Editor's note: "The Faith in Our Lives" is a series spotlighting Catholics in various walks of life, and how they connect faith with what they do.

"Our family is as high as the sky."

That's how almost-six-year-old Grace Rector put it to her mom Pamela. And with good reason. Pamela, a 48-year-old single mother, has been mentoring kids --- who are now young adults --- for more than 15 years. Four students she met when they were in elementary school and junior high (German Manjarrez, Alejandra Ramirez, Jorge Lupercio and Arelly Saldaņa) still celebrate Christmas and Easter at the Rector home in Westchester, go on vacations together and talk to each other by telephone or e-mail almost every day.

"I always thought that once kids were 18 that you were kind of done with them," says Rector, the director of the Center for Service and Action at Loyola Marymount University. Sitting in her Malone Student Center office, she is almost smiling, explaining her career arc from working directly with inner-city children to running a center at a private college that places mostly middle class students in contact with the poor and marginalized.

"But it's like still going on," she observes. "Two have graduated from college, and the others are working at LAX in the cargo field. Now they're moving out of their families, and there's the whole cultural thing. So they have all these decisions to make.

"Now I don't know if it's even mentoring," she points out, shaking her head. "It's just like family. They call me 'mom,' and I look on them as my adult children. It just all seems to be evolving."

Rector is sure, however, that mentoring is crucial for urban minority students. She's seen firsthand the "huge difference" it has made in the lives of German, Alejandra, Jorge and Arelly --- not just in terms of going on to college and careers, but about knowing that somebody believes in them and expects them to do the best they can.

'Nice blend of both'

Rector got that early on from her own parents.

Her mother was a go-to-Mass-every-Sunday-and-daily-during-Lent parishioner at St. Lawrence Martyr in Redondo Beach, while her dad rarely ventured inside a church. But he was always the one in their Torrance neighborhood fixing things for others or driving the elderly to doctors' appointments.

"So he was the guy who was more for social action, and my mom was more the woman of faith," she recalls. "And I think I got a nice blend of both."

Her grandmother loved Maryknoll priests and sisters, and always had their magazines around her house, which sparked an early interest in social justice issues for Rector. Moreover, because her mother was born in Peru and her father would take his only child to street festivals in Watts and Chinatown, the girl's worldview soon expanded well beyond the South Bay.

After the psych major graduated in the first joint class of Marymount and Loyola colleges in 1977, she worked for three years as a counseling assistant in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Then she went back to LMU, earning a master's degree in counseling. This was followed by five years as a counselor in the Lennox School District before moving up to vice principal positions at an elementary school and junior high.

But she wasn't happy in administration. After a lot of discernment and spiritual direction, it all boiled down to one question posed by a woman she calls her "spiritual hero":

"Does the vice principal job give you life?" Sister Peg Dolan wanted to know.

Rector took a demotion and went back to a counseling job at her old school in Lennox "because that's where I really felt I was able to have the most impact." She started after-school programs for latchkey kids and a college readiness program with tutors from Cal State Dominguez Hills. She took students on field trips to UC Berkeley, Stanford and other universities. And she made home visits to parents, explaining the lifelong benefits of higher education for their children.

Out of the blue, a junior at Loyola Marymount University, after reading an article about the social service-minded counselor in an alumni magazine, called to ask if she would be interested in starting a mentoring program at LMU. Jumping at the idea, she quickly put together "El Espejo," using college students to tutor and mentor students at Lennox Middle School.

The program is now in its 12th year, and the student who called her, Armando Mena, is currently the principal of the Math, Science and Technology Academy, a high school in Lennox, "which is kind of cool," according to the former counselor.

Service and action center

Feeling "done," after working 17 years in Lennox schools, Rector took a year off to decide what else she wanted to do with her life. She decided to accept a job at her alma mater. Taking a program that was buried in the middle of the university's career development services, she started the Center for Service and Action (CSA). Today the center is its own department with a director, assistant director, administrative coordinator, community service coordinator, direct service coordinator and community-based learning coordinator.

CSA offers Loyola Marymount students a host of services to encourage volunteerism, advocacy and activism. User-friendly access to volunteer opportunities include a database and e-mail list, a community service opportunity of the week and a Saturday service program. There are two broad immersion programs: "Alternative Breaks," which sponsors service projects in the U.S. and other countries during spring, fall and winter school vacations, and "Pawprints Trips," providing service experiences in Southern California for incoming freshmen.

LMU students interested in social justice activities also have seven on-campus service clubs, organizations and programs they can join.

But the latest and most comprehensive effort of the Center for Service and Action is "community-based learning," which offers support to faculty members who want to incorporate community service into their classes. Currently, a dozen courses have this outreach component built into the curriculum.

Weaving faith into work

"What we really are about is we're trying to put students in direct contact with the poor and the marginalized," Rector stresses, pointing to her head. "So it's not just up here. When they're in a poor community and working with kids or developing relationships with the elderly or whoever, they have a framework to make decisions and view world events and global politics through. And we want them to reflect on what they see: 'Why is it that these kids in juvenile hall are all brown and black?'

"You look at LMU, a beautiful campus up on a hill. You could stay here. Why would you leave? So our goal really is to get them off the hill and to put their bodies in the community."

Rector, who is beginning her seventh year at Loyola Marymount, stays silent for a moment, reflecting.

"I feel lucky to have had a life where I've been able to weave my faith into my work," she confides. "Even in Lennox, I was working with immigrant communities and really empowering folks and helping them see the possibilities. I know a lot of people have these jobs where you just couldn't do that. And in this job, for sure, I have that opportunity.

"I don't know if I get the jobs because I need to do that for my own personal satisfaction. I don't know which comes first. What do they say? In mid-life, things change? Before I was hands-on, volunteering with Covenant House, going under freeway overpasses to hand out sandwiches.

"But now," she says, "my role is to make sure these students have the same kind of social justice experiences I had --- experiences that changed my life."