Audrey Sutherland left her home, her family, and her job to minister in Atlantic City. Here’s what she learned from her Boardwalk ministry.

(0:16) We meet Audrey Sutherland and learn about her rural upbringing and the culture shock she witnessed when moving to suburban Detroit, and the abrupt decision she made to leave her home and job to move to Atlantic City.

(1:48) A brief overview of the Atlantic City lifestyle, and then Audrey introduces the primary struggle that people in Atlantic City experience: addiction.

(3:54) Audrey reflects on why she moved to Atlantic City and the adventure that is following Jesus. Karen Ervin, former principal of St. Catherine of Siena, talks about Audrey’s love of God and the many ways she ministers to people.

(6:30) Audrey shares about where her mission is located, right in one of the seediest areas of the city, and the grace of having the Blessed Sacrament in an area where it is so needed. She shares what their mission is really about: creating deep relationships with others through a ministry of presence, so that they may come to know the truth of God’s love for them.

(8:35) We learn what an average day in the mission looks like, starting with the breakfast they offer to the homeless twice a week and the street evangelization they do.

(10:15) Though there are a range of support groups available in the city to those in need, many don’t take advantage of them. Audrey shares that part of their mission is to help people recognize that they are worthy of love and they do deserve to get better.

(11:54) Audrey reflects on what she’s learned about Jesus, life, and repentance through her mission work. She tells of a bilingual rosary they held leading up to St. Michael’s feast day, which had a significant impact on the community.

(14:40) Audrey discusses the poverty that exists in Atlantic City — material poverty, yes, but also loneliness and inner poverty. She reflects on the inspiration of Mother Theresa and the changes people can make in the world even just by showing kindness.

(17:27) Audrey considers what’s next for her, coming home to Michigan with no job lined up, and expresses her excitement at just letting the Lord lead her.

(18:17) Karen testifies to Audrey’s missionary spirit and her boldness in answering the call to unleash the Gospel. Audrey reflects on the union we strive for with Christ, and the ways we can create heaven on earth by letting God move in our lives.

Reporting by Gabriella Patti; narration and production by Ron Pangborn

Listen to ‘Detroit Stories’ on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. Podcasts also will be posted biweekly on DetroitCatholic.com. 

Title: A Monopoly of Love

Narrator: Baltic Avenue. Park Place. Boardwalk. If these names sound familiar, it’s probably from taking a spin around the block with Rich Uncle Pennybags in the popular board game Monopoly.

Audrey: It was actually kind of funny ‘cause when I moved to Metro Detroit, initially I remember talking to my sister and I was living with my brother there. I stayed with him and his family and I was like, “I just don't think I can move here. I mean, everything's just so the same. And so suburban. Like, I'm used to, like, the country where everything is like, wide open field and it just feels like I'm like part of a Monopoly board or something. All the houses are on a grid and they're the same.”

Narrator: Where Audrey grew up, life moves slowly. The livestock outnumber the people, and the houses aren’t four to a square. In fact, you’d be lucky to find a hotel within 50 miles. There is a railroad, but it’s the Huron and Eastern, not B&O or Reading. “Get out of jail free” is when your mother’s uncle knows the sheriff, and “free parking”? Where Audrey lived, the only parking is “free parking.”

So it was really out of character when Audrey, for the last four years the mild-mannered Admissions Director at St. Catherine of Siena Academy in Wixom, decided to abruptly quit her job, pack her bags and move across the country to live among the homeless, prostitutes, and gambling addicts in the city where Monopoly made its name …

[Sounds of casinos, laughing, partying, slot machines]

Atlantic City.

Welcome to Detroit Stories, a podcast on a mission to boldly share the stories of the people and communities in Southeast Michigan. These are the stories that fascinate and inspire us.

The main industry in Atlantic City, N.J., which should come as no surprise, is casinos. The city thrives on tourism. Slot machines and craps tables are as essential to the city’s economy as assembly lines are to Detroit’s. In normal times, bachelor and bachelorette parties fill the hotel rooms and bars, which are booming with revelers indulging in the bright lights, the free-flowing alcohol and the highly charged sexual atmosphere.

Notice I said “normal” times, not “good” times.

[Somber music]

Audrey: The primary struggle that a lot of the individuals here face is just addiction of one sort or another. So that could be addiction to gambling, addiction to drugs, addiction to alcohol, you know, you name it. There's just a lot of enslavement here just to the stronghold of addiction.

Narrator: That’s Audrey, who’s currently five months into an eight-month mission with the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal. She isn’t becoming a nun, though she admires the Sisters for their dedication to the poor. And there’s a lot of poverty in America’s east-coast gaming mecca.

While gambling, prostitution and drug abuse are a way of life in Atlantic City, those vices come with an unhealthy dose of suffering. Homelessness runs rampant along the Jersey Shore, and so does desperation. For many who live there, Atlantic City isn’t a gambler’s paradise, but a cold, unfeeling machine that eats dollars and spits out souls.

[Voice asking for a dollar]

Narrator: That’s in “normal” times. During COVID-19, the misery has reached almost endemic levels, with 20,000 people out of work and a poverty rate of 37.7%. So why would Audrey, a Catholic girl from the corn country of Michigan, want to move there?

Audrey: Yeah. Well, it's a good question. I'm still kind of surprised that I'm here in Atlantic city doing this, ‘cause it's not something I had planned on. And I think it just shows that when you follow Jesus, it's always an adventure.

[Bus sounds]

Narrator: Quite simply, she wanted to help.

Karen: My impression of her in the interview was that she had a high octane of the Spirit. Like, you could hear that in her. You could hear the love that she had for Jesus. You could hear how she wanted to give that to others, but she hadn't had the opportunity to do it in the world yet.

Karen: She just has a way about her, where you can see that joy of the Lord in her in the way that she is with people. So even if she's not directly, you know, preaching the Gospel, she could be ministering to somebody or being attentive to their needs or listening, you know, to them, or even working in a soup kitchen. Right? And helping to feed them. And you'll see that light of love in her just in the way that she is.

Narrator: Audrey is a Mass-going Catholic, but you wouldn’t describe her as “holier than thou.” And quitting a well-paying job with no prospects lined up on the other side wasn’t in the original cards — so to speak.

Audrey: One day just kind of on a whim, I thought about this program. I decided to make a phone call, got the information. I thought it sounded nice, but wasn't really for me. But I decided just to pray about it, you know, get the application. And as I did, it really became clear to me, I mean, it's beautiful how God works, that he always — for me in particular, I'm not a decisive person, so the fact that he made it so clear to me to do this was really a gift because I just, I knew that God has asked me to apply, to just kind of step out and see — at least knock on the door and see if he was leading me to do this program.

Narrator: The “program” is a nine-month mission in which Audrey and three other people — whom she’d never met — live, work, and serve alongside the homeless, outcast and desperate in the heart of Atlantic City, serving meals, sparking conversations and connecting with those in need of help. Their residence is a block from the Jersey shore and is surrounded by casinos, liquor stores and hotels — in other words, right where they’re most needed.

[Street sounds]

Audrey: We're right next to one of the very worst alleys in Atlantic city. I think we had to call the police like every day, this week, maybe a couple of times, ‘cause, like, things were happening there that weren't good. But just having the blessed sacrament here and the presence of Jesus radiating out in this area. I mean, I know that we'll probably never even know til heaven, like really what the impact of that is.

Narrator: Audrey lives with three others — one from Canada, one from Maryland and one from Illinois — at the St. Benedict House, which is named for Fr. Benedict Groeschel, one of the founders of the Franciscan Sisters and Friars of the Renewal. The sisters are a couple blocks away. They live among the poor, which, as Audrey sees it, is essential.

Audrey: I mean, Jesus himself was poor. He chose to be born poor and he really lived in a special way and dwells among those who are, you know, the misfits and the broken and the most hurting in the world. So I just really felt that call to really just accompany people and to be a presence to them of his love.

Narrator: It’s more than just a sandwich and a quick “God bless,” though.

Audrey: I mean, that's really at the end of the day what our whole mission is. It's not about handing out hygiene bags or providing food for people — like, that's part of it, but more than that, they need hope more than the tangible things that we give them. So our whole goal of our mission is really just to form a healthy relationship with the people that we serve through a ministry of presence. And when that trust is built, it opens the door for them to really see that they're lovable, to see their own dignity, and then to encounter the reality that God loves them. And that there's a different way of life possible for them. That, you know, he never gives up on them.

Narrator: Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the missionaries host breakfast twice a week, rain or shine, and actively seek out those on the streets, praying with people and earning their trust, little by little.

Narrator: Sometimes, people come for a hot meal. Sometimes, the hot meal comes to them.

Audrey: And then we also do street evangelization, which is where we just go around and make sandwiches. And then we grab some rosaries and holy cards, and we just kind of walk two by two, as the Gospel says, and see who we encounter. And if they're willing to chat with us a bit, we will, we'll offer them the sandwich and cold water, and it a rosary. Often we'll pray with people.

Narrator: One of the more jarring realizations Audrey made was that while Atlantic City has a host of resources to help those in need — think gambling helplines, Alcoholics Anonymous, food pantries — people don’t seek them out. When you’ve lost everything, sometimes mustering the courage to ask for help just seems like one more inhumanity. One more gut punch.

Audrey: People just didn't see themselves as lovable or worthy of help. So our role is really just to kind of be that, that bridge to see the beauty of each soul and to reflect that back to them so that they can see their own worth. And then — and sometimes that takes years of coming, you know, twice a week to get breakfast and they don't say much, but slowly that relationship is built where at a certain point they may have enough trust in us to seek help, or maybe we'll present the idea to them, to, you know, go into a detox program or connecting them to many of the resources around here.

Narrator: The stories can be heartbreaking.

Audrey: A couple of weeks ago we were going to take a woman to detox. She had expressed interest that she wanted to do that. And she was, you know, living on a sidewalk and a piece of cardboard and had had a lot of, a lot of trauma, a lot of pain in her life. And so we went to her, we got everything ready and at the time we were going to take her to a facility where she could get help and she just couldn't leave, like the one unopened beer in front of her, it was $1.25. And she said that she was like, “I just can't leave this.” Like, and I'm just thinking, like, obviously this is like, doesn't make sense. Like it's such a better life that awaits you. I mean, detox is excruciating painful, but like beyond that, like your life could be so different. Like you're not going to be out in the rain on the sidewalk. But it was just, you know, one of those moments where it was like that little thing that was standing between her and in a different life. And it really just reminded me how sin really enslaves us and how God is always opening the door to something bigger.

Narrator: For Audrey, recognizing the pain and brokenness in someone else held a mirror to her own life. She’s a prayerful woman, but gazing into the eyes of Jesus in a stranger has a way of humbling a person.

Audrey: It's like, yeah, this is really what it comes down to when everything else is stripped away. Like, when you're at rock bottom, like, what really matters? What are we living for? What are we numbing ourselves with? What are we afraid to give up? What is holding us back?

I mean, that really applies to all of us, too. It's not like, it's not like they're the poor and we're like from this higher place. It's like, we all have that poverty within us and that brokenness, it just manifests itself in different ways. And in a lot of ways there's so much to learn from the poor too. Just the humility that they have and the transparency. Although, you know, there's a lot of woundedness there, there's a lot of honesty and their brokenness, in where they're at, and just that really transparent desire to be loved.

Narrator: And love, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, never fails.

In November, the community held a special bilingual rosary leading up to the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, a special protector against temptation.

Audrey: We had a really great turnout of many different, different types of people. Some of our homeless neighbors who live in the back parking lot behind the convent were there. And then we had a local judge and many people from the Hispanic community and just, you know, friends in the parish. So it was a great, you know, cross section of Atlantic City that came for that for nine days.

Narrator: For one man, it was just the gentle nudge he needed.

Audrey: That actually just happened a couple of weeks ago, I think. We took one of our, one of the men who was living in our parking lot and was homeless, he went to a detox program and is doing well, he's now in a sober living home. So it's really rewarding when you see those stories of hope. And then at the convent, they also have just kind of like what, actually, Fr. Solanus did a lot of, like, you can just ring the door, there's kind of hours and you can get a sandwich and coffee at any time and, you know, pray with people there. So they always know that that's a place that they can come and just receive some hope and solace.

Narrator: In Monopoly, Boardwalk might be the most expensive property you can buy, but in Atlantic City, it’s where people who are down on their luck live. Audrey has encountered numerous people there — and it’s not always a nice place. Drugs and violence are common. But while the pain is real, the deeper wounds are invisible.

Mother Teresa once said it best: “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.”

Audrey: When I first came this summer, I was just really shocked. And the greatest poverty isn't necessarily material, although that's there, but I mean, there's homeless with smartphones and all that. It's really that inner poverty that again, like Mother Teresa spoke about, that's the greatest poverty. That loneliness, that just feeling unlovable inside, feeling alone, that isolation from others, not knowing real healthy relationships. And that's, I think something that's particularly — from what I've heard from some of the other sisters unique to the US in particular, that in many other countries in the world, there's great material poverty, which is, I mean, it's horrible, that's a deep suffering, but here in the US, a lot of the work that the Franciscan sisters and friars do in particular is really, yes, it's providing those material needs, but it goes much deeper than that because the ache is much deeper.

Mother Teresa: Take one person, individual person, one person at a time. We can solve only one at a time, we can love only one at a time. The whole world, all we are, it sounds so big and all that, and yet it is but only a drop in the ocean. But if we didn’t do that little drop, that ocean would be one drop less.

Audrey: So I know one time I was walking on the boardwalk with one of the sisters and other missionaries and this guy was there and we were talking to him briefly. And he was saying just that we're the only people that are, you know, nice to him. So just like little things like that, I think where people see that there's goodness and there's hope and they feel loved. That really is what we're trying to do that yeah. Just that God can use us to reach hearts and minds and radiate his love out. And I think that people do perceive that there's something different there.

Narrator: Audrey doesn’t have a job to go back to once her mission is complete. St. Catherine of Siena Academy has moved on. In Monopoly terms, she hasn’t passed “Go” in a while. Audrey doesn’t know what awaits her when she returns home this summer. But job or no job, she’s coming home wealthier than she left.

Audrey: No, I did resign and they have filled the position, so I have no idea where the Lord is going to lead me. I love St Catherine's, I'm still good friends with a lot of people there and we stay in touch. And I'm excited to see, you know, what they do in the future and how the school continues to grow and flourish. And I'll always be a big, big cheerleader for SCA. I don't know if I'll ever work there again. I mean, God only knows that, but yeah, I'm open to wherever he leads and just trying to be available to him and in whatever way he is inviting me to serve and to live for him.

Narrator: Audrey doesn’t consider herself a role model, but others, like Karen Ervin, have a different opinion.

Karen: I wish everybody had that same just conviction. I, myself, as a young person didn't have that. I didn't have the flame of Jesus lit quite so high as I've seen in Audrey. And the fact that she was willing to kind of put her life on hold to go do missionary work is another testimony to that. And we're all called to unleash the Gospel. And here we have a woman who's doing that and doing it at a young age, you know, where her career now gets to be put on hold because she really felt convicted she needed to do it.

Audrey: I bring my own faults and my own struggles and my own gifts. And yeah, I think it's just — it comes down to those little things. Like, it sounds radical sometimes, but it's just life and it's the invitation and the goal is the same. Our goal is, you know, union with Jesus and to be with him forever in heaven and to live each moment on earth with joy and in that union with him and each little moment. So, and that can be wherever we are, like just letting him use us, giving him permission to use us, our hands and our feet and our ears and our eyes to listen to others to receive them wherever we are.

Narrator: Detroit Stories is a production of Detroit Catholic and the communications department of the Archdiocese of Detroit. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.