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Current weather in Springfield, MO:  Expect storm.

Hello Springfield, MO!

I have arrived.  Missouri State University - my new home for the next nine months.

Since it's the first question anyone asks, I'll answer it now... yes, I'm a little scared.  But that's normal right?  It's fear of the unknown.  I'm in a new city, I'll make new friends, be on a new campus, even have a new position as Team Director.  All that makes me just a tad bit nervous, especially the Team Director part.  I trust my Lord, though.  I have no doubt that everything will be just fine and it will turn out to be one heck of a year!  And for that, I'm stoked!!  It's so exciting to see what God will do this year in me, my teammates and students.  Buckle up.

I pulled up to 711 E. Normal St in Springfield, MO last Wednesday.  I drove from KC, where I spent a week packing and catching up with friends and Mission Partners.  It was a great time and I know that I will miss Kansas City and all those amazing people a lot.  The only reason I didn't leave in tears is because I'm very confident that I'm going where God wants me to, MoState.  I do look forward to keeping in touch with my KC crew and visiting from time to time since it's only three hours away.  And just think, a joint Men's Night with FOCUS from UMKC and MoState!  I'm thinking camping?!  Justin and I will most certainly have to plan that.

My arrival to Springfield couldn't have gone better.  I got in just before dinner and Father Mark told me that one of the students, James, was having some friends over to his house for dinner.  So not only did I score some free lemon chicken, but I also got to meet about 10 students and get help unloading my car afterwards!  Thanks to everyone who helped!

The next day I sporadically went to Carthage, MO with Terry, KK and Dani (all MSU students) for the annual Marian Festival (a Vietnamese festival honoring Mary that draws nearly 60 thousand people each year).  We attended a Vietnamese Mass and joined in the Eucharist procession, which was beautiful!  Deacon Kyle Sanders was randomly there.  Unfortunately, I could not find him after Mass to say hello.

On Friday I drove back to the KC area (Atchison to be exact) to see Brother Leven Harton take his final vows as a Benedictine Monk!  Brother Leven was my RA in college when I was a sophomore and played a pivotal role in me growing in my faith.  If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have taught Totus Tuus in Denver.  What an impact Brother Leven has had at BC!  It was great to see him take that step into Monastic Life and also to see some old BC'ers.  I drove back to Springfield on Saturday night.

Since then I've been getting settled in.  I'm almost done.  My room and the kitchen are all set up to the point it's starting to feel like home.  The living room still needs some work.

My housemate and teammate, Joey Terick, arrived on Monday.  We've gotten some great hangout time since then.  We've had dinner together every night (spaghetti, tacos and grilled chicken), played some music and met our neighbors.  There are two young men that live next door, Dillon and Nick, that are pretty cool.  Can't wait to hang out with them some more.  Then some more students should be moving in later this week across the street that are involved with FOCUS.  Who's got two thumbs and is pumped?  This guy.

So how about I introduce you to my team?  Ok!

Since I just brought up Joey, I'll go with him first.
 
Joey Terick ("Weasel") is a veteran - in his third year with FOCUS.  He spent a year in seminary and graduated from Benedictine College.  I didn't know him very well at BC but I remember him.  Every time I said, "How's it goin'?", he would respond, "Best day of my life".  Joey can play almost any instrument and has actually ridden in a Rodeo.  Cowboy up.


Stef Reinsch ("Mooch") is a second year missionary from Nebraska.  Stef graduated from University of Nebraska in Lincoln and is highly involved with FOCUSGreek.  She loves to be awkward and is so good at it that it isn't actually awkward anymore.  Stef is the only returning missionary to MoState so I'm counting on her to run the show this year.  Thanks, Stef!



Molly Milana ("Pocket") is a first year missionary from Nebraska and graduated from Benedictine College as well.  When I was a senior at BC and Molly was a freshman, we had some PoliSci class together with Dr. Kessler.  That's about as much as I remember except that she was a better student than I was.  Molly is a from a big family, nine brothers and sisters.  She can just about get along with anyone and everyone wants to be her friend, including me.  I'm working on it.

Stef and Molly should be arrive in the next few days.  Molly is looking for a car to buy before she moves down here so if anyone could offer up a few more prayers for that we'd all greatly appreciate it!

I can't wait till the whole team is here!  We're crazy when we're together.  Watch out MSU!  Team MoState will be taking a retreat from Sunday night to Wednesday morning to get some planning for Fall Outreach done and have some team bonding time.  We're staying at a house near Lake Pomme De Terre (I think that's the one).  When we get back, we'll have lunch with Bishop Johnston on Thursday and then have a Student Leader Workshop on Friday and help with move-in on Saturday!  WHAT!  Then we're off and running!

I would like to promise you all that I will update this regularly throughout the year to let ya know what's going on, but I don't think I can honestly say that I will.  I'd like to, but I seem to have trouble finding the time.

Welp, that's about it.  God is good!

Peace.

Dear Blogspot...it's been too long!

When I got into blogging a few months back, I had every intention of posting frequently.  It has now been over 3 months since my last post!  Ah!!!

I do apologize.  I figured I could take just a few quick minutes to let everyone know what's going on in my life.

Life has been busy busy busy, but so amazing recently!  I am currently in Champaign, IL at FOCUS New Staff Training.  We just started our 5th and last week of training before we part ways.  I will be sticking around for an extra week with 5 or 10 other missionaries to go on an 8 day silent retreat.  I know without a doubt that it will be fantastic for my soul, yet I am a bit scared and intimidated right now.  Eight days sounds like forever to be silent.  But I know God will speak to me.

Training has been phenomenal.  I have been serving as the Dean of the College of St. Damien of Molokai.  Basically, that means I have been leading a small group of 7 men this summer and our patron is St. Damien (who is LEGIT).  We have a solid group of guys and I have been very pleased to spend my summer with them.

Training has kept us all so busy that I feel like I haven't had the time to give full attention to other important things such as MPD and campus planning for this Fall.  I know that some of this is my own fault.  I have to be prudent about how much "fun" time I am having.  It becomes extremely hard to say "no" when FOCUS Missionaries want to hang out, play sports, or go to the bar at night.  During no other time in our lives will we have such an amazing community to share so much life with day in and day out!  God has been good to me.  Well...GREAT to me.  I should re-pay him by being more prudent.

A group of my Auburn friends came to visit this past weekend.  WAR EAGLE!  We had a great time.  We danced, played music, floated down the river, and Raf and I drove to Indianapolis at 3 in the morning to take Andrew Jones to the airport.  Good times were had by all.  Oh, how I miss the south and my Auburn crew!

This summer during training, all the men have been having a big soccer tournament.  What a great fellowship time with our brothers!  It has also been a great time to grow in virtue together on the field.  Each Tuesday night before the game starts there is a talk on a specific virtue that we start putting into practice on the field.

Tonight the tournament came to an end with the playoffs.  My team made it to the Championship but lost in a shootout.  We all played great and I am very proud of each and every player.  Defense was spectacular.  Regulation ended 0-0 and then we went to a shootout.  Each time got 5 shooters.  After their 5th shooter, they were up 3-2.  I was the last shooter for our team.  I scored!  Thank ya, Jesus!

This put the shootout into sudden death, meaning they would get a shot and then we would get a shot until one team scored and another didn't.  Finally, by the 3rd shooter, they out-did us.  Great game Married men! Ya'll deserve it!

Lastly, before I hit the hay, I am reading Set All Afire.  It's about the life of St. Francis Xavier.  I am only 35 pages in but loving it!  Saints are so inspiring and I love reading about them!  I just wish I was better at reading...or at least faster because then I could read about more saints.  I will let you all know more about the book when I finish.

I wish I had time to expand a bit more on each of the things I mentioned, but I don't have the time.  Oh, and I think I forgot to mention that I will be a Team Director this year for FOCUS at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.  I have an awesome team and I am getting super stoked about a new campus.  I will blog again soon hopefully with more details about the upcoming year and introduce you to my team.

God Bless ya'll!  Pray for me.

Goodnight.

Laying on of Hands - How I was healed

This is an overdue post.  Glad I finally found the time to share it with ya'll!

In the past month, I've experienced prayer, accompanied by the laying on of hands, three different times.  Each instance was very powerful and I want to share those with you, particularly one of them.

If you read my previous post, you know I spent five days in Mexico City last month for our FOCUS Mission Trip Leadership Summit.  On the last day of training, the 12 of us spent some time praying for each other and our respective trips.  One by one, each one of us would get a turn standing in the center of a circle with the rest of the missionaries crowded around, laying hands on the missionary being prayed for.

As hands fell all over me and Jeff, Tom, and Tim each prayed aloud for myself, my mission trip, my team, and all the students attending, a tremendous amount of peace filled my soul.  Not only was I fully aware of the support and prayers I was receiving from my fellow FOCUS missionaries, but I could almost literally feel the presence of something spiritual.  The Holy Spirit was certainly present.

A week after my return, Justin and I through a Men's night at our house.  Following a personal testimony and talk given by DeonAlex Walton and David Badami, we did something similar to the above.  We split off into groups of three or four men and had some prayer time.  We shared with one another what we were struggling with (certain sins, learning to trust in God, tough time in school, family problems, etc.) and took turns having the other guys lay hands on us and offer up some prayers.  Again, I experienced the same thing as in Mexico.  How tremendously blessed I am to have men like this in my life!

The 3rd experience is the one I'm most excited to share with you!  'Cause this prayer was, in a way, answered.

I'll premise this story with a quick background about my right eye.  When I was 12 years old, I got a finger to the eye while playing basketball at boy scouts.  Long story short: Ouch.  Can't See.  Hospital.  Healed up naturally.  Back to normal.  Retina detaches after two years.  Nine surgeries.  I'm still broken.

I'm currently about 85% blind in my right eye.  It took a little while to get used to, but after many years, I'm pretty normal.  I do normal activities, most people don't know I'm blind, and I can play the "blind card" (haha).


But I am different.  If you're not blind then you probably won't understand this, but it's hard being the only one around with one eye.  In big social events, I hate meeting new people because eye contact is extremely important in those situations and their is nothing I can do to make good eye contact.  My right eye sometimes does it's own thing and when I am looking at person A, person A thinks I'm looking at person B behind them.  That's frustrating.  But it's all good.  I deal with it.

So back to prayer and laying on of hands! I promise that all of that was essential to the story.

A few days before I went to Mexico City, I went to the gym on campus to work out.  As I walked in, I see a friend of mine, Kris Hepburn, talking to a young lady that I did not know.  We all start talking and somehow (I think Kris was making fun of me) this young lady (Estrella was her name) hears that I am blind in my right eye.  Not knowing that I am a Catholic missionary or even into my faith at all, she asks me, "Can I pray over you?"

Whoa!  We're in the middle of the gym!  Imagine the witness!  So I said yes.

What I didn't know was that she was going to lay her hands on me.  So we're standing in the middle of the gym and she puts her hand on my face and starts praying out loud, asking God for healing.  When she was done, we talked a little more and then she left.  That was it.

Well the Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes and often answers our prayers in ways we don't expect.  Fast forward to Mexico.  My buddy, Jeff Runyan, who is leading the trip, has also mentored me for the past year and a half.  Though we live in different parts of the country, I've known him for 2 years and we talk on the phone every other week.  But for some reason, God was waiting until this trip to reveal something to us, which was also going to be an answer to Estrella's prayer.

After practicing a "get to know you" exercise for our missions trips in which I told the group 3 facts about myself, the fact that I was blind in my right eye most certainly came up.  A little later, Jeff pulls me aside...

"Dude, you're blind in your right eye?  Me too!"

No way.  Boom.

I'm not alone.

Am I still blind in my right eye?  Yes.  But did God answer Estrella's prayer?  Yes.  As I said before, God answers prayers in ways we don't expect.  There is no reason for God to heal my eye.  He could if he wanted to, but I'm just fine without it.  I can do all the things that everyone else does, why do I need two eyes?  If anything, it's a constant reminder of my humanity - a reminder that I am not perfect and I never will be.  And if God wants to do something great with me, he doesn't need two eyes, he just needs my heart.

The heart is exactly what was healed.  It was the answer to Estrella's prayer.  I was healed.  An internal healing, if you will.  I'm not alone.

To Him be the glory!

¡Viva México!

I'm so blessed to be a FOCUS Missionary!  Not only do I get to witness first hand the front lines of the New Evangelization, but there are many other perks as well.  For example, I'm directing a Mission Trip to New Orleans.  Jeff Runyan, who is head of the FOCUS Missions department, lead our FOCUS Missions Leadership Summit..... Location: Mexico City!  The vision being that we spend a significant amount of time in a "mission trip like" setting, a different culture with language barriers in such.  Being there for 5 days gave us the opportunity to have some much needed classroom time, take a pilgrimage to see Our Lady of Guadalupe, and learn how to properly lead our own mission trips to foreign locations.

I've now been back in the states for 5 days, but I'm going to attempt to recall some significant points from each day spent in Mexico City.  Here goes!

Day 1 - Thursday

FOCUS Missionaries Trevor Downey (KU) and Marnee Peterson (Benedictine) stayed with us in Kansas City the night before our 6:00AM departure so we could get out on time.  I, of course, waited till midnight to start packing.  Needless to say I didn't get to bed till 2AM and we had to leave at 4AM.

Despite the fact that I was incredibly tired, it was a great day.  There's few things on this earth that can beat being with FOCUS Missionaries (Jesus being one of them).  Conversations just seem to be better.  And since we all know the blood, sweat and tears that can accompany our mission on campus, rarely do we lack something to talk about.  I've known Trevor and Marnee for almost 2 years but never have we had the opportunity to bond like we did on this trip.

American Airlines took us from KC, MO to Dallas, TX (represent!), and from Dallas, TX to Mexico City, Mexico.  We arrived around noon.  Caitlin Mulcahy (Nebraska) was supposed to arrive next at about 1:15PM.  But after waiting at her gate until about 2:30 and seeing dozens of other passengers from flight 1597, we decided she probably missed her flight.  Remember, in Mexico you can't use your cell phone unless you paid a ton extra for it.

So the 3 of us grabbed lunch and hung out in the airport for a while.  Kevin Cotter (Denver Support Center) showed up next, around 3:30PM.  By 4:30, Jeff Runyan (Denver Support Center), Jake Mach (Denver Support Center), Tom Bruner (Georgia Southern), Mikki Breen (Georgia Southern), Dominic Paolucci (Connecticut), Katie O'Donnell (Auburn), and Cassandra Blanco (Denver) arrived.  Tim Judge (Temple) was supposed to be with them but missed his flight.  He and Caitlin, who we found out missed her first flight showed up around 5:30PM.

By 6PM, we were on our way to the hostel!

For the remainder of the evening, Jeff took us out on the town.  We visited the Basilica, which I believe is the seat of the Cardinal there, and had dinner (legit Mexican food) down the street on the 6th floor balcony.  What a view!

Day 2 - Friday

Woke up at 7:30AM.  Breakfast at the hostel at 8:00AM.

For the rest of the morning we had classroom time, learning the vision behind why we do FOCUS Missions, some odds and ends about Mission Trip Orientation and Debriefing, and curriculum for our trips.  This was all great stuff.

At noon, we went to Mass at the Basilica.  It was in Spanish.  Since being Catholic is AWESOME (and universal) I knew what was going on the whole time, but the only thing I actually understood was when they said "Y con tu espíritu", which means "and with your spirit" - the response to "Lord be with you".  I remembered this because of a facebook conversation I was involved in when Alejandro the man Teran and Raftastic Egües pointed out that the Spanish translation of the Mass is closer to the Latin text than our English translation (but that will change in November).

After Mass, we took some time walking through the Basilica.  It was beautiful!  I especially loved all of the side chapels and Altars.

I believe we had some more classroom time that afternoon before dinner.

In the evening, we went out to a local bar to have a few drinks and FREE tequila shots.  The locals treated us very well the entire we were there.  I am very grateful for their hospitality!  I also really enjoyed catching up with Katie O'Donnell that night at the bar.  She told me all about Auburn (where I spent my first 2 years with FOCUS) and the things that have been going on.  War Eagle!

Day 3 - Saturday

Saturday was our pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We had about a mile or 2 of a walk from where we got off the metro to the location of the Shrine, which we spent praying a rosary.  As we walked, I was picturing all of the people (especially Alejandro Teran) that have made this exact pilgrimage before us.  Imagine how many people have been effected by Our Lady!  It's incredible!

We spent the whole day at the shrine praying, going to mass, having some more "classroom time", visiting the various chapels and such, and, of course, seeing the Tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe!  One of my favorite parts of the day was seeing this:

Let me try to tell the story.  At one point, someone attempted to destroy the Tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  A bomb was planted near the Altar where the Tilma was located.  Everything was destroyed, except the Tilma.  The crucifix in the picture was directly in between the bomb and the Tilma, taking the hit for our Queen Mother.  BOOM!

Can you say spiritual warfare?!  The devil tried to destroy our Mother and Jesus said "NO, don't touch my mama!" and punched him in the face!  This gets me all jacked up!!

Biggest lesson of the trip:
Later that night, Jeff asked us how God worked on our hearts at the Shrine.  As everyone went around the circle sharing their experiences, I began to feel like a failure.  Everyone had such awesome experiences and I seemed to not have anything to say at all.  I looked back on the previous 14 hours and noticed that I wasn't in the right mindset for, more or less, the entire day.  I was very excited about our pilgrimage, but for the wrong reasons.  I acted more like a tourist than a pilgrim.  I was so excited to see and experience a new culture, that I was never in a very prayerful mood.  "Look at this!  Look at that!"  I was constantly taking pictures of the moments I was missing.  Regrettably, I even took a picture of the Tilma with a flash.  Oops.  I got in trouble for it.
The next day, I had an encouraging conversation with Tom about this.  He reminded me that this trip was training.  And this experience trained me.  The idea that anyone should take a pilgrimage and tell God what He needs to show them is wrong.  We might want to get A or B out of an experience, but God might want to teach us X or Y.  And who are we to argue with Him?
God allowed me to be humbled so that when I take a group of men on a Mission Trip, I can be in the right state of mind - not making the same mistake twice.  What a great lesson I learned.  God is real.

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful." - 2 Timothy 2:13

After our 12 hour pilgrimage on Saturday, Jeff took us out for some live mariachi music.  I never thought I would enjoy mariachi music so much in my life!  It was so fun.  It was in a wide open plaza in downtown.  Scattered all throughout the plaza are different professional mariachi bands just waiting for business.  When you want to be entertained, approach a band with the proper amount of pesos and request some music.  They will then surround you in a circle and give you a personal show.  It's up close and personal.  I hope everyone can experience this before they die.

Day 4 - Sunday

Breakfast on the roof of a hotel over looking the city.  Woohoo!

We went back to the Basilica for Mass and a holy hour.  After having "brodda" Tim Judge hold me accountable to entering into a prayerful mood that morning, I was ready to roll.  Mass was fantastic.  Jesus was there, who could complain?!

Quick tangent: Mexico City is built on a swamp.  The city is actually sinking.  In certain places, like the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, it is very visible as buildings are tilting and cracking.  You can kind of see it in this picture.

So back to Sunday.  After Mass and holy hour, we celebrated the Sabbath by going on a boat ride.  I guess the Aztecs that used to be in Mexico dug out a bunch of canals and one of them still exists.  So one of the popular activities to do there is grab a bucket of beer, hop on wooden boat and float down the river for a few hours.  It was very relaxing.  We also had dinner on the boat.

Day 5 - Monday

Day of departure.  We woke up, ate breakfast, and finished up by having some solid prayer time for each other, our mission trips, and all students attending missions this year.  It was very powerful to know that my brothers and sisters were praying for me the mission trip I will be leading to New Orleans.

Most of the group had to depart pretty early, but a few of us went to Mass at the Basilica again.  Trevor, Marnee and I had the latest flight so we got to hang out a little longer.  We prayed a holy hour at St. Dominics (which isn't far from the Basilica) where I fell in love with a statue of Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary.  I spent my whole holy hour in front of her.  She was beautiful!

Now, the best ending to an incredible trip.  Trevor, Marnee and I had some leftover pesos that we weren't going to spend so we decided we'd buy a homeless man lunch.  Thank God for Trevor because he knew enough Spanish to have a conversation.  We met Fernando on the street, asked him if he'd like lunch, and he responded with an ecstatic "yes!".  We walked down to a restaurant, which took quite a while because he was slow, and let him order what he wanted.  Trevor talked to him the most but also did a little translating for us.  We told him we were Catholic missionaries and asked him if he was Catholic.  He said yes but was very hesitant when Marnee tried to give him her rosary.  I'm not sure if he knew how to use it... But he took it anyways.  He ate, we prayed with him, and departed.  Pray for Fernando.

Overall, the trip was great.  I'm glad I had the chance to experience a different culture and see some very holy places.  I'm thankful for God teaching me so much throughout the 5 days and for all the FOCUS missionaries that I got to be with.  You all make me a better man.

Adiós and Vaya con Dios!

First Blog

Today, I am making history.  And if you're reading this, you're witnessing history.  This is my first blog.  I'm not sure if I will blog regularly, but that is my hope and desire.

Last week, I was in Mexico City with some other FOCUS Missionaries.  A lot happened during those 5 days and I was wishing I had more time to process it all.  Then Jesus inspired me, "Maybe you should write about it in a blog".  Boom.

So here's my blog.  I'm not going to start writing about Mexico 'cause it's late and I have to be up early.  But I took the first step and created the blog!  I hope others will read this.  But if not, it will still be good for me to get all these thoughts typed out and maybe even make sense of all them.

Adiós. Vaya con Dios.