by Katie Patrick
After nearly 25 years of working at Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska, Bill Meduna, vice president of operations, has retired. We celebrated his retirement Friday, Nov. 3, with nearly 50 staff members and most of his immediate family in attendance.
Father Christopher Kubat, with whom Bill worked for 16 years at CSS, surprised him by coming to celebrate the first Mass in our newly renovated St. Joseph Chapel. Afterward, we had lunch and heard some pretty funny stories from family and coworkers.
One of my favorites that day was Sebit Deng, our immigration specialist, sharing the story of last September when he was offered an old conference table that CSS no longer needed. This conference table was a beast. Prior to being donated to CSS, it served as a conference table on the seventh floor of the Lincoln Benefit Life building downtown. By beast, I mean that it was so heavy, large and awkward that, in order to move it to CSS, a crane was used to remove it through the windows of the building. But when Sebit received the table from CSS on O Street and took it to his home, it was just he and Bill.
As Sebit shared that story, I saw most staff nod in agreement that Bill’s faith and “can-do” spirit affected each of them in some way. For just as Father Kubat’s homily earlier in the day mentioned Bill’s faith in a memory that I can not do justice to retelling—so please ask Bill or Father Kubat about it when you see them next—so too was I able to witness Bill’s faith on countless occasions.
For many years, in his office, Bill had a framed print of Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. Even as a recent college graduate in 2012 when I started at CSS, I found it to be a fitting piece of art for his office. As a Nebraska nonprofit corporation organized exclusively for religious purposes, as property owners and managers, as an employer in nonprofit and retail, as a community-based agency and leader, as grant partners and grant recipients, and as followers of Christ in a postmodern world, CSS sees its fair share of stormy seas. In my position as executive director, I have looked up to Bill as a mentor and probably the most valuable lesson that I have learned is from watching Bill take all matters and decisions to prayer and discernment before taking any action.
I have no doubt that Bill’s faith is not small but large, it is not fleeting but steadfast, and it is what has and will continue to carry him in all he does for his family, his friends, his neighbor, the stranger, and his Church. May God bless Bill and Becky for all that they have sacrificed to be true disciples of Christ and further His mission of serving the poor and vulnerable across southern Nebraska.
