The math wasn’t adding up for Dan Callahan. As head of the CYO at St. Michael Church in Annandale, the teen had some experience organizing beach and ski trips for the youths. He wanted to organize a ski trip with his friends, but according to his calculations, the price the travel company was going to charge him was twice what the trip would actually cost.
“My father, who was very fond of entrepreneurship, told me I should just start my own company,” said Callahan, a parishioner of Holy Spirit Church in Annandale. “He took me to get a business license when I was 16 and a business checking account, and I started the Ski Travel company.”
Years later, Callahan’s wife, Rita, who had been on that first ski trip he organized, was pregnant with their fifth child. Due to the economic downturn, business wasn’t going well, so Callahan took a job cleaning pools to make some extra money. In the midst of removing debris from the deep end, he had a revelation.
For years, Callahan brought skiers up to a resort outside Quebec City and then took them to Sunday Mass at the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Shrine, a popular pilgrimage site named after the mother of the Virgin Mary. He decided to turn his business into a year-round enterprise with pilgrimages there in the summer.
He approached a few priests he knew to see if they would accompany him on the pilgrimage trips, including Father Jerome W. Fasano, his childhood pastor. “He looked at me and said, ‘Five years ago I had cancer, and I went to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, and I asked for her intercession. My cancer went away, and I promised her that I would be back in thanksgiving within five years.’ Then he looked at me and said, ‘This is the fifth summer, so you can do the trip.’ ”
Little did Callahan know, he owed a debt of gratitude to St. Anne. He found out why while visiting his wife’s grandmother in the hospital. Callahan handed her a rosary, and she immediately could tell it was from the Canadian shrine, a place she had visited years ago. “She said, ‘When my daughter was pregnant with your wife, she had German Measles (Rubella) and the doctor said there was a risk that the baby wouldn’t survive. So Grandpop Jimmy and I went on a pilgrimage to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré near Québec City.’ The baby, my wife, was born healthy. Grandma Osbourne always attributed this to the intercession of St. Anne.”
Callahan has led pilgrimages to 48 destinations, primarily Canada, Italy and Israel. Oftentimes, he takes one of his 14 children with him. On one memorable trip, he lost his adult son, Pat, in the Vatican. Pat got separated from the larger group, but decided to stay with a woman he knew who was with pilgrims in wheelchairs. Callahan searched throughout St. Peter’s Square, showing his son’s photo to the Swiss Guard and medical personnel. Finally he went back to his group to see if they had heard anything. “They said, ‘I don’t think you have to worry about him,’ and they pointed up at the screen and he was talking to the pope,” who had gone to chat with the disabled pilgrims.
The best part about running JMJ Tours is showing people that Catholicism is much larger than their parish community, said Callahan. “Many people over the years have told me that different pilgrimages have changed their life, and that’s really rewarding because you’re able to bring them there,” he said. “You’ve given them that experience of broadening and increasing their faith.”
Adham Qumseya learned the Bible while growing up in the Holy Land. So naturally, after moving to the United States, he wanted to share that expertise with others. He also hoped to support the Christians living in Palestine, home to his native Bethlehem. So in 2017, the Fredericksburg resident started Terra Sancta Travel Center, a pilgrimage touring company.
Being a Christian in the Holy Land was beautiful, but challenging, said Qumseya. “Praying in the Nativity church every weekend where Jesus was born, the miracles we see every day — it’s very spiritual but it’s very hard as well,” he said. “(When I was growing up), there was no such thing as a childhood. You had to be responsible at a young age, especially given the political situation.
The pain came with unexpected blessings, said Qumseya. “As sad as it might be, one of the best years of my life was the last year I was there, and (there) was a lot of war and killing,” he said. “But the reason I say it’s one of the best years was the love you felt from people, the strength, the unity — people were all praying — all the things we forget until we’re actually going through a very strong hardship.”
When he was 17, Qumseya moved to the United States to study information technology at Marymount University in Arlington. For several years afterward, he worked in the IT field in the U.S. Gradually he began to disagree with the outlook of his employers. “A lot of these companies don’t have our Christian values and I’m just helping those people make more money,” he said. “So, I decided I wanted to use my resources and do something that I can live from and at the same time help a lot of people in the Holy Land.”
Though he no longer gives the tours himself, Qumseya believes that through his connections and hands-on experience his company provides a top-notch visit for Holy Land pilgrims. “We take pilgrimages all over and we deal with really good people, but the Holy Land — this is our place, so there’s no one that can compare,” he said. “All we do is hire Catholic people, for hotels, restaurants, tour guides, bus drivers. We pick the best, but we also pick Catholics, because we want to support the people we care about.”
Though Qumseya grew up in the town where Jesus was born and attended church all his life, running Terra Sancta has brought new meaning to his faith. “Taking people there, and when you talk to them and experience and learn, even though I thought I knew the Bible, every day I learn something new,” he said.
