Manuela Lue, a lay evangelist with longstanding ties to the Diocese of Columbus, will be returning to central Ohio sometime this year from her native Belize to visit the diocesan Missions Office and to raise funds for a mission church in a remote area of the Central American nation.

Lue learned to make rosaries in 2002 from Irene Cassady of Columbus while Lue was working as a financial analyst for Nationwide and attending Eucharistic Adoration at Immaculate Conception Church. 

She sent hundreds of rosaries to her homeland, and when she returned there, she began a mission that placed about 40,000 rosaries in the hands of students in all 130 Catholic schools in Belize, formerly British Honduras.

Lue and her aunt Thomasita Asevedo took 10 years, from 2008 to 2018, to complete the mission with the help of visitors and volunteers. 

Support for her work from Columbus has come from the Missions Office; its former director, Leandro “Lany” Tapay, and its current director, Sister Zephrina Mary GracyKutty, FIH; and from Earl and Carol Crosby of Worthington St. Michael Church; Al and Irene Cassady of St. Patrick Church; Joseph Rayen of St. Peter Church; and Theresa Thompson of Immaculate Conception Church.

Lue continued to make rosaries for first Holy Communion and confirmation classes at St. Joseph School in Belize City until the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools throughout the country for much of 2020 and 2021. 

Schools reopened in January 2022 on a hybrid basis – some online, some in-person. She became involved with prison ministry in 2019 and 2020 and continues to promote the rosary through evangelization in parks and on the streets.

Her most recent trip to Columbus was in 2020, when she visited the Missions Office and several of her supporters and went on a retreat with the Children of Mary apostolate of women in Newark. In 2019, she attended World Youth Day in Panama.

Lue, her aunt and father had the coronavirus in 2021. Her aunt was hospitalized for 15 days and bedridden for two months. She is walking now and continuing to recover at home.

This past October, Lue promoted the Aid to the Church in Need campaign, which aimed to have 1 million children worldwide praying the rosary on Oct. 18, the Feast of St. Luke, inviting them to remember the words of Our Lady of Fatima that the childlike, trusting prayer of the rosary can change the world, defeat evil and bring peace. Lue said 1,434 people from Belize took part in the activity that day.

In December of last year, she put together packages for retreats and Christmas packages for churches in various sections of Belize. She also continues to write for the Christian Herald, that nation’s Catholic newspaper.

Her current fundraising effort involves a new church building in the village of San Pablo. The village consists of 35 Catholic families, mainly of the Q’eqchi people, who are of Mayan descent. Lue became the godmother of three Q’eqchi children in 2019.

The site where the church has been built is nine miles off the nearest paved road and is accessible by driving on dirt roads through banana farms. Once arriving at the site, visitors can view a beautiful river and waterfall.    

Besides contributing to the church building fund, villagers are cooking and selling food to raise money locally. They are being led by catechist Juan Salam, who has one brother, Father Vicente Salam, who is a missionary priest, and another brother, Deacon Mateo Salam, studying at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis.

 The church is next to a school and will be used for school events and as a hurricane shelter. The building is complete and is awaiting paint and floor tile. Beyond that, it has no pews, altar furniture, statues, stations of the cross or essential liturgical items. Lue is raising funds for those and continuing work toward a long-held goal of building a Catholic bookstore and rosary center next to her home.

Besides her activities with the Church, Lue has been honored for her work with young people. She was employed by Belize Natural Energy Ltd. as a financial analyst from 2007 to 2017. In 2016, the British Commonwealth honored her as its Youth Worker of the Year among Commonwealth nations in the Caribbean and the Americas. She was chosen for her efforts with the company’s Energy for Life program, where she was helping young people become community leaders and entrepreneurs.

She received a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, finance and economics from John Carroll University in suburban Cleveland in 1994 and a Master of Business Administration degree with distinction in international banking and finance from the University of Birmingham, England in 2000. 

To donate to the San Pablo church project, contact [email protected]. For more information about Lue’s ongoing Mary’s Little Jewel rosary mission, visit www.rosariesandmorebz.org.