Mis Amigos,

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I wanted to end my blog. I wanted to share with you all the thoughts that have been consuming me this summer. I find the only suitable thing to write about is love. I have come to see that a lot of Americans believe that the only way to really love the poor is to give them things. We have to be “fixing” their lives in some concrete way, accomplishing something. It is this American mentality of “do, do, do, accomplish, accomplish, accomplish.” We have to have something to show and say, “look at what I did, I built this house for this poor person." I am not trying to downplay the works of mercy and their importance; for it is our obligation to do everything we can to assist the poor in their physical needs. Yet often times, these things keep us a safe distance away from them, from the ways they may affect us. We have to remember that if these things are not done with love they might as well not be done at all. We are so afraid to love, aren't we? We are much more comfortable building a house for a poor person than talking to them, loving them. Yet, Mother Teresa said that the greatest thing we can give the poor is not our food or possessions, but our love. The Missioners of Christ are not about finding a quick solution to poverty (which doesn’t exist)—they instead ask us to love the people in whatever way we can (and often that was through meeting their physical needs) and walk alongside them.

Yet I had to ask myself, what does this all mean? I now understand what it means to say that to love the poor is to love the Christ crucified. How long can you stare at Christ on the cross without your heart aching, out of guilt, out of sorrow? It is the same when you look into the eyes of the poor. I realized that this summer I was very afraid to actually love the people. Why? Because in order to love the poor you have to allow your heart to bleed for them. If any of you have ever truly loved a person, you know that it is the most painful thing you will ever do. I'm sure many of you know what it feels like for your heart to actually break for another. Mother Teresa also said that if it doesn’t hurt, then it isn’t really love. What a contradiction that is to our culture! In a culture which is both “love” obsessed and doing everything in it’s power to avoid pain and heart ache, in a culture in which 50% of marriages fail, and a ridiculous amount of people are on anti-depressants. Are we not seeing a people who are running as far away from pain and therefore love as they possibly can?

I am very guilty of this. Before I came to Honduras, I of course, thought about loving the poor in a very cutesy, idealistic way. I didn’t think about the fact that if I were to love them, I would need to actually open up my heart to another person and allow myself to feel their pain. I’m not saying that we should completely take on the pain of another, because first of all we are not capable of this, but also, the minute we do this, we are not allowing Christ to be Savior. We must lay their pain directly at the foot of the cross. But at the same time, we are called, as the scriptures say, “to love one another deeply from the heart” (1Peter 1:22) and to “carry each others burdens” (Galations 6:2). If we want to be a Christian, and therefore imitators of Christ, that means we are called to love even to the extent of the pain of the cross—or if we are to love Mary, the mother of God, that means we will also experience her suffering, her heart pierced with a sword out of her deep love for us and her son. I know that I didn’t love people this summer to my fullest extent, out of fear of the heartache it would cause me, and this is my biggest regret.

I have a challenge for all of you. Go meet Christ in the poor. Just go. Don’t think about it too much. It is the most natural thing you will ever do. It is also ridiculously fun. He is waiting for you. You will never be the same again. Not only that, but it is truly your obligation, all of our obligations, to love in whatever way we can our poorest brothers and sisters, to give until it hurts, not out of our excess or free time, but out of true sacrificial love. Just as the poor widow who gave everything she had was admired and the rich who gave much more than her were scorned—God does not appreciate us giving just out our excess. This is not love. It has to hurt in some way. We shouldn’t serve the poor because we believe we are entitled to this kind of experience, or so that we can come back and so, “I am so grateful for all the things I have now.” No! We don’t need all the things we have, and neither do they. Consumerism is destroying us. I see how it has taken over and destroyed aspects of my own life. As Americans, it is so difficult to wrap our minds around, but we have to remember that the poorest people in this world know the love of Christ in a way that most of us will never be able to understand; they don’t need our pity or surplus, but our love and sincere admiration. I am trying desperately to never let go of this belief.

My other challenge for you is to accept that human relationships in which pain and sacrifice are absent don’t exist. If they do exist, they are meaningless. What I loved most about the Hondurans was their transparency; they were real. They loved more freely than most people I know, even though they had many more reasons not to. We have enough sugar coating in our culture, enough artificiality. We have to be real, to love until it hurts! This is a challenge I give both to you and especially to myself. I know it is immensely difficult, and I am right alongside you saying “how.” I don’t know. It will look different for everyone, but the result will be the same—our hearts will all break at one point or another. But is there anything else worth doing? I am not saying we should love recklessly, rather truly and fully, in the way God is asking of us individually. All I know is that if God is love, the solution to everything is more love. I can’t explain how grateful I am, to whoever read this, for your prayers and support. I will be discerning whether I am called to do missionary work for long term in the future, so I would appreciate your continued prayer. Thank you for putting up with my lack of originality. I am convinced that the most difficult things to grasp though, are also the simplest. I love you all.

En Cristo,
Angie

“There is a terrible hunger for love.
We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness.
We must have the courage to recognize it.
The poor you may have right in your own family.
Find them.
Love them.” –Mother Teresa

“The deepest lesson the heart has to deliver to us become accessible only when it is ruptured. It is anguish that makes the heart an open book because the wound it causes pierces all the way through to the core. These are terrible lessons, the kind that fill one with nausea. We like to think our lives would be happier if we could find a way to avoid learning them; but the only way to avoid learning them; the only way to do that is to close one's heart and keep it closed, so that nothing gets in or out of it - to make oneself a heart of stone. It is terrible to put into words the one real alternative to this avoidance. But I see no way to get around what seems to be the harshest, the most merciless truth about the human heart- I mean the fact that, to keep it open, once it has been pierced, one must allow it to be an open wound.”-Jerome Miller.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
-C.S. Lewis

P.S.- I have quoted Mother Teresa a lot this summer. I feel she was right alongside all of us missioners this summer. If you want to get to know her, I would really recommend you read “Come Be My Light.” All of the summer missioners read it and I can’t explain the impact it had on all of us. It is not just another book written about her..it is her private letters she didn't want anyone to see because of her humility, and it will bring you to your knees.

Pictures from the last mission in Mal Paso!



Here´s a picture of Carrie and I; Gloria and her brother Jesus are to the left of me


Eucharistic procession


All of the young adults who were here for a week


!Buenas!

I just got back from a mission in the mountains today. We were on mission for about 4days, and this mission was much more hard-core than the last one I was on. To get there, we spent the day taking 3 different buses up rocky dirt roads, until we got to a town called Florida. The priest at this town, Padre Max, has about 50 (yes, you read that correctly) different parishes, and also runs a mission house for teens to teach them practical labor, as well as train them to be missionaries. He is probably the youngest priest in Honduras, and has also been given one of the most demanding jobs; I didn´t get to meet him, but supposedly he is basically a living Saint.

Once we got to Florida, we were driven to a village called Kukinka which is extremely remote, doesn´t have electricity, and was also forgotten about for many years. The people there were SO beautiful. The children acted like they had a middle-school crush on us the whole time, whispering and giggling when we would try to talk to them. The people were so humble, and I was inspired by the enjoyment they received out of simple things. For example, while we were waiting for the programs to start, Zach(who is 6'9, which made this extra funny), Jaime, and I were playing duck, duck, goose with the kids before the program was starting. The adults were there waiting for the program to start and watching us. The grass was really slippery, so we all kept slipping and falling all over the place. The people must have found this extremely amusing, because basically the whole town just sat there and watched us, hysterically laughing, for a good ten minutes.

The missioners split up a few times, and we were able to visit about 5 different villages in total. It involved a lot of difficult hiking, but the mountains here are stunning (they actually remind me a lot of my good ole Blue Ridge mountains =) We had programs in the afternoons, but a lot of what we did was visit houses. We visited the sick, shared the Gospel of the day, and prayed with them for their intentions. Two other mission members hiked three hours to an aldea that had about only 5 houses; an old, sick woman who they visited was so happy because she said that no one comes to visit her, especially not a missionary...she said she hadn´t seen a missionary in years. Visiting houses could be difficult at times, but it was also my favorite part of the mission. Walking into a strangers house, knowing that you might be able to bring them the hope of Christ in some way, is an indescribable feeling.

Everything about life in the mountains seems so much more real...it is like going back in time. Most of the people still have large families, they live off the land, and it is not uncommon for family members to die young. These people know raw suffering, but, at the same time, their joy is pure and undefiled. There was a moment in the town when I was watching all of the teenage boys in the town play soccer, and I understood a little more of why Mother Teresa would say that poverty is the ultimate freedom. I realized at that moment that I haven´t really missed the comforts of modern technology, not my cell phone or computer, and that even if I was given the opportunity, I wouldn´t be able to give them those things. It would rob them of their simplicity. Their faith is simple, yes-I didn´t meet anyone who even had a Bible. Yet it is also grand, they rely on God for things which we wouldn´t even think of entrusting to God...the health of their children...food for the next day. I can´t explain how beautiful their faith is and how blessed I feel to know that people like this still exist. I have only about 2 weeks left..can you believe it? I hope that God has also stretched you and taught you many things this summer. Thank you for all your prayers.

May our Blessed Mother wrap you in her mantle,
Angie

"Many people are talking about the poor. Few people are talking to the poor."
-Mother Teresa

Hijos y Hijas de Dios,

The mission was so amazing! I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to work with. The village we worked in was absolutely gorgeous. I wish I had pictures to share, but my camera broke the day I got there. It was called “Mal Paso”, which basically means bad road. The roads were crazy- tons and tons of mud and huge rocks. The first morning when we got up, I naively wore sandals. My feet were basically two weights of mud. It was pretty hysterical; all the Hondurans usually gave us looks of pity, but I’m pretty sure we were their entertainment for the week. Supposedly there is some special way to walk in the mud here. I’m not even kidding. There would be a foot of really thick mud on the ground, and the Hondurans would walk into Church with spotless feet. That baffled us the entire week.

The generosity of the people was incredible. The woman at the house we were sleeping in would look through our things and wash our (muddy) clothes. We didn’t ask her to do this. She would fold them up discreetly, and never said a word about it. Everyday for lunch we were served chicken. Our leader, who is a Honduran, explained to me that they only eat meat in the Aldellas on Christmas and Easter, huge celebrations. Yet, everyday they were giving up their animals for us. The people were really such a joy to meet. Although we were there to serve them, I almost always felt like the one being served.

One girl specifically had a huge impact on me. Her name was Gloria. She was about 11, and her mother had died. She told me that she wanted to be a missionary like us when she grew up. She was often teased—I think it might have been because she was so poor. She asked me if I would move here and be her sister…yeah. She was so joyful and so in need of love. Throughout the mission, we were given these huge blocks of cheese to eat at almost every meal. The cheese here is really strong, and it was honestly really difficult to finish. We would sometimes jokingly complain to each other afterwards about how much we hated it. I was talking to Gloria and I was asking her about what she ate everyday. She said she eats beans and tortillas everyday; I asked her if she had cheese as well, and she said they didn’t have enough money for cheese. She also said they can’t afford to eat meat even on Christmas. I’m sure you can imagine how I felt after that! Every time we felt like we were going to gag on the cheese, we would say, “This ones for Gloria!”

For the mission, we had 3 programs everyday, one for children, one for teens, and one for adults. This mission taught me to have a deeper trust that God was using me and speaking through me in whatever way He wanted. When I gave talks, I never knew if the people understood what I was saying or if I was even saying things correctly. We often would visit houses and invite people to come to the programs and we would usually never see them again. This sometimes got to be discouraging, and I felt like screaming, “Am I even doing anything for you Lord!?” But that’s where that trust comes in—I had to trust that they heard and were given what they needed at that moment in their life. I will remember the people I met for the rest of my life. I’m so blessed to have met them and to have been able to share my love for Christ with them in whatever small way I was able to.

Love always,
Angie

"Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up."
Galatians 6:9

Hermanos en Cristo,

Yet another week has slipped by here. I am absolutely amazed that I have been here for over a month now. The time is slipping through my fingers like sand. I know that I am really living my life when this happens, when I am not counting the days, and barely notice they are passing me by. But I know that I have to treasure this last month or so and be more in tune to what the Lord may be trying to use me for.

Yesterday, a big group of young adults came in from all over the country to serve alongside the rest of the missioners for a mountain mission that we are embarking on this Sunday. We have people from places as far as Texas A&M, Steubenville, California, Florida...it's so exciting, the people are inspiring, and it's so great to have new faces in the house who have hearts so willing to serve Christ and His people.

I am beyond excited for the mountain misson. Missioners have told me that it is a life-changing experience. We are going to be staying at an aldea that is so deep in the mountains they don't have electricity, and are only able to recieve the sacraments once a year. Can you imagine? I honestly can't. Imagine how difficult it would be to maintain the faith as a Catholic and go that long without confession, and especially the Eucharist. It is hard enough for me when I have the sacraments readily available. To say the least, we will learn a lot from them.

Our mission is to bring them hope and to walk alongside them in their hurts and doubts, even if just for a week. We will be doing retreats for kids, teens and families..and yes, I will be giving talks, in spanish. The Holy Spirit better get working, that's all I'm saying!

I wanted to share with you all one experience I had this week. We met a poor woman who had just found out that her baby son had been sexually abused. We prayed with her, but mostly we listened to her heart-felt prayers to God, and we held her while she wept. And we wept too. For a long time. The whole time time I was thinking how inspiring it was that this woman could still pray. Carol, our leader, tells us that we desperately need the poor for our own salvation. This was a moment for me that helped me realize how much I need them.

Please pray for us on our mission. You are in my prayers!

A kiss of peace,
Angie

"Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them."
-Mother Teresa

!Hola mis amigos!

I hope everybody's doing well. So, my week. One of the highlights was when I got to go with Lilly, who is one of the American missionaries, to different houses around Comayagua. She works alongside a social worker who is employed by the Missioners of Christ. They basically go door to door throughout the city, finding people in the greatest need. They help children with funding for school, single mothers, those who don't have jobs, and those without food. Their ministry also involves visiting the elderly, sick, and lonely. We ended up visiting two elderly people whose spouses had recently died and just needed someone to visit them. The first woman we visited was extremely joyful, and the minute we got there, she began making tortillas and frijoles. I would have never known her husband had just died.

The second man we visited, was absoluely adorable. Him and his wife had been living together for some 40 years or more, and it had been her dream to recieve the sacrament of marriage for many years. A few months after they got married, she died. The man's story is also sad because his children have all moved to the states and have basically abandoned him, and don't ever call him. Lilly was explaining to me that it is very common for many Hondurans to leave to the states to make more money, and completely leave behind their families. This man was so kind and I was so blessed to be able to visit him. Hopefully he felt less forgotten.

Today I helped out with a small retreat for high school kids. It was pretty hysterical, because I was put in a small group with a seminarian who also speaks little spanish. There was a lot of awkard silences, and smiling and nodding on my part, and hoping the teenagers weren't saying completely horrible things. I love how this is stretching me!! Oh how desperately I wish I was fluent though...one day hopefully =)

I have been comissioned to a painting! I wrote that I like to paint and draw, not thinking much of it, and they are putting me to work!! I'm going to be painting Saint Francis Xavier on the wall, the patron saint of missionaries, next to a painting that has already been done of Saint Therese. I am super excited about it, but also pretty nervous too. I appreciate all your prayers, and would ask specifically for grace in the struggles that accompany the language barrier. I just have so much I want to say. But this summer is teaching me to listen. I Would love your comments! I pray that God blesses you in this coming up week.

Lots of love,
Angie

"Language comes alive when it speaks by deeds. Enough of talking; let actions speak. We are bloated with words and empty works."
-Saint Anthony of Padua

!Buenas!

I have so much to I want to talk about, I don't even know where to begin. So all of us summer missioners got back tonight from language school. What an incredible experience. First of all, we stayed at this gorgeous, peaceful retreat center out in the mountains for two weeks that is run by these adorable nuns who spoiled us rotten with tons of Honduran food. We were immediately welcomed so generously by the people in the town and we had the opportunity to get to know some of the Hondurans really well.

Language school was definetly a challenge, but I think I 've learned a lot, and I'm really hoping that it will help me better connect with the Hondurans. All four of us summer missioners really got to know eachother these past two weeks. They are such wonderful people and I already feel like I've known them a long time. Jamie is 20, a junior at Carroll College, and is really intelligent and kind and is helping us all stay on top of things. Carrie is a Senior at UNC, and this is her third time in Honduras, but her first time being here for the whole summer. She is super positive and joyful all the time, it's so wonderful. Zach is 20, a junior at Franciscan University of Steubenville. This is his fifth time in Honduras with the missioners...he is in love with this country and the life of a missionary, so he has taught me a lot.

These last two weeks, the Hondurans in the town we were staying in blew me away. I've never met more hospitable people in my life. We got to spend a lot of time with this young priest who serves in the area where we had language school. He is the only priest to around 20 parishes throughout the area. A lot of his churches are far up in the mountains, and because he has so many churches, a lot of his people only get to celebrate mass once a month, at most. Even though this man works harder than anyone I've ever met, he is also the most joyful man I've ever met. He was literally always smiling. He took us to around four different parishes, and at every parish he made us go to the front of the church and introduce ourselves and sometimes give a testimony. There were so many times when I felt like running away and hiding. I can't explain how unworthy I felt...these people are only able to recive Christ once a month, yet they continue to have such strong faith..and I am a missionary to them?

This one village we visited was especially deep in the mountains. They didn't have electricity or running water, and the people in this town looked at us like we had four heads, I'm guessing most of them have never seen gringos like us before. In order to get to their church, we hiked alongside the Hondurans up this really steep mountain for about 45 minutes. The whole time I was thinking...I wonder how many Americans would hike up this to go to church (think about how empty your church becomes on Super bowl Sundays and Labor Day weekends). Then I couldn't help but think..would I? Living on a Catholic campus, I have the opportunity to easily go to Mass everyday, but how often did I not go to daily Mass because I had "something else to do."

The most humbling thing about all this is something Zach was explaining to me. Some of these people wait their entire lives in hope of meeting a missionary. It is the hope for their children..they even have a special prayer they say here at every mass specifically for missionaries. They opened up their homes so generously to us, and made us feel like the most important guests they have ever had (contrast that to the way Americans notoriously treat door to door missionaries). I have so much to learn from the people here. Pray for us, because now the real work begins!

Que Dios le Bendiga,
Angie

"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 14:11

Hello friends!!

I hope you all are doing really well. So a little bit about my experience so far. First of all, I can´t explain how happy I am to be here. I couldn´t have hand-picked a more perfect organization to serve with. My fellow missioners are wonderful people, I feel I´ve always known them and am so at home. Even though I´ve only been here a few days, I feel like I´ve been here a long time, probably because our days have been so full of life. Just within the last few days I have visited an orphanage for young girls, gotten to know the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, went to mass with the cloistered Poor Clares, visited the Missionaries of Charity House, and volunteered at a school for children with disabilities. We don´t know individually where we will all be focusing our time of service, so they are giving us a little taste of everything for right now.

There have been of course, a few struggles, the biggest one being the language barrier. Lets just say I thought I knew a lot more spanish than I actually do! I realize now that I have taken for granted for so long the simple gift of communication, but I am trying everyday to communicate His love in a way besides words, even if it´s just a smile. Tomorrow we are all leaving for two weeks of language school, and all I can say is that I´ve never been more excited to learn Spanish!!

I wanted to share a little reflection with all of you. Tonight all of us Missioners had adoration and praise & worship (in ENGLISH!) with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Afterwards, I went to confession, and the last thing that the Friar told me was: "Remind yourself of your poverty. Don´t be so hard on yourself. Admit that you were wrong before God, and then remember that we are all so small and poor without Him. I mean, there are only so many Therese´s in this world." This made me burst into spontaneous laughter and tears. First of all, I have been reading Mother Teresa´s wrtings, "Come Be My Light", which has led me to feel quite unholy and inadequete. Not to mention the fact that I have been, for a while, completely terrified of St. Therese of Lisieux, which I know is very strange..(in my room here, a huge picture of her face hangs on my wall right across from my bed..coincidence?)

The reason I bring this up, is because I have been led to believe more deeply than ever that we are so blessed to have our poverty, whatever that may be. What then, if not our poverty, brings us to our knees to yearn for Christ? I am going to be controversial, and will go so far as to say that in a mystical way not understood by our world, these poor, suffering, Hondurans are in a way more blessed then us (sorry to say) spoiled Americans. Why? Because it is the poor who are so close to Christ, especally close to Him in His redemptive suffering. They have nothing, but everything. These people have only Christ, much suffering, yet SO much joy. This is such a cliche idea, but it is a reality here. Today I looked into the eyes of a 2-year old orphan girl, (who acted more like a 6-year old American, really), and realized that maybe she has known more suffering than I will ever know. But when I looked into her eyes, I saw only Christ. I am now convinced then, that really the greatest poverty is to make ourselves believe that we are not in great need of our Lord.
I am also coming to see that I have very little to give to these people that they do not already have much more profoundly than I. But the love for Jesus that is in my heart, I will try to share it as abundantly as I can, "To give and not count the cost" -St. Ignatius Loyola. Yet, it will be in very small humble ways, like doing dishes, playing duck, duck, goose (or perro, perro, gato as we call it here..we didn´t know the words for duck, duck, goose in spanish),or allowing Honduran teenagers to laugh at my ridiculous, fumbling spanish. I am soooo blessed to be here, thank you for your prayers! Lots of love coming your way in prayer!!

Adios,
Angie

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3