4 weeks later...

Has it really been 4 weeks since my first blog post?? Oops…. As you can tell just from that, life has been pretty busy. We finished up training 2 weeks ago and finally got to move up to Green Bay (another reason I couldn’t post, because we're still waiting for internet up here). As I think I mentioned before, there are 2 teams; Menasha and Green Bay. While I reallyyy miss being with the 9 who are still in Menasha it is so nice to finally not be living out of a suitcase anymore! The other 3 girls and I are living in what was once a convent, while the 2 guys are at a rectory 15 minutes away. Our place is a work in progress as it was all mostly empty rooms in the beginning of August. To give you a visual, it’s basically a long hallway with lots of rooms off of it, plus a basement for laundry and such. But people here have been AMAZING with donations, especially the parishioners from Resurrection Parish (the parish I’m doing youth ministry for)! Thanks to them we have new beds, couches, tables, kitchen supplies, and the list just goes on and on. Even after a couple weeks here people are still asking what we need. I’ve truly felt the love of God through everyone who’s helped during this time.

Besides moving in and getting settled, we've begun getting our youth ministry programs off the ground as well as continuing to do retreats. The main age groups we’ll work with are middle school and high schoolers. Talk about challenging ages haha. Being the more introverted person that I am it’s been a real challenge trying to step out of that and be the “courageous” person to start conversations. In case you want a quick laugh at how pathetic I am I’ll give an example. Our first week in Green Bay we were going to join the middle schoolers at Resurrection School for lunch. I just thought this was sooo awkward and that the kids would be like who in the world are these random old people and why do they want to sit with me? So we walk into the cafe and I feel like I’m back in middle school trying to figure out where to sit... super awkward. I walk by a table filled with 5^th grade girls and smile at them and a few of them wave and say hi. So I say, “I’d sit with you but there’s no room” and immediately like half of them go “oh you can just pull up a chair!” even though it’s a table where the chairs are already attached. I was shocked and also felt really dumb for being so nervous. A bunch of 5^th graders just welcomed me to their table without a second thought….. Needless to say I’m working on not judging situations so quickly anymore as well as not being a baby haha.

Besides the challenge of getting over my innate awkwardness, I’ve been having an amazing time here. My teammates (both Green Bay and Menasha) are soooo awesome! I don’t think I've ever laughed so hard and so frequently haha (granted it is pretty easy to make me laugh, but that's besides the point). I’m already learning so much from them. I see so much joy, devotion, and empathy within each individual. You just can’t help but feel blessed when you’re constantly surrounded by pure amazingness.

This week we find out who our spiritual directors are and get to have our first meeting with them. We also have our first Cor Jesu, which is a night of adoration and praise and worship (kind of like LIFT from back home). Next Monday we’ll have our first bible studies for both young adults and high schoolers. And of course more retreats are on the schedule too. I have lots more I could talk about but I’m going to end this post here. I promise I won’t go another 4 weeks without blogging. Hope you’re all doing well, I’m keeping you in my prayers!

The Call

It's been just over 2 weeks now that I have been in Wisconsin, marking the beginning of my 9 months of youth ministry volunteer service through SPIRITUS. I could probably write a book about everything that has happened thus far and we haven't even gotten into the ministry work yet! I've wanted to post something on here for a while now but the busy training schedule has tired me out so much that at the end of the day writing is the last thing I want to do haha. Let me just give a quick overview of my program and such before I get into anything else. I am working in a team of 15 people (6 returners) to help the Catholic youth of Wisconsin become closer to their faith through retreats, youth ministry, and bible studies. There are 9 girls and 6 guys. From within this group we've been divided into 2 other teams; one that will stay in the main location of Menasha at the Mount Tabor Center and the second will be in Green Bay. I was chosen to been in the GB team. There's a slightly better description to the right of what we'll be doing as well as a link to SPIRITUS' website/blog. Right now we are going through training to learn the retreats, youth ministry, and the basics of living in community and working with youth. I know that was kind of a lame description but I'll get into it more in later posts.

There are many topics/revelations I could talk about but one that seems to have come up the most over these past 2 weeks is the question of "Am I really called to be here?" Since this type of service and living is such a big change for most of us this question has undoubtedly passed through each of our minds once if not multiple times. My mind was actually consumed by this question the days leading up to my departure to WI as well as the first few after I arrived. My family and friends and memories of Stonehill life were really holding me back from being excited about this new adventure. However, the biggest contributor was my self doubt. I had almost zero confidence in myself because I felt as though I lacked so much necessary incite and knowledge surrounding the Catholic faith. Once I arrived, in my eyes, this doubt was only confirmed. I saw how much everyone else knew, even if it was just a simple prayer that I'd never heard of, and compared myself to them immediately. I was going down a self-destructive path and instead of turning to the One I knew would always be there I turned inward or to a few people from home. How hypocritical of me to ignore Jesus in my troubling times when I accepted this position because I want to spread the news that He is someone who you should ALWAYS turn to because he will ALWAYS be there for you.

While I felt alone in these feelings of doubt at first, I quickly came to realize many others were struggling as well. This goes to show you how deceptive judgments can be. Whether the struggle is not knowing all the prayers, feeling homesick, doubting your ability to connect with the youth, or anything else, that question of "Is this really my calling" finds a way to sneak in there. These doubts and many others are going to sneak in our minds countless times over these next 9 months, especially because we are doing God's work. As one of my teammates said, the Devil hates what we are doing and is going to try extremely hard to stop us, especially through attacking our relationships. This was brought up after one of our teammates came to the decision that this was not his calling and that he was going to leave the program. It was particularly hard to see him go because he was going to be on the GB team with me and I saw so much potential in him. Many others saw this in him as well. This just goes to show that we may not always be able to see our purpose or usefulness in certain situations but that doesn't mean we don't have one. With that being said, I respect my teammate's decision and pray that he finds his true calling.

As the rest of the team and I embark on this journey and continue to battle these doubts we must remember that we aren't here randomly. Some of my teammates joke about how often we are thanked for "saying yes" to SPIRITUS as well as to God's call (hence the title of my blog). God called each one of us here for a purpose. He wants to use us to do His work and He will equip us with the necessary gifts to do just that. If we truly believe what we are going to be preaching then we will place our faith in the hands of Jesus Christ despite the number of times we doubt or feel discouraged. 

Through the wise words of a fortune cookie I got on the day I arrived here "Discover The Power Within Yourself." With God's help I hope to do just that over these next 9 months. :)


I know many of you reading this may not be used to me being so open about my faith. This is something I have struggled with for my whole life and will continue to struggle with throughout this year. I hope that you continue to read and are interested in my experiences and thoughts even if you aren't religious yourself. You all have a special place in my heart and sharing this side of myself is something I think I have been longing to do without knowing exactly how to go about it. On that note, feel free to comment or talk to me privately if you have any questions about anything I bring up in my posts!

Miss you all & God bless!