who open their homes and lives, site partners who welcome volunteers with patience and care, alumni who remain tethered long after their year concludes, donors whose generosity sustains the mission quietly and faithfully, and my Abbey colleagues who show up day after day to steward something larger than themselves. None of this happens in isolation. It happens because a community chooses to carry it together.

As I prepare to step away from this role, I do so with deep gratitude and immense confidence in the future of the Benedictine Volunteer Corps. The program’s strength lies not in its structure, but in its spirit, and that spirit is very much alive. Whatever comes next for me personally, the BVC and Saint John’s Abbey will always remain home.

Thank you for the trust you placed in me, the stories you shared, and the work we were able to hold together. It has been an honor to serve this community, even briefly, within the long life of something truly good. I am deeply grateful to Brother Paul Richards for entrusting me with the responsibility of leading this program and for the many lessons in leadership, management, and life that came with it. Thank you as well to Michael Reiley, my predecessor, whose patience, generosity, and steady example shaped my understanding of what faithful leadership looks like in practice and for laying a stable foundation to work with. And finally, my sincere gratitude to Fr. Geoffrey, our current director, for the gift of true partnership, and his constant care, discernment, and unwavering dedication to the Johnnies who say yes to this work have made the daily labor of BVC both meaningful and joyful.

With gratitude,
Logan Lintvedt

If the Nairobi Experience marked a moment of collective return, bringing volunteers back into shared rhythm and reflection, the weeks that followed revealed something equally telling: the Benedictine Volunteer Corps is not static. It is a program in motion, shaped less by institutional planning than by the willingness of people to keep saying yes when the road bends.

In early 2026, several familiar names re-emerged across the map, not by coincidence, but by continuity. Jack Scheck, who served with the BVC in Montserrat, Spain in 2021, returned to Spain this winter for a three-month stint, stepping back into a rhythm that once shaped him. His path has never been linear. Following his volunteer year, Jack became something of a Swiss Army knife on campus: a Faculty Resident, an educator and interim athletic director at the Prep School, and a guiding presence at the Benedictine Spirituality Center. His return to Spain is not a departure from that work, but an extension of it.

For Jack, being back in Montserrat has been both surprising and grounding. He admits that he initially worried nostalgia might distort the experience, that memories, polished by time, might create expectations reality could not fulfill. Instead, he has found the opposite to be true. The familiar cadence of monastic life, paired with engaging a mostly new group of students, has deepened rather than diminished his connection to the place. What once formed him is forming him still.

From Montserrat, Jack will continue onward to Tabgha, Israel, in mid-March. Though his time there will be brief, he looks forward to experiencing firsthand a place that has profoundly shaped many of his friends and fellow BVC volunteers. Once again, his journey intersects with the broader BVC story, reminding us that formation does not end when a volunteer year concludes. Sometimes, it calls us back. Sometimes, it sends us further.

That same sense of vocational through-line is visible in Sean Fisher, who has quietly become one of the program’s most itinerant servants. Sean’s relationship with the Benedictine Volunteer Corps has unfolded across multiple geographies: a year in Montserrat in 2023, a year in Imiliwaha in 2025, and now a new chapter in Tabgha, Israel. Each move has carried him deeper into the lived reality of Benedictine hospitality, adapting to new languages, new rhythms, and new forms of service without losing the thread of why he began.

In his most recent reflection from Tabgha, Sean recounts a day trip into Bethlehem alongside the monks of Dormition Abbey, visiting Palestinian organizations that serve children and young adults with disabilities, many of whom have longstanding relationships with Beit Noah, the retreat center at Tabgha Monastery. What emerges from his writing is not political analysis, but something quieter and more enduring: the patient practice of hope. Amid denied permits, prolonged separation, and ongoing instability, Sean witnesses communities that continue to serve with tenderness, creativity, and resolve, insisting day after day, on the dignity and humanity of those entrusted to them. As he writes, these are communities engaged in the daily work of rehumanization, guarding a light that barriers and borders cannot extinguish. More about Sean’s time in Israel will be shared below in the next section.

Sean’s journey reflects the deeper promise of the BVC: that faithfulness, when lived across time and place, becomes a form of prayer.

Following the Nairobi Experience, Jonathan Trude, who served in Rome in 2023, extended his to continue work in Nairobi. There, he has begun serving alongside Tommy Hessburg, embedding himself more fully in the Kenyan context that so often serves as a hinge point in the BVC story. Jonathan’s path will carry him again across borders this spring, when he meets Jack in Israel at the end of March.

Not all movement, however, is chosen freely. Due to visa complications in Spain, Ethan Riddle and Cameron Klick find themselves doing something quietly historic: reopening the site in Tepeyac, Mexico, a place the Benedictine Volunteer Corps has not returned to since before COVID. When visas allow, they will complete their year where they began, in Montserrat, Spain, carrying with them a depth of experience shaped by adaptability rather than interruption.

Taken together, these movements tell a larger story. The BVC is increasingly less defined by fixed placements and more by relational trust. Volunteers are not simply “sent”; they are received again and again by communities that know them, by monasteries that recognize them, and by a network that values continuity over convenience.

This is what growth looks like when it is not hurried. Not expansion for its own sake, but deepening, across Spain, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, through people willing to let their lives remain responsive. The map may change. The work does not.

And as the year unfolds, these paths, crossing, diverging, reuniting, quietly affirm what has always been true of the Benedictine Volunteer Corps: formation does not end when a placement does. It continues wherever a person is willing to show up again, attentive and open, ready to be shaped.

Our day trip began before dawn awoke. A waning moon and a scatter of stars danced across the surface of the Sea of Galilee as we drove from Tabgha toward Jerusalem. Sunrise was still an hour away, yet the clouds had already begun to blush pink. Living below sea level gives us this quiet gift: we see the colors of morning before we see the sun itself.

As we wound south, the Sea of Galilee narrowed and reshaped itself into the Jordan River, which meandered alongside us like a patient companion. Date palm plantations encircled Jericho, standing watch like gentle sentinels over the desert floor. Above it all, the Judean Mountains rose in solemn contrast to the lowlands below. We climbed steadily toward Jerusalem, crossing above sea level, until the Golden City finally revealed itself. Just outside Jaffa Gate, we met the monks of Dormition Abbey—and from there, continued on to Bethlehem.

Our journey into the West Bank was shaped by purpose. We were visiting several non-governmental organizations supported by the Dormition Abbey’s Christmas fundraising campaign—groups that also bring the youth they serve to Beit Noah. Beit Noah is a retreat center at Tabgha Monastery, designed with accessibility and care at its heart. Its grounds include playground equipment, mini golf, table tennis, a fire pit, a natural spring-fed swimming pool, and carefully tended gardens—gardens I know well from my own handiwork. While many groups pass through Beit Noah, this visit was about reconnecting with our Palestinian partners who have been unable to return there for two, three, even five years.

We visited four NGOs in Bethlehem, each dedicated to supporting Palestinian children and young adults with disabilities or special needs. The sites differed in structure—some educational and vocational, others residential and supportive—but all shared a common loving spirit. Our first visit was to LifeGate, the largest of the four. Here, children and young adults are met with dignity, care, and love. Art therapy forms the heart of their work: painting, ceramics, woodworking, and more. Through these creative practices, the youth produce items sold in LifeGate’s shop, transforming expression into livelihood. Education and vocational training further ground their path toward independence.

Our second and third visits, to L’Ama and Niños Dios, were more residential in nature. These spaces offered structure, learning, and a rhythm of daily life balanced with time for play and laughter. The children we met were vibrant—restless with energy and eager to connect. We played together, laughed together, and shared moments of unguarded joy before continuing on to our final stop.

L’Arche, our last visit, is a vocational community centered on art therapy through traditional felting. Using sheep’s wool, children and young adults create ornaments, keychains, manger scenes, and bottle bags. The work is slow, tactile, and rooted in tradition. These were patience, and careful crafts shaped by human hands.

Throughout the day, one longing echoed across every site: a desire to return to Tabgha and Beit Noah. It was more than nostalgia—it was a deep, collective yearning. Coordinators and youth alike spoke of that place as paradise. A place where laughter spills across playgrounds, where the pool offers relief from the heat, where birdsong fills the gardens and time seems gentler. Tabgha was not just remembered, it was calling them to return.

Because these organizations are registered with the Palestinian Authority, they must apply for permits to cross into Israel to reach Tabgha. Since the escalation of violence in 2023, every request has been denied since. Still, each group spoke with resolve. They will continue to apply and asked for our prayers. It is here I learned that hope is practiced with persistence and patience.

I learned much about their programs, but even more about what sustains them. It was a privilege to witness such deep devotion and radiant resilience. Each site stood as a beacon, hope, joy, and steadfast faith. Even in challenging times. One director said, “God is not stingy, so we provide beyond what we expect.” We were warmly and generously welcomed during our brief visits. This gave me hope for the warmth and generosity they provide to those they support. These communities are engaged in the daily work of rehumanization—insisting that these children are more than files or numbers. They are people with names, faces, laughter, and light. Light that no barrier nor permit denial can extinguish. It is a light that is simply divine intervention.

This year, the Benedictine Volunteer Corps is partnering with Peyton Reese, a Benedictine Volunteer from 2023 who served in Esquipulas, Guatemala, to produce a documentary and media initiative that will help us more clearly tell the story of who we are, where we serve, and why this work matters.

Peyton’s project is about capturing the lived reality of BVC service: the daily rhythms of prayer and work, the relationships formed within monastic communities, and the quiet, transformative power of showing up consistently in places around the world.

Through this initiative, we hope to create:

Together, these pieces will allow us to communicate the depth of the BVC experience more faithfully, beyond statistics or descriptions, by letting volunteers, monks, and communities speak for themselves.

We are deeply excited about the work Peyton will do on behalf of the program, and we see this project as an investment in the long-term sustainability and visibility of the Benedictine Volunteer Corps. We hope to have the full media collection completed and ready to share by Fall 2026.

This story has been unfolding for over twenty years. We’re grateful for the opportunity to tell it well.

In addition to this broader media initiative, Peyton is currently collaborating with Peyton Reece and Sam Rengo on a documentary project centered in Nairobi, Kenya. The two will travel to Nairobi on February 8 to continue filming and finalize the project on site, capturing stories and relationships that have grown out of the Benedictine Volunteer Corps’ long-standing presence in East Africa.

The film is scheduled to debut in May 2026 on Saint John’s campus, offering the wider community an opportunity to gather, reflect, and celebrate the impact of this work together.

More details on the screening and related events will be shared in the months ahead. In the meantime, watch the trailer for “Something to Smile About.”