Manny and Marcelle Trujillo

Manny and Marcelle Trujillo have a simple formula for success — both in marriage and community service.

“Doing things together as a couple usually helps quite a bit,” Manny said as Marcelle nodded and smiled next to him in his office on the campus of Our Lady of Belen Catholic Church.

“I mean, you know, sometimes I’m tired and she has another place to go,” he continued. “Well, you know, you get up and you’re going to be doing the same thing. The other community is the same thing. She’s tired and I’ve got to go. We’re all together, I guess.”

Both in their early 70s, Marcelle and Manny have been mainstays in the OLB parish as well as the Belen community at large. Manny’s main service has come as a deacon. Marcelle works alongside him in the church community but has also made her mark on the board of directors for the Human Resource Center in Belen.

In her Unsung Heroes nomination letter, Holly Chavez concluded the nomination with a striking statement that sums up their inclusion:

“Where there is a need, you will often find them there, providing a helping hand.” Chavez wrote.

The duo started their lives together, fittingly in a church. Manny, who grew up in Los Chavez, and Marcelle, who was born in Santa Rosa, were paired up for Manny’s cousin’s wedding in Albuquerque.

“We met at the rehearsal,” Marcelle remembers, “because I was living in Albuquerque at the time, and the rest is history.”

The two went on a date soon after that and were married in 1973. After some time in Las Cruces, they moved with their three children to Los Chavez and found a spiritual home at Our Lady of Belen. They have resided in Rio Communities since 1996 and cross the Rio Grande almost daily for their community activities.

Over the years, their community service has taken many different forms for the Trujillos. Once they moved to Los Chavez, they got involved with the Knights of Columbus and Catholic Daughters.

Marcelle worked in finance at the First National Bank (now Wells Fargo), helping the community with a personal approach to banking, as well as teaching classes at OLB and assisting Manny in ministry.

Manny spent many years as a musician, performing around the county as well as in the church music group for 23 years. How he became a deacon is quite the story.

“I came from Las Cruces in ʼ76 and they were looking for good deacons. They asked me, and I said, ‘Well, I don’t know,’” he recalled.

“And then a couple years later, somebody else would ask me, and I said, ‘I still can’t,’” he said, revealing that his introverted nature played a part.

“You bargained with God,” Marcelle said, laughing.

“Yeah, I bargained with God the whole time,” he said with a chuckle. “The music at church was nice because I could focus. But anyway, I said, ‘Well, if you really want me to become a deacon, I want three things.’”

Manny wanted three musical milestones to happen: 1. To have a recording of a variety of music. 2. To make a recording of mariachi music. And 3. A Christian CD. But there was one more thing he asked for: A person to come to him in black, white and red.

Marcelle asked, “Why did you ask for that? Manny said, “I don’t know. It just came out of me.”

One day, as he was serving as a Eucharistic minister, a little girl came asking for a blessing — wearing black shoes, white leggings and a red dress.

“She came up to her blessing, and she was so, so reverent. I’ve never seen anybody do it so reverently, that she bowed her head and crossed her arms and she bowed in front of me to give a blessing,” he remembered.

When someone pointed that out, he knew he was closer, but Manny had one more request.

“I said, ‘OK, I know it’s you, but I just need one more thing. I need a priest to ask me to be a deacon,’” he said.

When a priest asked him into his office, Manny thought, “Uh on, I’m in trouble.”

“I went in, closed the door and sat down,” he related. “He said, ‘What did you think of becoming a deacon?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think there’s nothing else in my mind …’ The answer was only one word, and that was yes.”

These days, both Marcelle and Manny are retired in the work sense, but working as hard in the community. Marcelle works with the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, and recently retired from teaching CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) after 15 years.

Marcelle also holds the office of financial secretary in the Catholic Daughters and volunteers at the OLB offices. She also helps Manny with the Ministry of Consolation, saying he is “The main guy there.”

His 28 years in that position include many duties, ranging from administering First Holy Communion classes for the little ones to ministering to the elderly at Genesis’ Belen Meadows Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center.

The couple have also worked in ACTS, (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication) a program that teaches structured personal prayer. They are now involved in the CORE program (Christ-Oriented Real-Life Evangelization) at Our Lady of Belen.

At the end of the day, serving together is a blessing, they say.

“Doing things together really is a good thing to do,” Manny said. “Because you’re not just serving one person, not all the time. Sometimes you do, but you’re actually serving a community because they invite you and then there’s something in the ministry that entices them to tell somebody else and then somebody else and somebody else.

“And then we start getting people involved in the church, and that’s the whole thing, especially the younger ones. The younger ones are the ones that are the future of the church. We have to show them that it’s OK to do it when you’re as young as we are.”

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