Who's on the Good News Ministries Team?

Who's serving on the Good News Team?

+ Administrative Board: Terry Modica, Ralph Modica, Bob Metivier
+ Staff: Michael Jones, Kathy Taylor + coming soon: Daniela Delvescovo as youth Digital Outreach Assistant
+ Volunteers: Fr. Leonard Ranasinghe, Richard Huggins, Esteban Olmedo, Adriana Banda, Stacy Trasancos, Cookie Hill

Terry Modica is the Executive Director of Good News Ministries, the primary speaker and writer, and the web designer. She is the author of the popular daily Good News Reflections. She was certified by the Diocese of St. Petersburg for Lay Pastoral Ministry in 2003 and has a degree in Theology. For more info, read her biography. She lives in Valrico, a suburb of Tampa, Florida, with her husband Ralph.

Ralph Modica is the President of GNM's board of directors. Occasionally, he takes vacation from his job in the corporate world for speaking engagements. As an inspirational instructor, his specialty is how to be a missionary in the workplace by imitating Christ even in the most stressful environments. A cancer survivor and the father of young adults, he also helps people (men especially) find God in the challenges of illness and parenting.

Bob Metivier is a board member who specializes in parish team development and the call to rebuild the Church through the uniting of its members using the techniques of team management, conflict resolution, and effective leadership styles. He is Music Director and the Director of Parish Life in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. He has a Contemporary Catholic music ministry (see www.psalms.ws) to help people find an active and positive relationship with God and with each other within their faith community.

Kathy Taylor began working for Good News Ministries in August 2011 as Curriculum Coordinator. She plans events that we hold in our St. Paul Seminar Room in Tampa, also serving as the friendly hostess who makes participants feel cherished. She is a lifelong Catholic and has known Terry and Ralph in St. Stephen Parish (Valrico, FL) and in Good News Ministries since the late 1990s. Kathy has a long history of serving the Lord with her husband, Jay, including in RCIA and Small Christian Community leadership, as Sacristans, Readers, Eucharistic Ministers, and in the Cursillo Secretariat as Lay Directors and School of Leaders chairs. She has also served as a CCD Coordinator and as a catechist for Religious Education and for Infant Baptism preparation.

Michael Jones joined the team in 2009 as Terry's Ministry Assistant to support all the behind-the-scenes work of Good News Ministries. Michael was born Catholic but left as a young college student to "discover the world." He wondered through several denominations for 20 years but always felt something was missing. In 2003, he found it in the Catholic Church. When in 2009 he was laid off from work, the Lord called him to begin a new phase in life by serving God's kingdom through Good News Ministries. He lives in Northport, FL.

Volunteers

Fr. Leonard Ranasinghe serves as superior of the Sri Lankan Benedictine priests and brothers in St. Sylvester's Monastery, Montefano, Ampitiya, in Sri Lanka. He was ordained in 1974 and has been connected with Good News Ministries since 2008. He created our Mass Intentions ministry as a way of helping to support our works.

Richard Huggins has been compiling the Daily Blessings for Good News Ministries since 2004. He has a BA in Theology with minor studies in sociology and moral theology. He is a professed, lay Oblate of Saint Benedict. He serves on the team because he loves to research the Saints and, as a long-time member of the GNM e-group, The Emmaus Journey, he helps answer questions on scripture and church teachings. He lives in Princeton, Indiana.

Esteban Olmedo translates the Daily Blessings into Spanish. He joined the team in 2012 because, "I love the Daily Blessings and I think I have the language skills to translate them and contribute to Good News Ministries. He has been an active Catholic all his life and, as a child, lived just two minutes away from his local church, Parroquia El Santo Cura de Ars, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He studied in Catholic schools and, after studying Literature in college in Puerto Rico, moved to the USA. In Miami, he attended his first Emmaus retreat, which brought his relationship with Jesus Christ to a whole new level. Today, his spiritual and linguistic understanding enables him to translate the Saints' quotes and other material in a way that transmits the original message and meaning, thus being able to fully inspire others and bring them closer to God.

Adriana Banda translates the daily Good News Reflections into Spanish. She had been a subscriber of the reflections for four years when we needed a new translator and she volunteered to help. She was an answer to our prayers, and the opportunity to join the Good News Ministries team was an answer to her prayers; she was asking God for a way to give back to the ministry that had given her so much. In 2002, she had searched the internet for a guide on how to pray the Rosary and came across the GNM daily reflections, little realizing that later become part of this ministry. She lives in Arlington, Texas.

Stacy Trasancos is our Online Community Administrator. She serves as moderator of the e-groups Parents Who Pray and the Emmaus Journey. She also helps Cookie (see below) with our Holy Family Rosary Ministry. She joined the team initially because she wanted to bring the gift of prayer to other parents. The mother of six and grandmother of one, she came to Good News Ministries during a 2 1/2-year process of RCIA, when she and her husband started using the daily reflections together; she says this remains the most unifying aspect of their relationship with each other and with God. She prays every day for the Lord to use her to bring others closer to Heaven. She lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. You can interact with her on her blog, Accepting Abundance.

Donna (Cookie) Hill makes our Holy Family Rosary Beads to ship, free of charge, to anyone anywhere. She is handicapped with a crippled right hand. Seeking something to do for Jesus and His Mother, she figured out a way to make rosaries. After drifting away from her faith, she returned the Catholic Church and now serves on the Good News Team because she believes in what we stand for and how we serve others with the Word of God. She lives in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Prayer Network - We have over 230 people from all around the world who have joined the Good News Prayer Network to pray for those who post prayer requests in our Prayer Room.

Priests - We collaborate with a number of priests. Father Gary Dowsey, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes in Dunedin, Florida, and Rosminian Father Rick Pilger of Blessed Sacrament in Seminole, Florida, are local priests who assist as chaplains on an as-needed basis. We also have close associations with Mons. Joseph Kimu of the Diocese of Blantyre in Malawi, Central Africa, Father Frank DeSiano, CSP, President of Paulist Evangelization Ministries for which Terry Modica serves as a member of the Advisory Board, and Father Larry Rice, CSP, Director of the Paulist Associates.

Many other priests are connected to us in less formal ways; read comments from some of them.

Help Wanted
Good News Ministries is always open to the Holy Spirit-guided ideas of those who want to get involved as a team member.