Sinsinawa
Spectrum
A Congregation News Magazine
My Journey to Becoming Dominican:
There Was a Place for Me
by Deb Bomyea, OP
Sr. Deb Bomyea, OP
During my senior year of high school, I visited with our youth club moderator, Rhea Bean, RSM, from Dobbs Ferry, NY, about being a Sister. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I told her, “I want to teach physical education.” She had known me since at least 8th grade, and, after some discussion, she advised me to follow my dream to go to school to be a teacher and then look at religious life again after I had given myself an opportunity to experience life outside of high school.
After graduating from State University of New York at Brockport with a teaching certificate in physical education, I applied to become a Peace Corp and a Vista volunteer. Neither seemed to work out for me with the massive amount of paperwork, but little did I realize then what this would lead to! For it was then that I contacted an international liaison, thanks to my parish priest who knew the director at that time. I was sent a list of 10 volunteer organizations where I could volunteer in my area of training: physical education and athletics. I sent information to all 10 and heard back from them all. There was a difference though: Mary Kremer, OP, took the time to personalize the letter, sent it in time to reach me, and then gave me a follow-up phone call! This convinced me that the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa Apostolic Volunteer program was the way to go. Once the paperwork was completed, Mary visited me, traveling by bus to upstate New York! Later, I had the chance to visit Marce Connolly, OP, at Epiphany School in Chicago. She set me up there as a physical education teacher, and what an experience of a lifetime! After one year of living in community, it felt so right to entertain my thoughts of entering a religious community again . . . but this time it was with the Dominicans and not the Mercys! I contacted the Director of Vocations and asked her if there was a place for me as a physical education teacher within the Sinsinawa Dominican Family and the rest, as they say, is history, as my crowd celebrated our silver jubilee in the summer of 2008. What a blessed journey it’s been . . . ending up in the right place for me with women driven by Gospel values and justice!