BELLA VISTA — Over the years, Bella Vista has drawn many retirees to the Ozarks to enjoy its comfortable lifestyle and natural beauty.
Since St. Bernard Church opened in 1982, it fulfilled its main mission by caring for the spiritual needs of an older congregation.
However, this is no longer true. Economic changes in the region have boosted the popularity of Bella Vista as an option for younger families. The Bentonville School District opened Bella Vista’s first school, Cooper Elementary, two years ago, signaling a change in the retirement community.
Today, the parish has 1,400 members, with about 70 percent of them being 65 years and older and 10 percent 40 years old and younger, Jenny Holmstrom, parish ministries director, estimated. In 2008, the parish had five infant baptisms, three receiving their first Communion and three weddings.
Two years ago, Father Andy Smith, pastor of St Bernard and St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish in Fayetteville, saw the congregational shift to a younger congregation. He asked Irene Wallace, a parishioner and a retired public school principal from Denver, to build the current religious education program.
Wallace, an energetic woman enjoying her retirement, initially had her reservations about taking on the responsibility of director of religious education.
“When Father asked me to do this, the first thing I said was ’No.’ Then I felt a thump on the back of my head,” she said. “I think it was the Lord saying, ’Wait a minute, Missy. I have given you all of these things and you have the nerve to say no to a priest who has given his life to the Church.’ So I said, ’I will think about it, Father.’ Now here I am.”
Coming on board as director of religious education, Wallace thought this would be a simple volunteer job compared to 25 years in school administration in Colorado. She said it hasn’t turned out that way.
“I work virtually the same numbers of hours now,” she said. “In my public school job I had developed schools from scratch myself. I worked with the university there to train teachers for the Denver Public Schools.”
Today a big part of her job concentrates on training catechists, including in-service workshops.
“These teachers have full-time jobs in addition to teaching here,” Wallace said. “They do the teacher training on Saturdays on top of teaching the kids. Some of them go to local workshops; some of them have gone to Little Rock for training. Whatever the teachers will do, we will support them in paying for it. We are blessed to have them.”
In the religious education program for pre-K to eighth grades, there are 12 teachers and 50 students. Last year, in the St. Bernard Catholic Teens program, there were six high school students and three confirmation candidates. It has grown to 17 students and six confirmation candidates this year.
Raising these numbers has been a challenge.
“In this program, we started looking at our teens and discovered that once they are confirmed, they are gone,” Wallace said. “As a result, we are looking at different things. We looked at different materials. We visited other programs to see what looked good and how we could use it.”
Other area Catholic churches and the diocesan Youth Ministry Office have supported the Bella Vista program, she said.
“The diocese has been phenomenal for this program,” Wallace said. “We have worked with Liz Tingquist, director of the Catholic Youth Ministry, trying to figure out how to do it best and how to build the program. We are small so there is a limited amount of money.”
To make the most of the limited funds, St Bernard Catholic Teens are partnering with teens from St. Stephen in Bentonville, St. Vincent de Paul in Rogers, St. Raphael in Springdale and St. Joseph in Fayetteville for retreats and projects.
Wallace said, “These are events that we could not afford to do alone.”
A confirmation retreat was scheduled recently with the teens from St. Stephen. Bishop Anthony B. Taylor will confirm the students during Mass May 15 in Bentonville.
These kinds of events have worked well for both parishes involved.
“It works out well because St. Bernard has a big teacher/student ratio. We have many teachers and fewer students. The larger parishes have fewer teachers with lots of students. So we can all work together for the students,” Wallace said.
Another important aspect of building the Catholic Teens program is to promote the cohesiveness and identity of the group. There are T-shirts with St. Bernard Catholic Teens logos. Field trips and service projects have been held to encourage teen participation.
One of the Lenten service projects was to the Gravette Care & Share Store.
“This is what Lent is all about — fasting, abstinence and giving to the poor,” Wallace said. “This was a good project. The kids loved it. The older people there loved it. It went so well that we are going to do it again in September as a continuous service project.”
One of the teachers, Jennifer Horsley, moved to Bella Vista with her husband last year. A mother of nine, Horsley has taught religious education classes and RCIA programs at all different levels.
“I have worked with three different high school groups in three different states. Anything we can do to get the kids out working on a project is the kind of experience that bonds the kids in a group,” Horsley said.
The Catholic Teens group meets two Sundays and two Wednesdays a month during the school year. The teens will also meet twice a month for special events, such as cookouts or field trips.
Parents’ reaction to these activities have been favorable.
“Parents like the idea that the teens are doing some supervised fun activities. We’re doing the supervision, and they know that there is going to be lessons in appropriate behavior and appropriate interaction with the kids,” Wallace said.
This summer four students will travel to Camp Barnabas, a camp in Purdy, Mo., for children and young adults with special needs, to volunteer with catechist Gail Swisher, who is a nursing instructor at Northwest Arkansas Community College.
Building on the cohesiveness of the group, Wallace and Horsley want to help the students form their own youth council to help plan activities.
“This is the point,” Wallace said. “We have to develop a core teen group. We have to develop teen leadership. This way we work toward setting up our lessons and planning so the teens are part of the planning and part of the direction of the group.”