WE MADE IT THROUGH FEBRUARY! WE DID IT, Y'ALL!
Whew. What a whirlwind of a month. February is to the spring semester as September is to the fall semester: lots of events, lots of things to prepare for, lots of feeling like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off (this is only a mild exaggeration). It's almost laughable how much I need to be reminded of the Lord's grace. He wills this work to happen. He provides the grace to make it so. He hasn't failed me yet. And yet my human faith is so fragile sometimes! February was basically four weeks of this exchange between the Lord and I: Me: Father, there's no way this is going to work out. The Lord: Oh, really? You don't think so? *everything works out* Me: ....right. Sorry. Please help me to trust in You more. Thankfully, because we have a merciful God, He used nearly everything that happened this month to teach me something different about His provision in my life. Minnesota Banquet - Celebrating 30 Years
Saint Paul's Outreach has been reaching out to college students for 30 years. THIRTY. YEARS. SPO started seven years before I was born. It is mind-blowing and incredible. Since Texas does not have a benefit banquet as of now, the Minnesota Banquet was my first experience at this kind of event; and it definitely did not disappoint! There were over 630 people in attendance - some had never heard of SPO, and some have been supporting this mission since the very beginning. In my own life, the Lord used this night to remind me of how much I love working for Saint Paul's Outreach, and how blessed I am to be apart of this incredible ministry. The Lord reminded me of His tangible provision, as I was able to meet so many of the benefactors and donors who are so generous with their money each month to make sure that I get to be on campus, showing the love of Christ to students. One of the women in my formation small group, Jazlyn, wrote a blog post for the SPO National website about her experience at the banquet. I encourage all of you to check it out, as well as this video shown at the banquet that literally gives me all of the feelings:
Women's Nights
We have an awesome team of students planning each of our Women's Nights this semester. Earlier in February, we had an 80's Zumba night. Zumba is my favorite kind of exercise - the kind that doesn't really feel like exercise at all - and everyone had a blast! One of our SPO alumni gave a talk on living a healthy and balanced lifestyle in college with Christ at the center, and the women really enjoyed it. God has been using these nights to provide a space for women to be themselves and to experience His love through the sisterhood we share with each other. We have another Women's Night coming up on Friday and we're talking about everyone's favorite subject...RELATIONSHIPS! Please pray for us!
Fan Into Flame
When your boss tells your team over and over again that all of the work we have done this year has been leading up to this one weekend, you can start to feel a lot of pressure. Thankfully, we were also constantly reminded that it's really not up to us at all - it's the Lord's work, we are just His instruments. Our Fan Into Flame retreat two weeks ago was a great reminder of that. From the early stages of our planning, we had a sense that the Lord had more in store for this weekend than we could ever plan or even imagine. Of course, He was right. For many of the students on Fan Into Flame, this retreat served as a way to recharge their faith, to help them go just a step or two deeper into the Father's heart. For others, though, this was their first retreat, their first time proclaiming Jesus as Lord of their lives, or simply just their first time experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit. No matter where students were at, the Lord blessed them, and I was once again reminded of God's powerful provision. If we take but the smallest step, the Lord will still provide the grace.
Coming Up...
In just 11 short days, our Alaska Mission Trip begins!!! I can hardly believe it! In the next few days, I have much to do for this trip: talks to write, worship songs to practice, hiking pants to buy (where even do I start with that?). I am so grateful to all of my supporters that donated to make sure I was fully funded for this trip. The students coming on this trip were also able to experience the Lord's provision in this tangible way, as He provided donors and funds for each of us. We are all so grateful! Please pray for us as the trip draws nearer and nearer!
To all that regularly read my updates and support me in every way, I am so grateful for you. Another newsletter is on the way!
To Jesus through Mary,
Rebecca
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The alternate name for this post could be, "I Cannot for the Life of Me Put Together a Decent, Coherent, Blog Post and So Now I Have Resorted to a Quick List of Paragraphs as Opposed to a Perfectly Strung Together and Articulate Post That I Guess Just Wasn't Meant to Be, Volume 1." Words are hard, y'all. I have way too many of them floating around in my head at a time, and I can barely make sense out of them once a month for the sake of keeping those that are interested updated during my first year of missionary life. The struggle is real. Anyways, I have made it back to Minneapolis and am ready to get another semester of mission started! In the past month I was fortunate to be able to spend about 3 weeks back in Texas with my family for Christmas break. It was so good to be home, and I may or may not have eaten tamales for lunch for a week straight (I did.) Without further ado, for the sake of trying to condense my writing, here is a quick list of 7 things that happened/are happening in my life in the past month. 1. Winter. Winter happened.I won't dwell too much on this one because I am working on another blog post about my arctic tundra experiences. I will just say this: I now understand why Minnesotans get excited when it's in the 30's as opposed to the negatives. That being said, the high on Sunday is -8 and the low is -17. Feel free to start a prayer chain in your home parish for me. 2. Life got simpler.My parents are moving! Most of y'all probably know that we have lived in the same town and the same house since moving to Texas nearly 14 years ago. Time for a change! Most of my break was spent cleaning out my room, going through embarrassing childhood pictures and various memorabilia (and posting it all on my Snapchat story), and making trip after trip to CCA to donate SO many random things that we don't need anymore. It was a lot of work, and stressful at times, but it felt really good to simplify my life and get rid of so much junk. Currently figuring out how to make this a non-cliche metaphor for my life. Stay tuned. Please pray for my parents, and that our old house will sell quickly! 3. Mission Staff Retreat (MSR)Every January, Saint Paul's Outreach provides its missionaries and staff with a midyear retreat to restore and refocus for the coming semester. We spent four days at a hotel and conference center in Chaska, Minnesota, where the Caribou Coffee was never in short supply and our beds were made for us every day. Quality time is my main love language, and thankfully there was plenty of it to go around! MSR was an extremely life-giving retreat and helped me reflect on the gift that it is to serve the Lord with my life in this unique way. #loveyourjob, am I right? 4. THE WORST AIRPORT EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE.Before I got to MSR, though, I endured one of the worst days for security lines at Dallas Love Field Airport in recent history (probably). At one point I overheard a TSA agent saying that they had been expecting 7,000 people around the time that they had seen nearly 14,000 people (keep in mind this was at 8 in the morning.) Never have I ever been stuck in a security line for an hour and a half, and never have I ever seen so many people miss their flights because of the line. Shoutout to Southwest Airlines for switching my flights free of charge, and shoutout to Terminal 1 of Dallas Love Field for having a Whataburger and a Dunkin Donuts near my gate. Part of me was secretly relieved that, even though I missed my first flight, I did not miss my last chance at Dunkin iced coffee and a Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit until the summer. 5. As if I wasn't cold enough...Alaska.In this edition of, "The Holy Spirit Prompts Rebecca to Say Yes Without Giving a Lot of Thought to the Matter," I am helping lead a spring break mission trip to Anchorage, Alaska! We are going to be working with Catholic Social Services at different homeless shelters and food pantries, as well as exploring the beauty that God has created up there. I said "yes" to going on this trip on a complete whim and not taking into account that it would still be winter even though it is technically a "spring" break trip, but I could not be more excited - even despite the cold! Please pray for my teammates coming on this trip (Andrew, Brody and myself), as well as the 16 students we are taking with us! If you are interested in learning more about what we will be doing and how you can be a part of it, please contact me. 6. Fan Into FlameThe beginning of the spring semester means that it is Fan Into Flame season for most SPO chapters! Fan Into Flame is a retreat put on by SPO that centers around the Holy Spirit. Students will hear different talks the Holy Spirit's role in our lives as Catholics and have a chance to respond to God's invitation of new life in His Spirit. Fan Into Flame was a life-changing retreat for me when I was in college, and the Lord always shows up in powerful ways. The Minnesota mission staff (our team and the team at St. Thomas) has already begun preparing for this phenomenal weekend, and we need your prayers! SPO Minnesota's Fan Into Flame retreat is February 19-21, 2016. Come, Holy Spirit! 7. Time to CreateIn the past couple of years, I have not really given much thought to New Year's Resolutions, but at the prompting of some close friends of mine, I have decided on a few: one of them is to be more creative. During MSR, I was able to spend some really rejuvenating time coloring/writing/making beautiful things for my friends. Along with that, my sister has recently launched her own calligraphy business and she is absolutely killin it. Inspired by her, I received a set of brush pens for Christmas and bought myself a cheap set of watercolors. I've found a lot of simple joy in coloring, practicing my lettering, and figuring out how watercolors work. I've made a few little pieces for friends, from Saint quotes to Bible verses to lines from Parks & Recreation (seen below). My resolution is to make my friends' lives more beautiful through these little pieces of paper. And since it's going to be winter until, like, April, I need a good indoor hobby. There you have it! And now, time for things to kick into high gear again. Students are slowly making their way back to Minneapolis, and we begin our new semester on Monday with Catholic Students United Leadership Day. Please pray for us and for the Lord's will to be done in our work this spring!
To Jesus Through Mary, Rebecca I am not going to lie to y'all, writing this post was one big ride on the struggle bus. I tried writing a post on Thanksgiving last month but I was just really tired and homesick and wasn't satisfied with anything that I wrote. Then all of a sudden there were 10 days left in the semester and there was so much to do. Then all of a sudden the semester was over, I was packing two giant suitcases because I don't know how to pack efficiently, and I was on a flight back to Texas. Now I've been home for a little over a week and it's Christmas Eve and I just really want to get this post out on the interwebs. So without further ado, here is the post I've been writing for the past month. Enjoy!
Part of me didn't really believe the people that told me the first year of missionary life would go by fast, and yet here I sit: halfway through this first year and wondering what the heck just happened. I find myself in a really weird position because so much happened this semester, and the Lord was so generous with me, and He did so much in my heart and in the lives of the students that I have encountered...I have more often than not struggled to find the words to properly articulate how this semester was, how I'm feeling about everything, and what being a missionary is really like (uh, do you have at least two hours of time for me to somewhat answer that question?). This season of my life has, thus far, been full of joy, of struggle, of pain, of beauty, of discomfort, of love, of frustration, of unexpected blessings...I could go on. There were so many times that I was convinced that there was no way I could be pushed further, that I could stretch my heart wider, that I could love harder. This semester was marked by change, chaos at times, newness, and transition. I am still me, but nearly everything has changed. This has been such a transformative season of my life so far, and I have so much to be thankful for. I have never been more sure that I am exactly where God wants me to be. I am so honored that the Lord chose me to be at the U and to be a witness of His love to the wonderful students there. I am humbled and grateful for the women He has specifically gifted me with, for their hearts and the trust that they have in me to walk with them on their faith journeys. I am thankful that God has infinite patience with me, even when I mess up and constantly fail Him. I am relieved that my mistakes can't stop the Lord from moving in power in my life and the lives of the people I am surrounded by daily. I am overjoyed to be on a team of incredible disciples of Christ who constantly encourage me and challenge me to be a better human, sister, and missionary. I am thankful for the countless opportunities I have every day to share the love of Christ with college students, and I am thankful that God has mercy on me when I miss most of them. I am thankful that the Lord has completely taken me out of my comfort zone this semester. I am thankful for the times where I felt completely alone, for it is in those times that I learned how to depend on God - even and especially when it is not easy. I am thankful that no one else plays guitar on my team, because I have had to step up many times, I haven't felt ready for any of them, and all of it is making me a better guitar player and worship leader. At the end of each day, I am just so gosh darn thankful to be a missionary working for SPO, and I am thankful that the Lord chose this path as the one that would make me the holiest. I am so undeserving but so grateful. I am happy to have this time off to be with my family in the great state of Texas (and to eat all the foods that I missed), but I cannot wait to get back on campus next semester. All glory to Jesus Christ, now and forever, amen! To Jesus through Mary, Rebecca I hope y'all enjoy this little gallery I've put together of my first couple of months on mission! Some images are better quality than others, because I don't always have my camera on me but I always have my phone (and this probably doesn't bother anyone else, but whatever). Please continue to pray for my team and I, as well as the students at the U of M! The Holy Spirit is doing incredible things!
To Jesus Through Mary, Rebecca I can't believe September is over. To say that the month was a whirlwind is an understatement. Everyone told me that the first month of missionary life would be the craziest. While I never doubted that they were right, I never could have imagined how crazy it would be. "Wake Me Up When September Ends" has been stuck in my head for the past week, and while reflecting on this month, I realized that at times I thought September was actually not going to end and that I would be stuck in this newness and beginning all year. That thought was a little terrifying to me. To tell the truth, I am ready to not be "new" anymore. Being patient in this time of transition has been the most difficult part about the last month. I am ready to be familiar with my surroundings. I am ready to remember everyone's name that I meet. I am ready to feel like I know what I'm doing and that I'm doing the best that I can with my job. I am more than ready for my body to adjust to waking up early for morning prayer, and I'm ready to stop messing up when I play guitar during said mornings. I'm ready to be comfortable with where I am and what I'm doing. Ah, comfort. The heart of this struggle. A longing for comfort and familiarity and the feeling that I am in control, because I know what's going on and I know what the Lord wants me to do. Suddenly, it's less about the Lord and what He is going to do and it's all about me. How did I even get here? I've found that it's easy for me to become discouraged when I forget to rely on the Lord and I begin to rely on myself to make things happen. When I forget to rely on the Lord for my comfort and I seek comfort in myself or my surroundings, I begin to fail at the task I have been called to. Being a disciple of Christ has never been about comfort. It's never been about what I think or how I feel about what's going on. Because, really, I can't make anything happen. And it's not in my job description or in my power to do so. My job is to create environments that provide space for the Holy Spirit to work, and to make myself available to whatever the Lord wants to do through me. It's not even in my job description to necessarily know what the Lord is doing, but to simply be faithful to the calling that the Lord has placed on my life to serve him. "The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort: you were made for greatness." This is one of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's most popular quotes, and it has been a constant go-to for me in the past couple of months when I need to be re-convicted of my mission. Thanks be to God we are called to something greater than the fleeting comfort that the world offers. When I think about my life and all of the gifts that the Lord has given me and the ways He has provided for me up here in Minnesota, I am filled with so much gratitude to be spending my life on mission for His kingdom. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing. This gratitude and faith in the Lord's promise make it easy to choose greatness over comfort. The Holy Spirit enables me to choose this greatness daily. Now, I'm starting to figure out how to get around Minneapolis. The U of M campus is still huge to me, but I can at least make the walk to Gopher Catholic Nights on my own. The Lord is helping me establish strong relationships here, and I absolutely love all of the students that He has placed in my life. I'm just fine with this growing familiarity; and I'm choosing to be okay with the lingering discomfort. After all, the Church does not need me to be comfortable. The Church needs me to choose to be great. In the words of St. Therese of Lisieux, everything is grace. Thank you, Lord, for the grace to embrace the greatness and reject the comfort. May I and my fellow missionaries, with intercession from St. Therese, continue to choose this way of greatness and grace each day! And so the wonderful adventure continues... To Jesus Through Mary, Rebecca Note: My next post will include more about what we've been doing on campus and pictures from our first two months of mission here at the U. Stay tuned!
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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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