The couple has been to more than 350 church properties in The Good Life
By Jay Sorgi
for the Register
Kathy and Steve Niedbalski say they used to drive their kids crazy.
“Do we have to stop in another church?” they would convey in disgust.
The kids aren’t asking the annoyed question anymore, but celebrating their parents’ rare accomplishment.
The Niedbalskis, who attend Prince of Peace Church in Kearney, have stepped onto every Catholic Church property in Nebraska. By their count, it’s more than 360 in total, with 133 of them in the Diocese of Lincoln.
They finished this most unusual pilgrimage Sunday, Aug. 2, with family and friends joining them for Mass at Saints Peter and Paul Church in Omaha. The Mass was celebrated by Father Julius Tvrdy, a retired priest of the Lincoln Diocese.
“We visited a lot of churches through the years,” Kathy said. “When we retired, we said, ‘Well, what are we going to do in retirement?’ And we jokingly said, ‘We’ve been to a lot of churches. Let’s see if we can go to every one in Nebraska.”
They said they first started going to various Catholic churches together when they got married 47 years ago, but there was no plan to chase churches like baseball fans chase MLB stadiums.
They said they had been to maybe 100 by the time they retired.
“Let’s just see if we can get the other 250,” Kathy said.
Their plan was to use every trip as a chance to visit several churches along the way, but as they got closer to the final total, they became more intentional and called ahead to make sure churches would be open.
“There’s about 40 churches that we have not been inside, because they were locked when we got there,” Steve shared, saying they’ll try to step inside each one in the future.
But he said priests and church staff were incredibly generous with their time and trust.
“Often they would just have a key hanging by the front door so we could let ourselves in, and then hang it back up and go on our way,” he said.
“But a lot of people were willing to take time out of their day to go to the church and open it up for us.”
The churches that were opened for the Niedbalskis often provided unexpected experiences, like Mother of Sorrows Church in Grant.
“Their statue of Mary has tears on her cheek. That’s one thing I’m going to remember. As a mother, that moved me – that she was crying,” Kathy said.
“We didn’t have Indianola marked on the map, but [St. Catherine Church] was right alongside the highway,” she added. “The priest happened to see us walk in. He turned on the lights. It was fabulous in there, just beautiful windows. It was just awesome.”
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Courtesy photos
The couple also found plenty of churches constructed and founded by particular immigrant groups who came to Nebraska, including some with Czech or Polish roots.
St. Anthony of Padua in rural Steinauer also provided a surprise in its ornate beauty.
“It’s kind of out in the middle of nowhere, and it’s this great, big, beautiful... church. The inside is elegant,” Steve shared.
“You wonder who all is coming to this church. There’s small farmers all around there, but it’s big.”
Kathy and Steve failed to count the mileage or gasoline cost that it took to make the trips over the 80,000 square miles of Nebraska.
What matters more to them is how they made this chase more than a hobby, but an adventure they could share with God and each other.
“Kathy loves to quilt. I like to play golf. We don’t do those things together. She doesn’t want to play golf. I don’t want to quilt,” Steve said. “But driving around, looking at churches is our hobby that we do together.”
They both shared how deeply they found unexpected treasures, revealing the infinite ways God can work to reach people.
“Each church that we go in, we see something that refreshes our faith,” Kathy added. “Little details that we see touch our souls and remind us of who God is, and how God has lived in the faith of that community.”
“God inserts Himself into our lives in all kinds of ways. All kinds of miracles happen around us all the time that we don’t even pay attention to,” Steve shared. “Going to churches is maybe a little more profound than just walking through normal life, [with] all the coincidences that we have encountered in this, whether it’s people that we’ve met or things we’ve seen in those churches.”
They said the final church created a chance for their “empty nest” friends, including some non-Catholics, to join them at Mass and celebrate their adventurous accomplishment in faith.
“I don’t know that they will ever become Catholic, but I guess in a way it’s neat that we’re pretty blessed to have friends like that that are willing to share our Catholic pilgrimage with us and find joy and excitement in it,” Steve said.
Whether it’s a large Gothic-style church in a town of 100 or a small roadside parish, Kathy and Steve recognize that in every instance, the faithful built every church as an act of sacrifice in love of their God and their Catholic faith.
“The little that we do for our church, the little that we sacrifice for our churches,” said Steve, “just doesn’t even compare to what went into building all the churches in Nebraska.”
