Who we are, our history of affordable counseling services since 1982 in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Sister Faye Huelsman, CSJ

Sister Faye co-founded The Center for Enriched Communications, Inc., in Grand Junction, Colorado, in 1981. She still works at the counseling center, where she is able to help people through psychological struggles while answering the call she feels to work with young children, providing them with a good foundation of mental and emotional health.

She joined Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia in 1958 when she had just begun college. "I sensed a deep peace and a commitment that I wanted to be a part of," Faye said of CSJ.

She taught grade school, high school and became a director of religious education. She then helped found the Manna House center for prayer. While teaching high school in Colorado, talking with children about their difficulties, she and Sister Pat felt drawn to counseling and believed they could more effective in a setting where counseling was the sole focus and parents of the children could be involved.

"One of the primary things about CSJ is that we are to find what the needs of the times are and address that," Sister Faye said.

CSJ has allowed her to reach her personal goals in the context of a spiritual commitment that is liberating.

"I think it's a freeing experience in the sense of being able to serve the area we feel called to minister to," she says, "and we have a lot of support and freedom to fulfill our commitment to that calling."

Pat Lewter, CSJ

Sister Pat's hometown is Las Cruces, New Mexico. She spent her early years in community as a secondary teacher. One of her more humorous memories was in Grand Island, Nebraska, when the pastor approached her and Sister Faye about coaching a girls’ track team.
"He told us they had no money to pay for a coach and the state required girls’ athletics," said Sister Pat. "We had no idea why he asked us but we said, ‘Okay.’ He gave us an extra study hall as a benefit for doing it. Neither one of us knew anything about track. The male coaches sent some of the senior boys to teach us what to do and then we taught the girls. We did not get first choice for practice times so we had to practice very early in the morning! We were in good physical shape ourselves at the time and did everything we asked the girls to do. They were amazed that we could do it!" Sister Pat adds, "The track team didn’t win any ribbons but the girls did learn some things and we all had fun!"

Sister Pat was working on a graduate degree in biology when the research field she was basing her research on burned down. It was going to be at least two years before she could complete her studies. She wasn’t in a position to wait that long. Instead, she opted to earn a degree in counseling. She said, "I really got interested in counseling because of our work in the high schools. Many adolescents were in turmoil and often came to Sister Faye and I for help. We would go with them to talk with their parents. We saw some horrible things happen in those situations. Later when we went to the Manna House of Prayer, we discovered people trying to solve really serious problems."

"We started the Center For Enriched Communications in our living room. There was still a stigma attached to going to counseling and we hoped it would make it easier to go to a home and not an office. We moved into an office because we needed more space. We moved into our current location (in Grand Junction, CO) when someone generously offered to fund the building and provide a loan for renovation. We provide services for well over 400 families a year. We work with attachment disordered children, sexually abusive adolescents, couples, families and parent/ child relationships and offer parenting classes. Our clients are either court-ordered or self-referral. We get many clients who come on the recommendation of other clients."

Sister Pat is a master practitioner of neurolinguistic program training. She explains, "It takes two years to be trained but it makes a difference in how you approach mental health issues and in your philosophy of mental health."

Sister Pat says, "There are two things that are most rewarding for me. One has been seeing CEC grow from just the two of us to something that is pretty vital to the Grand Junction community. We are the only agency that provides counseling for people who cannot afford the regular fee.

"The second is knowing that people have come to know Catholic nuns in a different way. We have changed the image of those who think that Sisters carry rulers. That has been really rewarding for me. We present a spirit among our staff that we want everyone treated equally with fairness, dignity and respect. We have always been collegial with an open sharing of information and all staff making the decisions. People enjoy working here."

In her spare time, she enjoys mountain biking, hiking and camping. She is energized by learning new things.

History - Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia

Graced Through the Years

The sisters of St. Joseph was formed by Fr. Jean Pierre Medaille, S.J., in1650 when he called six women to form a religious community in the village of Lepuy, France. They lived communally in union with God, each other and their neighbors, ministering to those who suffered at the fringes of life: the homeless, the orphans, the sick and the dying.

The congregation quickly grew in number and purpose as they began instructing people in Christian doctrine and establishing confraternities of mercy, which incorporated married women into their communities.

When the French Revolution broke out, however, five of the Sisters were executed by revolutionaries and the congregation disbanded. The dispersed members reorganized after the revolution under Sister St. John Fontbonne in Lyon, France. The congregation flourished and the Sisters worked in the fields of education and health care in the French bureaucracy.

The New World

In 1836, six Sisters were sent from Lyon to St. Louis, Missouri, where they established a school for the deaf in what was then frontier territory. The Sisters quickly branched out around the United States and Canada. It was from the Rochester, New York, branch that the Sisters came to Kansas.

The Kansas Connection

In 1883, Mother Stanislaus Leary, former superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester, New York moved to the diocese of Bishop Louis Fink of Leavenworth in Kansas. They set up a school in Newton, Kansas, and another in Concordia, Kansas, which became the Motherhouse for the new Sisters of St. Joseph community.

As towns sprang up throughout the frontier, the Sisters of St. Joseph followed, staffing schools, hospitals, orphanages and homes for the elderly.

The Century of Change

During the first half of the 20th century, the congregation enjoyed its greatest period of expansion as the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia were called to many new opportunities. The establishment of the mission in Teresina, Brazil was among those opportunities. This era of growth was followed in the 1960s by a period of reassessment and renewal in the Catholic Church ushered in by Vatican II. The challenge, of the Council, to all religious congregations was to return to their original spiritual heritage and to an intense living of the Gospel in the contemporary world. For the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, this brought an awareness of their distinctive charism as an active apostolic religious community. Faithfulness to this charism required them to be women steeped in the spiritual life with an authentic sense of self, willing to serve the "neighbor" wherever God might call.

The Present and Future

As the needs of the late 20th century have changed, so have the ministries of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Today, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia are drawn to missions of mercy, social justice and human rights, working for change in the world wherever cries for love, help and mercy may beckon.