"I have no idea what is in store for me now that I've officially signed on for my first year of mission work with Saint Paul's Outreach. But I can't wait." -Rebecca Zamora, 2015 "Oh, wow. You really have no idea what's gonna happen, past me!" -Rebecca Zamora, now much, much older and much, much wiser, 2018 Hello, blogosphere! How's everyone doing? I myself am doing pretty well, I suppose. Oh, what's been going on, you ask? Great question! (That's my new catchphrase this year) You definitely wouldn't be able to tell what's going on from my blog, that's for sure. Judging from my blog over the last year, you'd probably know that a) I moved to Florida and b) Absolutely nothing else. Oops. I really have no excuse for why I haven't kept up with my blog, but know that I have at least three different drafts that are never going to be published highlighting life at FSU in the 2017-2018 school year. My life got flip-turned upside-down when I moved to Tallahassee and I'm honestly still figuring out what happened and processing all that the Lord did. However, I've realized that there's so much goodness going on down here and I haven't been able to effectively share it all with the people I'd like to share it with, so I decided to resurrect the blog! Woohoo! I'm hoping to post more regularly this year (whatever "regularly" means for a missionary) and keep everyone updated. Life moves quickly down here in Tally, and I want to record as many details as possible! That being said, let's move forward. But before we do that, let's look back at some highlights! life with the Catholic Student UnionThe main reason I haven't really posted in the last year is because I've been busy trying to keep up with this incredible group of students as they run towards the Lord! The Catholic Student Union is an absolute machine. God has been about an incredible work in CSU over the last 20 years, and it's such an honor to play even a small part in this work. Our mission statement in CSU is "To Transform the State of Florida and Beyond," and I can confidently say that it's happening, in both big and small ways. Life can easily get pretty hectic with CSU. Between weekly Spirit Nights where the whole community gathers to learn and grow in faith & fellowship; women's group every Thursday night; a huge retreat every semester; student Missionary Corps on Friday mornings; and meeting up with different students on campus...it's a schedule full of goodness, but sometimes it doesn't feel like there's enough hours in the day. Something I've learned is that the Lord always has something new to show me, and all I have to do is ask for the eyes to see it. This simple request during my prayer time has kept the routine from becoming mundane, and allows me to learn alongside of the students, even now. WOmen's Spring Break TripHurricanes are a reality of life for me now, in ways they've never been in the past. Between Hurricane Irma last fall, Hurricane Michael just a few weeks ago, and Hurricane Harvey hitting the City of Houston last year, these disasters keep hitting closer and closer to home. Every year, the Catholic Student Union takes three groups of students on Spring Break mission trips to various locations. The women's trip back in March was a mission to Houston, Texas, to volunteer with Eight Days of Hope, an organization that sends thousands of people to locations across the country whenever disaster strikes. It was a real privilege and adventure to take these women to the homeland and to get my hands dirty with them. Introducing them to Buc-ee's, taco trucks, and HEB didn't hurt either. Summer HouseholdOver the last year, a few of my sisters serving with SPO & I all had a similar sense on our hearts: desiring deeper sisterhood and unity as a national women's staff. What started off as a simple word in prayer that we had in common blossomed into something beyond what we could have made happen on our own. SPO has had a version of Summer Household in place for the last few years, but this past summer was a kind of new (yet, also old) experiment. After our first round of Missionary Training in the beginning of June, 17 of us women and around 18 men stayed in Minnesota for the rest of the month in order to dive deeper into communal life, to grow in holiness, and to gain a new zeal for the mission we have been called to. I've never had 16 roommates before, and even though Summer Household was something I had actually prayed for, I wasn't sure how it was going to go. The greatest lesson that I learned was the joy, and necessity, of carefree timelessness. While there was a definite structure to our life together (morning prayer, dinners, attending different talks every weekday, usual MPD responsibilities), there were also a lot of gaps in our days. We went on a lot of lake trips, played a lot of music, and mostly just spent time together, laughing and getting to know each other more. As SPO staff grows larger and larger, I am really grateful for the chance to have lived in this Summer Household, and to actually have time carved out with no other agenda but to know my sisters more. What Now?Well, in a shocking turn of events that I never saw coming when I first signed onto be a Missionary in 2015, I am still serving with Saint Paul's Outreach. The mission of SPO is one that continues to stir my heart, and I'm grateful to still be a part of it. The video above is a pretty accurate glimpse of how awesome it is to be a missionary. Enjoy! Over the last year, the Lord has been teaching me more and more about myself; He's been showing me the ways that He has been working in my life since I began serving with SPO. Being a missionary has always allowed me the opportunity to use many different gifts & talents on any given day to serve the Kingdom, and I've been given a unique opportunity to use a different set of my gifts in order to further the mission! Along with some of my usual mission responsibilities, I have also taken on an operations role that serves all of our chapters in Florida. I won't bore you with the details (there's a lot of them!), but I essentially do a lot of administrative tasks that enable the Missionaries & Chapter Leaders to do their jobs more effectively. If you have more questions, ask me, and I will affirm how great your question is before I answer it. I'm planning on making another post about what this role has taught me and how it's influenced my spiritual life in the past few months, so stay tuned for that! Oh, also, I went to Disney World in February. Here we are, riding Space Mountain for the second time that day. It was a good day.
Peace, friends!
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Well, I made it to Florida. It's been a real struggle so far. Please pray for me, I don't know if I'm going to like it here. JUST KIDDING. I love it here. Florida has been nothing but good to me since I drove in a week ago! Leaving Minnesota and all the people I love so much was not easy (and tears were shed), but the Lord has been showering me with blessings ever since. I am so grateful! Before I keep humble-bragging about how tan I've already gotten, the delicious cheese grits I ate the other night, and how BEAUTIFUL it is down here, let's talk about SNE! SNE Minnesota took place on August 5-12 at the University of St. Thomas, as usual. Half of our staff and students were preparing for SNE Ohio the next week, but we hit the ground running with the same speed and zeal! I didn't really have any time to be nervous this week, even though I always get jitters in anticipation of meeting a bunch of new people (hello, FSU students!). I was either too busy running around like a chicken with my head cut off, or the Lord granted me a bunch of grace to make it through a crazy time with nothing but joy. Both are true. The first full day of SNE is most always a Sunday, and is used as a retreat day before a full week of teaching and breakout sessions and small groups. We hear two talks, have priests available for Confession, and end the night with Adoration and some good ol'-fashioned surrendering to the Lord (if you so desire). The talks of the retreat day were centered around boldness: boldness in receiving mercy, and boldness in trust. Let me tell you, the Lord was about a bold work in my life during SNE! I'm still processing a lot of it, but the image given of being released from our 'bushel baskets' (analogy taken from Matthew 5) has stuck with me ever since. Here is a link to the talk I'm referring to: https://spo.org/sne-2017-talks/2017/8/9/bold-in-trust And wow, these students!!! I'm blown away. They are so ready to set the Florida State campus on fire with their zeal for souls and joy in the Lord. These students have shown me nothing but genuine Southern hospitality since SNE. I can't wait to journey through this year with them!
I've only been in Tallahassee for just about a week, and it's amazing how much I already feel at home. We've had a few meetings here and there, but mostly our team has just been spending time together and enjoying being with one another before the craziness really begins this week. And so the adventure continues...40 degrees warmer. Please keep us in your prayers! We are ready to bring the Kingdom to FSU's campus! In Jesus Through Mary, Rebecca God sure loves surprises, doesn't He? Let's review the past couple of years of my life: Summer 2014: I think you want to be a missionary. January 2015: You're going to be a missionary! June 2015: You're moving to Minnesota! Summer 2016: You like Minnesota? January 2017: You're going to serve a third year! Spring 2017: You're going to move to Florida! When I signed on for a third year of service with SPO back in January, I never could have imagined that things would pan out the way that they did. I won't go into the specifics of a crazy semester of discernment, but trust me when I say that the Lord has been about a wild work in my heart this year. When I look at my life over the past couple of years next to the lives of the average twenty-something, wild is the only word that really comes to mind: living in three different states over the past three years; seemingly putting my life 'on hold' to bring college students closer to Jesus; living off of the generosity of mission partners for two, going on three, years; et cetera, et cetera. It's a hard life, but it's a blessed life. It is a life that is wild, and so full of joy. The fact that He has not called me out of this life just yet is a gift to be grateful for on its own! Lately, God has made it very clear in my prayer that He's leading me into the wild this next year. I have been reading an incredible book called Wild and Free, by Jess Connolly and Hayley Morgan. The book's tagline is "A Hope-Filled Anthem for the Woman Who Feels She is Both Too Much and Never Enough." Ugh, if a tagline of a book has ever tugged right at my heartstrings, it is this one. Reading this book has forced me to wrestle with some bigger questions: What would my life look like if I was actually living 'wild'? What does that even mean? Am I ready to accept the freedom that the Lord has for me? Do I even actually want to be free, or am I letting the comfort of living in fear rule me? Heavy questions, I know, but God has been gently leading me to the answers. He has given me boldness to say "yes" to serving at a new campus, in a new state, with a new team. He has given me the courage to leave the comfort of a city and people that I have grown to love dearly. It was not easy for me to make any of these decisions; but the Lord has consoled me with the lasting and steady peace that comes from doing His will. So here we are, after a third round of Mission Leader Training, back in Texas for the next few weeks and preparing to move, yet again, across the country. I am so thrilled to be embarking on this new adventure at Florida State University. Pictured below is my team for the year, a joyful, hilarious, faithful group of men and women whom the Lord has blessed abundantly already. (Ask any of us about our adventures in Gold Medal Park!) Here's to being back in the South, to college football, and to sunshine, all the time. Praise God for new beginnings! To the students at the University of Minnesota, and all of those in the Twin Cities who welcomed me and loved me over the past two years: I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for sharing your lives with me, for letting me walk with you, for walking with me as I struggled and triumphed and everything in-between. The past two years have been filled with more joy and love than I thought were possible for a Texan living in the Midwest, and it is largely due to the people and the friendships that the Lord blessed me with. I am grateful for my time serving in Minnesota and would not trade it for anything at all. You are in my prayers and my heart.
And so the adventure continues, and continues, and continues! To Jesus Through Mary, Rebecca |
WELCOME!My name is Rebecca. This blog is a documentation of my life as a missionary with Saint Paul's Outreach - in Minnesota, Florida, and everywhere in-between. Thanks for stopping by! Categories
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