Welcome to Murray State University!

Welcome back to my blogged missionary life! To catch you up on the past 6 months, I've made a top 6 list of important things that have happened:

1. Celebrating Life: In March, my mom's dad passed away after a battle with pulmonary fibrosis. I was blessed enough to have been able to visit him when he was in the hospital. Although my mom's family is spread out over the US, the power of family was evident as the brothers and sisters flocked to South Carolina for his final days and the funeral. He was buried at West Point, and since it was only a few hours from South Orange, I was able to go. It rained as soon as we got the casket into the chapel for the burial Mass. I know Grandpa was proud of the men and women in uniform who didn't let the torrential rain phase their actions at the grave site.

Sister and I with Grandpa, flying to the moon on his front porch swing.

2. May Celebrations: As my year in South Orange, NJ came to an end, the season of celebrations began! Since I had a Bible Study with mostly seniors I stayed an extra week in Jersey to go to graduation. After graduation, I headed to PA for my cousin's wedding. It was so much fun to see all of my dad's family (he is number 9 of 10 kids) celebrating my cousin and her new husband. Then, Theresa and I journeyed back to NJ to pack up my things and headed into NYC for a night. We had a blast!

Final retreat of the year with the student leaders and missionaries of Seton Hall

My view of graduation. Congratulations!

My beautiful sister at the Stardust Diner in NYC

3. Sweating through Training: During the month of June, all 350+ missionaries with FOCUS headed to Ave Maria University in Florida to continue our training as missionaries. Almost every conversation began with "Man, I hate this humidity" or "Want to play connect the dots with my mosquito bites?" or "Hey look! An alligator!". It was so rejuvenating to be able to connect with all of the friends I made last year and learn how to be a more effective missionary!

My small group. Our patron was St. Monica.

One of the gators in the pond by the dorms. I called him George.

The gorgeous chapel!

A good friend and I with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia

4. Prayers for Healing: My sister has been battling with endometriosis for the past two years. This summer she headed to the Pope Paul VI Institute in Nebraska for surgery. Thank you to everyone who was praying for her and my mom who journeyed with her. She came home at the end of July and had to be re-hospitalized due to an infection. She was in the hospital for 5 days, with the rest of the family cycling through to be with her. It was a trying time, but just as with Grandpa, the servant love we have for each other came shining through. She is back at school now and doing much better. Hopefully this chapter of her life it behind her.

There are no pictures of Theresa during her stay at the hospital, but while under the influence of some pretty nice medication, she declared herself a princess and demanded a pointy stick. This is what we came up with.

5. Moving Day: In the middle of August I made the 14 hour trip from Tampa to Murray. I stopped to see a dear friend and her family in Atlanta on my way up. When GoogleMaps told me that it was going to take 14 hours, I was so excited! That's only half of the trip from Tampa to South Orange, NJ. But 14 hours is still a long time, so I am incredibly blessed to have a stopping point halfway here. The weekend after I moved in, my parents made the trip (in a day). I cannot say how wonderful they are and how much I love them. They got to see my very first apartment (I've always lived in a dorm), the town, and the beautifully renovated St. Leo's.

Welcome to our apartment in Murray!

Me and my roomie, Sarah!

6. Team Murray: In April I found out that I would be moving to Murray State University in Murray, KY for this school year. At the first glance of the website, I knew I was in love. Murray is a small town in western Kentucky, with only a short drive to Paducah (a larger city), Nashville, TN, and a good friend's house in Florence, KY. Our team consists of second years Zach, Meghan, and their beautiful daughter, Flannery, and a first year, Sarah. I couldn't have asked for a better team! We have our work cut out for us, as this is the first year FOCUS has been at Murray, but I'm already leading 5 Bible Studies and mentoring 3 women.

Welcoming Sarah to Team Murray!

At the Ice Cream Festival in downtown Murray

We are obsessed with the youngest (and cutest) member of team Murray

I am so excited to share this adventure with you!

13 Inches Later

Statue of St. Elizabeth Seton in the snow!

It's true! We had 13 inches of snow the other day! But it was such a beautiful transformation in the sky. The days leading up to the big snow dump were over cast and brutally cold. Then it just started snowing....and didn't stop. I remember never having seen that big of snowflakes before. The next morning the snow was piled up around our cars.

 

My poor baby.

We have the best men. That whole week it had been snowing/freezing in the morning, yet every time I went out to scrape my car, the guys were pulling out of the parking lot with mine and the other woman missionary's car having already been scraped. And after Nemo hit they shoveled my little Yaris out from under the snow as well! In the story of creation, Genesis 2:15 to be exact, God places man in the garden to "work it and take care of it". The Hebrew word for 'take care of' is shamar. But the definition goes deeper than that. Shamar implies guardianship, to exercise great care over, or watch over. The intricacies of shamar is a part of all beginning Bible studies and given some attention at FOCUS missionary training. The general consensus is that men still need to shamar women. They are still charged by God just as Adam was to care for and protect creation. The men missionaries say it to each other, challenging each other to care for us women. They open doors and dig our cars out of the snow and lead us in prayer. It's really cool to see them helping each other to become holier and follow God more closely. Also, my car wasn't buried when I went to drive it 2 days later. Don't worry, we made them cupcakes for Valentine's day.

Yes, we were standing in a foot of snow...in our tights.

Curtis Martin is coming!!!! There's a parish about 40 minutes away from SHU and one of the women there is very zealous about reviving parish life and encouraging the parishioners to bring others to Christ. Naturally, when she found out about Curtis, she had to have him come and speak. And this woman is not a person who accepts no. She reminds me of St. Catherine of Sienna in that way. We spoke after the Masses last week to encourage the parishioners to attend these mission nights with Curtis. After the Saturday night Mass, she took us to dinner at a local restaurant. The conversation was incredible! We were as inspired by her story as she was by ours. As a travel agent turned lawyer turned high school teacher, her joy, tenacity, and zeal for the Lord provided a breath of fresh air to our ministry. Tomorrow and Monday we are headed to her classes to share our testimonies with her high schoolers and invite them to the mission nights.

Maura :)

On top of the usual crazy that has become my life, FOCUS has been working to bring Maura Byrne to Seton Hall to give a talk. Maura ran cross country at Seton Hall and is also a former Varsity Catholic missionary. Now she runs a non-profit called Made In His Image. It's main purpose is to help women who have been victims of abuse or suffered from eating disorders. Maura and MIHI have been such a blessing in at least 2 of my good friends' lives who have struggled with eating disorders. I was blessed to be able to help work to get her here! Of course that entailed countless emails and reports to the team at our meetings. Fortunately both Maura and our campus ministry contact are both wonderful so although the three of us exchanged emails hammering out details off and on for about 5 months, it was like working with old friends. The talk was a great success! Both men and women came to hear Maura's testimony of how she went from a victim to a survivor. It was incredibly moving. She is just a beautiful witness to God the Father's love. Even though I have never struggled with what she has overcome, I found myself tearing up because I desired to know God's love in that same powerful way!

Happy Valentine's day and belated Ash Wednesday! I pray that this Lenten season brings you closer and closer to God. May you know the love that God the Father has for you as we contemplate His Son's sacrifice. "In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Sn as expiation for our sins." ~1 John 4:10

Baby It's Cold Outside

And when I say cold, I mean COLD! This native Floridian is feeling a little out of sorts in the face (literally) of single digit windchill. But God is good and invented indoors and heaters (when people turn them on). So I have not frozen into an icicle, though it was a close call recently, and am still running after souls at SHU.

Bible Studies are starting up this week. The women have added at least 3 new studies this semester and 5 new student leaders! God is so good! In my senior study we are discussing how to evangelize in their classes and workplaces without being the stereotypical preacher-with-a-megaphone, then we'll go through Salvation History, a FOCUS Bible Study that goes through the fundamental stories that lead to Jesus' coming and Ascension. The juniors wanted to pick a book of the Bible to go through, and we've narrowed it down to six choices as of now. (In case you hadn't noticed, there's 73 amazing books to choose from and 6 women that need to agree...could take a while) I have my favorite that I think would be good for them, but I'm trying not to be too biased and let them pick. And in the Greek (Alpha Sigma Tau) study that just started, we're going to be addressing different topics the girls are battling. They'll bring something they want to talk about and I'll research it and the next week we'll talk about it. They want homework, too. I've led SH before, but the other two methods are entirely new to me. Man, I can't wait for this semester!

This past Tuesday was the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. In the past 40 years in America alone, 55 million babies have been murdered. As the president recently said, "If there's even one step we can take to save one child...then surely we have an obligation to try". Every year, hundreds of thousands come from across the country to Washington, D.C. to march peacefully in protest. The old march with the young; Rabbis and nuns walk alongside each other; different ethnic backgrounds can be seen, banners high, joining the March in an effort to end abortion. This year around 400,000 Americans walked to the Supreme Court steps.

Myself and around 25 other SHU students took a bus at 6am to Washington, D.C. Now, the silly side of the march comes into play when you realize that your friends from around the country will also be in Washington, D.C. Hmm. What a great time to meet up! NOT. I am a firm believer in staying with the group you came with and leaving the people I see up to chance. I'm there for the babies, not reunions. Not everyone holds my opinion, I know, and that's ok. However, that provides the background for my prayer prior to the march: that my buddy (from SHU - the buddy system is best when surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people) and I don't get lost, and if it be Your will, let me say hello to a few far away friends. And boy, is God good!

We ended up at the NC Mass at the National Shrine. Having graduated from a North Carolinian school, I knew the bishops and knew I was praying with my friends from Belmont Abbey. Not only that, but one of my favorite priests from NC was a concelebrant at Mass! And a friend who entered the seminary this year was also in the procession! I didn't get to say hello, but even seeing them was such a blessing! THEN when we got to the Supreme Court steps, I saw the BAC banner and got to say hello to a few old friends. THEN I saw the Nashville Dominican banner. To convey the accurate level of excitement this stirred in my heart, you must know that one of the freshman in my Bible Study last year at BAC entered with them this year. And I knew she was going to be at the March. I saw her for maybe 30 seconds, but they were some of the happiest 30 seconds on the March. THEN I also ran into a fellow missionary friend. THEN we saw the Sisters of Life. Another friend from FOCUS entered there last year. I wasn't sure if she was going to be at the March, so I was just walking through the crowd of nuns, and I saw her! Such a blessed reunion! All of these interactions lasted maybe 5 minutes, but they brought such joy to my heart and soul! And kinda made up for the fact that I couldn't feel my toes anymore. 

Two of our fearless leaders at the March

So many people!

Statue of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton :)

The National Shrine. So beautiful!

And today I went to the swim meet and watched one of the student leaders compete. I love watching swimming, and SHU did such a great job! God is indeed amazing and totally blesses me. Thank you for your amazing prayers and be assured of mine for you!

Continuing to SEEK Him

I can't believe how much I want to share with you all! The missionaries have only been  back at Seton Hall for 2 weeks and the students just finished the first week of the spring semester. But I am still so excited about SEEK! We had a get together for all of the students who went, and a little over half of them showed up! I don't know if you remember trying to plan get together's for students in college, but you invite at least 4 times as many people as you want to show up. It was beautiful to see all of these different men and women mingling like old friends. We shared with them the idea of a gospel presentation, a short explanation of salvation history, and what a great tool it can be in sharing Jesus Christ with Seton Hall's campus. 

But what I really wanted to share with you today is the FOCUS blog. I'm not sure if any of you follow it, but they did an amazing recap of SEEK, complete with videos! Please go check it out!

SEEK 2013

I pray you all have had a blessed holiday season and are ready to jump back into a new year! I had a wonderfully relaxing time in Tampa for a month!

A few highlights:
I was able to head up to visit my grandparents before Christmas. It was so good to see them! I was able to go to daily Mass with my grandma and meet her coffee group. We celebrated my grandpa and my sister's birthday with dinner at Red Lobster and cake. My aunt and uncle from NC also came down with their little boys for the night to celebrate. I grew very close to them when I was at Belmont, so it was a joy to be able to see them, even if only for a little bit.
I got my sister a sonic screwdriver for her birthday. It is also a pen. That writes secret messages. It's pretty awesome.
One of my favorite Christmas presents this year was from my parents. They made a photo scavenger hunt for my sister and I. We spend so much time together, but hardly have any pictures together. So we spent the better part of the day together driving from one location to another.

Our Present!

At Inkwood Books - a cute little bookstore in Tampa

On Bayshore, a beautiful stretch of road along the bay

At Wright's - a delicious cafe on Dale Mabry 

The cake. Yummy!

We snuck into the athletic side of the high school we both attended! Go Crusaders!!

Theresa's new best friend

Megan's new best friend

 My second favorite was that our family all got tickets to go see Les Miserables on Christmas. It was INCREDIBLE. If you haven't seen it, please go see it! Anne Hathaway steals the show!

We celebrated New Year's at our cousins' house, a yearly tradition. It was good to see them! It had been a long time since we had gotten together. Then on January 2nd, we headed to Orlando for FOCUS's National Conference: SEEK. I have mentioned this conference a few times on my blog and I was so excited that it was finally here! For those of you who know the story of when Jesus Christ won my heart, you know it centers around the FOCUS Conference I went to in 2010. I just knew that God was going to do amazing things there.

Theresa came with me, and that was such a blessing! She chose the talks that we both went to, and after we would go out for dinner and discuss what we had just heard. It was so awesome to be able to experience the conference with her. She also has the amazing ability to ground me when I start spinning off on what-if's and maybe's that could go wrong.

Due to a miscommunication between the hotel and FOCUS, some of the missionaries had to be moved to another resort for the conference. I was one of those missionaries. We stayed at the Coronado, which was just as nice. It also forced me to get a good amount of sleep, because the shuttles ran from 8-9am and then again from 10:30pm-1am. So no getting up early or staying out late. Our day started off with Mass at 9, men's and women's break out sessions at 11, lunch until 2, 2 break out sessions from 2:30-4:30 (basically there was a list of 6 sessions during each time slot that you could choose from. The topics and speakers changed every day), dinner until 7, a keynote speaker at 7, then entertainment each night (Wed: comedian Johnnie W; Thurs: swing dance; Fri: Adoration and Confession; Sat: Matt Maher!).

Each missionary has a job during conference, and I was chosen to be on prayer team. For those of you who are not familiar with prayer teams, basically what happens is if you would like to get prayed over, you can go to the team of 2-3 people and ask for prayer. The leader of the team then asks "What would you like Jesus to do for you today?" It could be anything! A lot of people pray for healing from a past wound, for a release of the Holy Spirit into their lives, or for confirmation in discernment. I was privileged to hear some amazing stories. Every time someone would come to my group to be prayed over, I just had this overwhelming sense of joy. Like Jesus was so happy that His children were coming to Him to be healed. Praying with these men and women was one of the best things that I experienced at SEEK. Jesus just wants us to come to Him and ask. The theme from the conference kept coming to my mind: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" ~Matthew 7:7

SHU Students at SEEK!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

It has been a while since I posted, and I am truly sorry for that! Things have gotten crazy around here from Thanksgiving, which I spent with my aunt in CT, to trying to get all the students signed up for the SEEK Conference in January. And our final weeks of pushing and asking and praying has paid off! We have around 40 students (including 3 seminarians) signed up for conference! We will be taking a bus from Seton Hall to the Swan and Dolphin Resort starting in the afternoon on the 1st of January. We have been speaking at different parishes, raising money to help pay for renting the bus, and what was said reminded me why I spent so long trying to convince those I love to give it a chance. "[SEEK 2013] will be a life changing event for students – many will go to Confession and Mass for the first time in several years, other students will discover a vocation to priesthood or religious life and many others will recommit their lives to the Catholic Faith." I am counting down the days! 

Speaking of countdowns, I get to see my sister for the first time since August in 3 days and 7 hours. Just saying.

Since yesterday was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, I went to the chapel to pray my rosary in front of Mary and wanted to share this picture with you. This is the statue of Mary at the front of our chapel. I just adore this image of her, a slight smile on her face, holding Jesus yet looking at the congregation of the faithful. A friend of mine and I have discussed our love for Mary at length. Naturally, when I saw this statue I tried to describe it to her. I probably didn't do a very good job, though, so here's the 'real' thing:

The flowers are for her feast day!

Last night the missionaries went into the City for some relaxing time. It was much needed and we all had a great time! Most of the FOCUS missionaries went as well as the missionaries from St. Paul's Outreach. With their 4 plus our 5 (one of us couldn't make it) plus one, our group got to be pretty large! We got to the City around 8 and made a beeline for the tree! It's very beautiful. Many say that they are disappointed by how small it is in real life, but it was still very impressive. 

Then we stood along the rail and watch the skaters (you would just watch too at a $45 fee to skate on such a tiny crowded rink!). It was amusing to watch a little boy skillfully darting through adults - he reminded me of my almost 10 year old cousin - and the four little girls trying to spin and the really talented skaters try not to hit the mere mortals while spinning gracefully.

Caitlyn wanted a ride!

Toward the end of the night half of the party departed and the rest of us went to Phebe's Tavern and Grill to continue with our fellowship. It was wonderful to be able to talk with the two SPO women. We have been becoming closer friends, but because all of us are busy with our own missions, we don't have much time to spend just us missionaries. I am so blessed to be serving on a campus with such amazing men and women!

Me and the SPO women

Blessings

I took the bus from Manhattan to South Orange and was astounded at the amount of damage and debris I saw still on the roads. Being from Tampa, I am no stranger to hurricanes, but we have been blessed that the hurricanes for as long as I can remember have avoided our corner of the world. I have never had to drive through my city and see the havoc Mother Nature left. When Sandy hit last week, I was running around the apartment filling up the tub, buying perishables, getting flashlights in easily accessible places. All through Sunday, Monday, and early Tuesday my team waited...and waited...and waited. But the electricity stayed on, the water kept running, and the worst damage we could see from our window was trees flexing in the wind. I was getting updates from my aunt in CT who lost power for a day, the other Catholic missionaries - who live in a house behind the university - who were without power until yesterday afternoon, and other missionaries from the area most of whom lost power. Driving to campus last Wednesday to pick up my car from the parking garage where it stayed during the storm, we saw countless trees and limbs blocking roads. The lights remained dark in the neighborhood between our apartment and the university until yesterday. The devastation is astounding, but the response from the students is amazing as well! DOVE, the service organization on campus is swamped with students desiring to help our neighbors. 

If you could please keep one of my student leaders in your prayers. She has family that lives on the coast. Her great-aunt's house is condemned, the sea-facing wall having been swept away. A few other relatives' houses, including her grandmother's house where she has lived the past two summers, have at least 3 ft of water damage, making the furniture useless and requiring a lot of work to make them livable again. It's really shaken her up to see pictures of that house on the Internet, taken by random strangers who are wandering the coast documenting the damage. 

In happier news, I was able to go home this past weekend! It was such a blessing to be with my parents! At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to leave as my flight was supposed to leave last Thursday morning from JFK, but after only a little bit of hassle, I got switched to a flight from Hartford, CT to Orlando. One of my teammates graciously made the 3 hour drive from South Orange to Hartford in Starr then turned around and drove her back. My mom promised him homemade apple bread, though, so it's all good. Then my mom was waiting for me in Orlando, having driven 2 hours to come pick me up. She and I can talk about pretty much anything, so the 2 hour drive back was filled with easy, light conversation. You know, things like emotional chastity, finding joy in difficult situations, not being married in heaven, and how to be a better missionary. Man, I love my mom! 

Getting ready to head home! (in other news, I now have Instagram and think I am a professional photographer)

Sitting by my pool in the backyard, soaking in the FL sun...

She went to a scrapbooking event on Friday, so my dad and I were on our own for dinner. That translates into Mr. Empanada!! It was so nice to sit down with my dad and chat. We had a great time at dinner and then chugged up on the couch to watch The Book of Eli. Great father-daughter bonding time. We were going to go see Flight on Sunday, but his dad (my grandfather) passed away on Saturday evening. He has been sick for a while and we weren't sure he was going to hang on this long, but he's a stubborn man. He made it to his 90th birthday which was last Monday and held on even longer as a special gift to me so that my parents were home for 3 days with me before they headed up to PA for the funeral on Sunday morning. The funeral was yesterday, and though I'm sad I wasn't there, I heard it was beautiful. 

More on the weather front, I just have to illustrate how much God loves me. He allowed me to go home and lounge around in my sundresses and bare feet for 5 days out on my back porch before He sent me back north to the Nor'easter storm that gave us a good 3-4 inches of snow yesterday. Brrrr!!! Spent a while unburying Starr this morning.   

...fast forward 36 hours and it's snowing!!!

Poor Starr! (and since I think I'm a professional photographer, sometimes I tilt my phone sideways...which sometimes works better than others)