Love Moves Slow

        I hope every one reading this knows who Audrey Assad is. If not, go look her up! RIGHT NOW! She is a Catholic musician with the voice of an angel and lyrics that can move you to tears. I have been listening a lot lately to her song "Slow" about the slow moving Love of our Lord. This song definitely rings true in my heart, especially over these past few months in mission, but I have recently been so blessed to see them apply to someone else in my life.
     
        One of the ladies of our community(I don't want to use her name incase she looks at this) has become my greatest friend her in Ecuador. She is 25 and beautiful and always radiating with joy.  When we have work day in the community, we always pair up together. She is who I owe the most credit to the increase of my Spanish speaking ability which (Praise the Lord!) is good enough to be able to have deeper conversations with her. The other day we were talking about struggles, sufferings, joys, and things of the heart, prayer, and how God moves in all of those things. You know, typical girl chat. When we were done she said "Que linda podemos conversar en estas cosas ahorrita." (How beautiful it is, that we can now talk about these things.)
     
       I have been privileged to see the Lord slowly moving in her heart as sung in this song. A few years ago, she fell away from the church because a priest refused to baptize her child due to the fact that she is not married in the Church and this obviously upset her substantially. When I met her at the beginning of this year, she had recently separated from her husband and was now living back here, next to us, with her two daughters. After the first three months she started opening up to me more about the sufferings of her heart. Their family is back together now but sometimes It is very obvious that she loves the Lord, but struggles with having  a true relationship with Gof, and having Him heal her heart. Three Sundays ago, I saw her at Mass for the first time. She was starring at me, beaming a smile because she had come and knew I would be so happy and she was so happy! She hadn't been to Mass in 6 years.
       
       Every Wednesday, we have community work day and after lunch have a Bible study/prayer meeting. We sing songs, share scripture, offer petitions and thanksgiving to God. We started back in May and have done it basically every week since. Today is like only the second time she has come. Usually she always finds an excuse to skip out and today when we started my heart hurt because she ran off to clean one of the rooms for some tourists that were arriving soon. In the middle of us giving thanks, however, she came up and joined in! I was immediately filled with Joy! We started sharing about Jesus calling us to be fishers of men. How Jesus is saying for us to "Come to Me!" The Holy Spirit reminded me of something my best friend Abbey Travis shared with me about us being called by the Lord. That Jesus is always straight ahead of us, which arms open, sun shining saying "Come to ME!" as a father calls his children. We start running to him but then get distracted, get distracted by the flowers that we stop to smell. We get distracted by other people behind us calling out our name or those that were running with us and aren't keeping step. We look back, or look down and stumble, but if we would just look forward and keep running is where we will have a greater Joy! She opened up and started sharing a lot as well about it and during petitions her eyes filled with tears.

"Faith is not a fire, as much as it's a glow. 

A quiet lovely burning. A little burning ember in my weary soul" 

     
        Obviously being a missionary it gets a little discouraging sometimes when we desire to have these great awesome ministries that everyone enjoys and comes to and lines up to enter in and pray with us. We want the hearts of people to just LOVE JESUS! To live out their Faith more. We want to make disciples, It is what we are called to do. We want a fire, we want to set the world ablaze! Which isn't a bad thing at all, but we miss that a fire lasts longer when it starts from the embers. It slowly burns, and heats up and then.. BOOM! It spreads! When Jesus did great things in scripture, He would normally tell the people He healed or tell His disciples not to say anything. Why? I used to think, 'Well that's why the Jews didn't believe You Jesus, You didn't tell them You just raised Lazarus! They would have believed! Why didn't You tell them? Did you not want them to know and believe?'
Hahaha, silly me, thinking I just solved that problem. No, He did!
He didn't want a huge blow out excitement that would fizzle out quickly.
     
        When you try to burn wet wood, yeah when you throw some gas on there it blows up and burns a bit, and then burns away. But when you throw a match on some crumbled paper with dry sticks… It slowly but surely burns and burns and burns. However, you have to first gather the sticks in a pile, let them dry and then later you start the fire, right?
     
       That is why it matters when One, just ONE soul comes to Mass that day. The Church was so full the day she came, but I didn't really notice 'til after. Normally it isn't very full. I only noticed that my friend had finally shown up, and I realized in that moment why Jesus cares so much about the lost sheep that returns to Him. It isn't that He doesn't care about all those that normally come to Mass, those that don't stray too far from Him; it is because He is so joyful to see that because He took the time to go out and look, He now has His sheep back. He takes the time, He knocks at our hearts. He moves through suffering. He speaks softly. He waits for us to invite Him in. He heals. He moves deep not wide. He moves slow.

I ask for y'all to please pray for my friend and her walk with Christ.

That she will continue to let Him in, let Him Love her and let Him heal her. 

The Lord's Little Missionary: A Tribute to the Life of Ezekiel Kiehl

     It has been a while since I have felt motivated to write a new blog, but to not share something about Ezekiel Kiehl would have been an extreme dishonor. For those who don't know, a very dear family to me in our mission company just lost their youngest son Ezekiel. He was 17 months old. 

     The Kiehl's were stationed last year in General Cepeda, Mexico where Ezekiel was born. In General, FMC has a mission house where the first year missionaries go for a month during their time of training, Intake. The trip to General Cepeda this past November was my first mission trip. I remember getting out of the car, heard who I thought was a Mexican child yelling something (of course in Spanish) and was honestly freaking out a bit. Then I saw it was Moses Kiehl, the oldest child of the family, welcoming us to Mexico. 

     When I walked into the house, it was total chaos. After 50 people had been traveling in cars for 18 hours, waiting in lines of traffic, parking lots, crossing the border, getting visas, and now running around our Mexican home, you would expect nothing less, right? I remember seeing Teresa running around trying to get everyone settled, with a baby on her hip, Ezekiel. Since unpacking is like my least favorite thing to do in the world and caring for children when their parents are busy is my favorite, I went up and offered to take him from her and then proceeded to sit down on one of the rocking chairs in the courtyard. It wasn't too long after that when Gemma, the 2 year old came running over and climbed into my lap, and then along came Isaac, the 4 year old. As I rocked, they all quickly fell asleep, ignoring the bustling and screaming around them. 

     I was very over joyed when put on Jonathan and Teresa's mission team for the next week. Every evening we would load up with all the kids in the trusty gray van and head out to a Rancho. We usually went to one of the farther ones so we had time to pray the Rosary AND listen to another one of Jonathan's stories while using my arms as a seatbelt for either Isaac or Gemma. After coming back to the house pretty late, there was always someone there needing their help, so the kids usually came with me. We would all sit at a table and eat PB&J and coffee milk. With Ezekiel in my lap, I convinced Gemma not to only drink coffee milk and Isaac to eat both the peanut butter AND the jelly while Moses, Elijah, and Micah told stories over one another. The Kiehls instantly made me feel like part of the family.

     When I heard about Ezekiel's death, I was instantly reminded of Lizzie McCullough. She is the daughter of some dear friends of mine, Morgan and Grae, from my Church Parish who passed away a year and a half ago. She was born with Trisomy 18 and lived for a month in the NICU. During that time I had gone home to attend a praise and worship/prayer service our church was holding for Lizzie. She died a few hours later. I got the privilege of visiting her in the hospital earlier that day and felt like I was in the presence of heaven. When Lizzie passed, I remember that it was said at her funeral: "She was our little missionary" She united so many people in prayer, so many lives who gathered together to lift up her parents. Those words have always stuck with me because 'missionary' is unfortunately not a word used very often. Now it is my life.

     Missions were not in my plan at the time but always lay within my heart. After Lizzie's testimony I remember God started stirring something new within me, and a few months later I was called to FMC. Seeing her beautiful example, as just a baby, how she mirrored the Love of Christ and brought so many people together in prayer, showed me how EVERYONE is called to be missionary. 

     A missionary in today's world is a word associated with someone who comes to your door when you don't want them to and tries to convince you to believe in what they do. Or it is someone who goes to a foreign country for a little while to bring some sort of medical assistance, to build a school, a chapel, or DO SOMETHING! These are all good things, but the most effective missionary doesn't DO anything, they just live, they just breathe, and Love as Christ loves. 

Jeremiah 1:5 

"Before I knew you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you."

The best Thanksgiving nap 

     This is why Ezekiel Kiehl is a great missionary. He was born in General Cepeda, a humble birth just like his Savior,  and he died in Mexico, gave his life to the mission. Of course as a baby, this wasn't exactly his choice BUT it is what God dedicated him for and appointed him to be. How precious. 

     Ezekiel drew so many people to him through his joy, his smile that mirrored Christ, and his tosseled blonde head living in a world of Mexicans. So many times I held him and walked around Mexico and encountered so many people wanting to see and talk to Ezekiel. He was recognized to them as a Mexican because of the beautiful witness of his parents to truly live as the people did, to enter into total solidarity with the poor. This is what it means to truly be missionary.

     We all know the verse: "If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clanging symbol." (Cor. 13:1) but what does that really mean?!? Without Love? Without Christ?? Without living by His example we do NOTHING! This is why a baby can do EVERYTHING! This is why Ezekiel Kiehl IS a missionary, an apostle, and a prophet sent by Our Lord, dedicated to His mission.  

    Suffering is a chance to grow closer in community, for God to strengthen us, an opportunity to see the Joys more clearly and for our Father to reveal to us His Glory.  

"Suffering can make us the most effective tool. The more suffering you endure and the more challenge and hardships you face will allow you to be more effective." -Sarah Granger.

It is a beautiful thing to be united in suffering, even more so united in prayer. In this tragedy that is smothered in death and an oppertunity for Hell to have a little victory, Ezekiel has instead given us all a great Hope and a strength by uniting so many people around the world to lift up his family in prayer. 

I ask for your prayers during this time for our missionaries, especially the Kiehl family.

"Prayer is not the LEAST we can do, it is the MOST!" 

-Genie Summers

I guess the Lord just wants to use us all a little more.

In Christ who has called me, 

Lauren

Life as a Sinchi Warmi

They are working on building one of the new cabañas.
This was after the said "Warmi! Límonada con hielo por favor!"
Sonya, Nelli, Abuelita, Betti, Ernesto and Jamie

Ahhhh, the country of Ecuador. So many wonderful things this place has to offer.  I really feel like I live in a country of rainbows and happiness. First off, the country's modo is 'Ecuador: ama la vida' in English: 'Ecuador: love life' and with that is a wonderfully, circular emblem of color. I get to live in the middle of the Amazon basin where I always know it is going to be pretty warm with rain almost every day, so basically Louisiana in the summer time. Which means, I am surrounded by green: trees, grass, flowers, fruits many of which are only found here in Ecuador. I can walk through the jungle and pull a piece of fruit off a tree and there it is, a delicious gift from The Lord. There are waterfalls, mountains in the distance, rushing rivers, and jungle all around. What a life.

Favio teaching us how to use
the leaves to make jewelry

the kids like to sleep in my hammock
Kati, Karlita, Latícia, and Rina

I would have to say though, the best part of being here is that I get to live in community with the people of Sinchi Warmi. My favorite charism FMC has, other than Catholic, is our great since of community. I LOVE COMMUNITY! It was already a blessing from The Lord that He gave us community with the guys only 20 minutes away in Ahuano, but He also gave us this community to live in as well. The best part of every day is when the kids come home. I say the kids like they are mine, but I really feel like they are sometimes. That is the life of community. But everyday at 2 o'clock, we all of a sudden hear a bunch of little Spanish voices yelling "Lorena! Raquel! Graciella" and suddenly our house is filled with 4-20 little nuggets. 

fishing for some tilapia

we turned our room into a movie theatre: Cinderella in Spanish
Rina, Andrebella, Shalla, Latícia, and Ronni

The family here has taken us in as their own. Like we say at FMC "We are a family of families." This is how the Kichwas of Sinchi Warmi live. They are all one big family of nine families. They are currently building three more cabanas for tourists to come stay. We are so blessed to be able to work alongside them as they are building up this community. They are a great help not only with learning Spanish, but they take time to teach us Kichwa as well. They like to teach us how they live. How they use the jungle around them for things they want or need. If I ever have free time, there is always someone to go talk to, someone very happy to spend time to teach me a little Kichwa, or guitar lessons with two of the youth here, Bryan and Miguel, and of course there is always some adorable children who just want to spend time with us. They are always so happy to see us, to walk with us to town, to help us do different tasks around the house or the property. Bryan, Miguel, and Jipson also like to come with us to do ministries in the other communities or for a day of fun at the river or waterfalls. Thank You Lord for this incredible blessing of communal life.

Rachel really loves washing laundry by hand

The Power of Prayer for The Joy of the Gospel

So the other day we had about an hour to kill before we had to go to a community for Mass. I was so excited to have this time during the day to pray.

For those who don't know, Rachel, Candice, and I are stationed in a small town called Mishualli, which has 54 communities surrounding it that belong to the Parish. Most of the communities are 'Kichwa,' a culture of indigenous people here in Ecuador that live in the jungle and have a strong since of work ethic. We have the great opportunity of living in one of the communities called 'Sinchi Warmi' which means 'strong woman' in Kichwa. This community is owned by one big family of nine siblings along with their individual families. It was built/being built as a tourist lodging place where visitors can stay in a cabaña(wood floors, bamboo walls, and a roof of palm leaves) explore the trails of the property, fish in their tilapia ponds, learn and enjoy life like the Kichwas. 

On the property they have a gazebo type cabaña overlooking one of the tilapia ponds. It is such a great place to pray. After making lunch, eating and cleaning up, I started to make my way over there, then checked my watch and realized I only had 20 minutes before we had to leave. Ahhhh Dios Yayalluna! ("My God" in Kichwa) Definitely not a sufficient amount of time, so I turned around and headed back to the house for another monotonous chore. 

I then thought back to the beginning of Intake when it was so "difficult" for me to devote only 20 minutes a day to pray with The Lord, and now 20 minutes isn't enough! Praise Be Jesus Christ for that!! That is the power of prayer. I was so ignorant when I didn't corporate prayer into my daily life, thinking I could make it through life without the help of God. 

Blessed John Paul II said, "Prayer to a Christian is like breathing!"

It is how we get strength from The Lord, how we know what HIS Will is for our lives, how we receive the gifts we need, how we recognize all the many blessings He gives us each and ever day, by entering into that intimate relationship with our God, reading His Word, listening for His voice, telling Him our joys and struggles, and asking for what we need. We have a compassionate God, loving like a Father who wants an intimate relationship with his child. 

Pope Francis' encyclical: The Joy Of the Gospel reiterates this message:

"Though it is true that this mission demands great generosity on our part, it would be wrong to see it as a heroic individual undertaking, for it is first and foremost the Lord’s work, surpassing anything which we can see and understand . . . This conviction enables us to maintain a spirit of joy in the midst of a task so demanding and challenging that it engages our entire life. God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us." (12)

If we think we can go through this life without the help our Lord, we are so very wrong. Before answering "Yes!" to The Lord's call for me to be His little missionary, I lived everyday for Him and was a devoted Catholic. I loved serving Him and others but I lacked this Spirit led life driven by prayer. 

In our wonderful cabaña, we have a few little problems: Rats. Roaches. Tarantulas. Bugs. Bugs. Bugs.
I remember when I lived at home and I once heard a tiny mouse that had fallen down from the attic into my wall... Guess who didn't sleep in her room that night... I woke up to my dad looking down at me confused why I was sleeping on the couch.  He laughed at me and said, "It can't get you if it's in the wall!"

Well, now the only thing that separates me from a big ole rat is just a thin little bug net, and I sleep soundly through the night. WHY? Because I live out the Joy of the Gospel with a whole lot of help from The Lord and a whole lot of prayer!

 Being a missionary without prayer is impossible! Living out the fullest life possible as a Christian without prayer is impossible! I quickly changed this great lacking in my life and now CRAVE time to pray, and every day God shows me all the ways He blesses me. He constantly strengths me so I can "maintain a spirit of joy" while doing His Will. What a gift!

I challenge everyone who isn't setting aside time for personal prayer with God every day to start doing so. He has a great mission for each of our lives to do His work, to live out His Gospel, to be a tool He uses to bring about Eternal Salvation! What a mission! He wants to give us a great Joy "in the midst of a task that is so demanding and challenging." He wants to "offer us everything"! 

The Lord calls ALL to be Missionary!

"Our goal as missionaries is to work ourselves out of a job!"
(Joseph Summers)

          This is something our director says pretty often. This may seem strange, but when you think about the real goal as an FMC missionary, which is to "Proclaim the Gospel and Serve the Poor" it makes perfect since. Our goal is for people to come to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ and their fellow neighbor, so that their community does not have to rely on missionaries or priests/religious in order to have a relationship with Christ. We GREATLY encourage at FMC that the people we are serving also come and serve with us.

Pope John Paul II said :

"Missions is the greatest and holiest duty of the Church"

(Mission of the Redeemer)

          But just because we are missionaries does not mean we are the greatest and holiest people! We strive for holiest of course every single day and strive for greatness, but everyone can do this! Everyone should do this! Everyone should be striving for holiness and greatness. Everyone should be missionary. The Lord calls ALL to be missionary!

"All authority has been given to me in Heaven and on Earth.

GO therefore and make disciples of all nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded of you."

(Matthew 28:17-20)

One of the greatest blessings and witnesses I got to see while in Mexico was a story about a Mexican man named Alfredo.

Yes it is weird if you think about it, Alfredo is an Italian dish STAY with me here people. One night we were far out in one of the isolated desert villages(ranchos) having a prayer meeting with the community and shockingly a man walked in. It was Alfredo. (Side note: in Mexico most men don't come to the chapels because they think religion is for women, unless they have had a strong male influence from a missionary or priest.) Turns out Alfredo is an alcoholic, and Praise the Lord, one of our missionaries gave a testimony on how addictions are a negative influence on our lives and are not a way God wants us to live.

 The next night we were driving through that rancho and we saw Alfredo out herding his goats and we waved to him. When he saw us, he dropped his walking stick and left his goats where they were and began running to our car! When we told him we were driving to the further rancho, he asked if he could come with us! Of course we said YES! So he jumped in the car and off we went.

"As He was walking along the Sea of Galilee He watched two brothers, 

Simon now known as Peter, and Andrew, casting a net in the sea.

They were fishermen. He said to them, "Come after me and I will make you fishers of men."

They immediately abandoned their nets and became His followers"

(Matthew 4:18-20)

When we get to ranchos we walk around ringing a bell and go door to door inviting people to come pray with us in the chapel. Alfredo was such a blessing since most of us couldn't really speak Spanish. When we were wrapping up our prayer meeting, we asked if anyone wanted us to pray over them.

Alfredo came up with us and laid hands on his fellow neighbors and prayed over them with us! HOW POWERFUL! He was recognizing that "I too can be a missionary! I too AM a missionary. I too am called!" He answered his call. He left his work. He left his comforts and he followed the Lord's desire for him to come with us that night in the rancho. To be a witness to them but also, he was such a huge witness to us.

We are all called to be missionary!

Joy in the Suffering

"Suffering makes us the most effective tool"

Something that I have been learning in mission life is the importance of suffering. That may seem weird to say because I think most of the time we think about suffering in two ways.

1. It just happens, it's part of life. or 

2. We usually get aggravated with God for letting the suffering happen. 

During these past few months of missionary training, I keep hearing of people I love and care about suffering back home. It has been very hard for me not to be there, present in all this suffering in my community. 

I have been getting pretty aggravated with God. I mean, I'm giving up my life, to serve Him as a missionary, following His plan for me. Isn't this supposed to bring me joy? Can you at least give me a break here God? Obviously I know in missions there is going to be more suffering than I have ever had to face before, but that's suffering in missions. When it has to do with suffering for things going on here, it makes me think He is trying to tell me to just call it quits and go back home, back to school, back to my church. Especially when being away is causing even greater suffering. 

Also, it has been making me upset that I'm going through this suffering because people I love are suffering. Why do they have to suffer, or go through these trials? Why does this have to happen, especially when it's dealing with faithful people who are active in their faith that are going through this?

Luckily, one of our missionaries gave a talk on this recently to put my perspective back in check. He said there are three reasons for suffering: to strengthen us, for unity between us and God/us and our community, and redemption. First He used an example of when His own daughter falls down or is upset or tired, the first thing she does is run to him, and when she doesn't, he is very sad. Thats all he wants, is for his daughter to always go to him when she is hurt or in trouble. So he can make it better. So she will be happy and not sad or in pain.

 When I think of the times that I haven't run to God, that makes me sad that I failed Him in that. I'm His daughter. He wants me to come to Him first. 

If I weren't getting upset or I didn't suffer about things back home, I think that would be a much greater shame. It makes me sick to think that for a second I was aggravated with God for this suffering. God doesn't make suffering happen. He just allows us to be affected by it! What a blessing that is!!! To care! To be affected by pain and brokenness!? Praise you Jesus for giving me this gift of compassion to suffer with pain and heartbreak and to be healed by it! And by healing from this suffering we are then strengthened by it. 

I need to be stronger. I need to grow in this strength everyday. I am a missionary. I am going to see suffering and joy daily. I can't just pick the joy and ignore the suffering, or let the suffering run me back to my own comforts and security. And sometimes suffering is needed to save us. So that we will run to Him.

Pope John Paul II said in Mission of the Redeemer:

         

  "Prayer needs to be accompanied by sacrifice. The redemptive value of suffering, accepted, and offered to God with love, derives from the sacrifice of Christ himself, who calls the members of His Mystical Body to share in His sufferings, to complete them in their own flesh."

Our suffering should never be wasted. Then it would be a shame. We are all going to suffer, especially when we follow God. But if we remember to run back to our Father, and unite our sufferings with Christ, He will fill us with Joy in the Suffering. 

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, 
and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions." 

Colossians 2:24

I ask for a special prayer request:

for my youth group back home: Our Lady of Prompt Succor

for the Junior class of Holy Savior Menard Central High School

and for the Michiels family who just lost their 17 year old son, Chase 

 may God bring him into eternal life 

Mexico Bound!/ Thank you Delaney Family:)

       The other day we had a talk about short term trips and the schedule we should follow when a short term trip is taking place. The missionary giving the talk used General Cepeda, Mexico as an example since we are going to be here for a month and need to be prepared for when the short term trip comes down for Thanksgiving. I for some reason finally realized that IM GOING TO MEXICO! It is so exciting! 

Before we left I got this awesome care package from the Delaney's that helped fire me up. They sent a box full of saints medals, Holy cards, crucifixes, rosaries, scapulars (brown, green, and white) prayer books, biographies of Saints, paintings of Mary. It was basically a Catholic girl's dream come true. And all blessed of course! Thank you Mrs. Sheree! You're the best! Love you:) 

Olivia & Phillip did not want to take a picture

Emily! almost to General Cepeda

Isaac being Isaac

So I got the great pleasure of riding down with the Seilhan family! Prayers that the van will make it back to the U.S because we kept bottoming out due to all the weight in the car and the many pot holes in Mexico.

We had to stop at the border to get our visas and we noticed the not so inconspicuous Mexican flag waving in the wind from the roof of the Aduana!

Everyone please keep me and the rest of our missionaries in your thoughts and prayers. Also I ask for prayers for the people of General Cepeda, Mexico where we will be serving.                                                        

God Bless