One group from this May’s trip to Ecuador, hiking through a river to reach one of the villages.

Approaching the third hour of our journey, now being covered and mud and having been weighed down by the last hour of heavy rain, someone in the front of our group shouted some of the most comforting words that could have been spoken at that moment, “We are here!”.  With a sudden surge of energy, the rest of the group livened and ran, as best they could, the final hill up to the village.  Arriving to meet the people we, here quickly remembered that the hike was not our mission, it was little more than the beginning.  These people, they were our mission.  We had come with one purpose, to bring them Jesus Christ.  To bring Him to them in our words, our love, our testimonies and above all, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  The incredible thing about this mission is that many of these people had never heard about Jesus and that Mass had never been celebrated there.  Jesus Christ, had never once been present to these people in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity!  We soon saw that the Lord was using our humble ‘yes’, as His missionaries, to bring Him so truly to these people in a way that He has never been there.

End Result: Tired, sore, muddy, blistered… and ready to do it all again in a second!

Hours into our visit, we had been able to share with these beautiful people the Word of God, how He loves them so unconditionally.  We were able to share our testimonies, the incredible works that the Lord has done in our own lives, how He has showed us His love and mercy time and time again. Finally we were able to celebrate Mass with them.  Many of them were not able to receive Communion, not having made the Sacrament, however all were able to look upon the face of God, of Jesus Christ, in a way that they had never been able to do before.  Any lasting echoes of our earlier cry of “We are here!” would have, at that moment, been drowned out by our new cry, “HE IS HERE!”, Jesus had come!  It was in this moment that our mission took on flesh, just as the humble bread was transformed into the flesh of the Son of God.  We were blessed by one of those rare moments, one of those glimpses of heaven on earth, when the Lord shows to us the fruit that He is bearing through us His children.  It was in that moment that our eyes were opened to see heaven come down and gently kiss earth, to see Jesus Christ use us humble missionaries as His hands, His feet, to walk to a corner of this earth that He not yet been.

Explaining to the children how each and every day the Lord desires to give them a new life in Him.  They soon rushed out the door in search of the hidden Easter eggs (a sign a new life) that were filled with yummy treats and would forever be a reminder of the gift of a new life in Christ!

Our Lord does not need us to accomplish the work of salvation, it is only in His great love for us that He chooses to use us to participate in this holy and glorious work with Him.  Having the power to physically come down to earth and walk wherever He wants, to have His voice heard at will by whomever He would wish to hear it, Jesus Christ waits on us and our ‘yes’ to move, to walk, to speak.  We must be His, be at His disposal, we must be willing to be His instruments ready to be used and formed in His hands.  And in doing so, His name will be known among the nations, all peoples shall come to praise Him and He will reign victorious in this world of ours!

Adelphi and Hofstra group (in January) after getting back from Tres Hermanos, such a blessed experience of the Great Commission of Christ!

Lord, let me only move to serve you!  Allow these humble feet to carry you to the ends of this earth, to the places you were not able to walk when you were here.  Let me be an instrument of your love and mercy to a broken world that so desperately needs you!

So buckle up and get ready for a seven month postification of my life since August and since having left from the mission in General Cepeda, Mexico!!

Leaving Mexico after the Young Adult group in August, I returned to Big Woods, our stateside mission base to begin preparing for Intake!!!

Intake is our three month training period for new full-time missionaries. I can’t believe it’s been a year since I joined FMC and went through Intake myself.

This was this year’s group of new missionaries.  Two families: the Alvarez family (with six children) and the Eckstine family (with ten children). Singles: Sidney Savoie, Sarah Carroll, Susanna de Almeida and Madison Dold.

Why did I come home for Intake??  I came home to help Frank and Genie with the formation of the newest missionaries-to-be!!  I cooked three meals a day for the group of about 30, organized our weekly mission formations and community work days, and helped with children’s ministry!

Come November, after two months of formation, I traveled with the Intake missionaries down to my previous mission post in Mexico and led them on a month-long mission to finish their period of formation!!

It seems almost sinful to limit all that happened during Intake to a few quick paragraphs with some pictures attached.  This three month period of formation is not only chock-full of activities and events, but it is truly life-changing to all who participate in it.

The Lord comes and moves in powerful ways.  It has been to me, these past two years, a chance for me to see what the Lord can do when His children finally give Him their simple and humble ‘yes’.  Jesus wills to do so much for us, His sons and daughters!  He wishes to provide for us, to speak to us, to answer our prayers, to guide us, to give us incredible lives… to work MIRACLES!!!  The only thing that often impedes Him in doing all of this is our unwillingness to allow Him to.  We have become so good at providing for ourselves, that we no longer need to rely on Him to provide, to act, to help us.  We have become so good at ‘earning’ and ‘working’ that we never stop and ask the Lord for anything apart from times of trial and despair when we finally are made humble enough to realize we cannot do everything on our own, that we need Him and His grace.

In getting to know and work with this incredible group of new missionaries, I was once again blessed to see what the Lord can do when that ‘yes’ is given to Him.  When one finally submits, not in a form of slave to his master, but instead as an infant to their Father, they are then blessed beyond anything that could have ever been imagined.  So enjoy the pictures in this post, but if you want to hear about the stories, the testimonies of those missionaries who had their lives radically changed… go to their blogs (below), read what the Lord has done, and what he continues to do as they are now in mission!!!

- Weekly Nights of Mission Formation at FMC’s new Youth and Retreat Center, “Our Lady of the Bayous”, affords the missionaries and locals to come together and fellowship, hearing the good works that are being done my missionaries in the field, and to grow in the missionary way of life and spirituality.

- Many weeks we were also blessed to celebrate Mass as a community at our Mission Formation nights together!!  Let us sing and praise the Lord, thanking Him for humbling Himself to so low a state as to come to us under the guise of bread and wine!!

- Pioneer day was a fun day of all the local homeschooling families coming together and re-living the days of the early pioneers, learning their skills, ways of life and… MERRY-GO-ROUND!!!

- The Eckstine family (Mark and Lora) with their ten children; Abi, Ellie, Mia, Peter, Esther, Rachel, Anne, Bridget, Becky and Isaac!  One of the two families to join FMC and go into foreign missions this year! They are now living and serving in Saint Lucia!!!

- The Alvarez (Odilio and Stacie) and their six children; Madi, Meredith, Abram, Samuel, Vincent and Julian.  The second family to join missions with FMC this year.  They are now living and serving in the Philippines!!!

- Expanding the lower floor of the St. Michael house was one of the work projects we took on during this year’s Intake.  What a blessing it is that the Lord has given us bodies to work in order to bring Him glory!!!

- Many of the children of Intake playing and gathering together around the pila in Mexico.  A month of fun and mission together back ‘home’ in General Cepeda!!!

- Missionaries getting ready to sit down and share a meal together.  How blessed are we to never have to toil or worry about what we are to eat.  We only need depend on our God and our lives shall be filled, pressed down and overflowing with blessings!

- And how could life not be full of smiles when you are surrounded by… BABIES!!!

- Intake 2010 with Frank, Genie and some seasoned missionaries together on Pilgrimage Day outside of the Cathedral in Saltillo, Mexico.

- This year’s Intake was also able to be blessed by the birth of our newest and youngest missionary, Terese Brown!!  Here she is at her baptism with her parents (Andrea and Kevin) and her older siblings (Anthony and Maria).  We should pray that the Spirit of the Lord moves in a strong and powerful way across the lands, that many who have not yet been brought into God’s family would be reborn through the miraculous waters of Baptism!!!

- Intake 2010 was also blessed to be a part of the wedding of John-Paul Papuzynski and Sheila Agresta, two amazing missionaries and servants of God, pursuing a long life of missions together with the Lord and their future family!!!

- In December, Intake 2010 was sent out during their commissioning Mass, alive and on fire with a zeal for souls, a passion to evangelize, and a yearning to build the Kingdom of God!!!

Like I said, these three months were full of life changing events, miracles and stories of God’s providence.  To be filled in more of what exactly the Lord was able to do in the lives of twenty-four of His sons and daughters, coming to Him to be formed in His hands, read their blogs below…

Mark and Lora Eckstine and Family: http://rooftopmissions.blogspot.com/

Abi Eckstine: http://veritasspelndor.blogspot.com/

Odilio and Stacie Alvarez and Family: http://whatsthedealy-o.blogspot.com/

Sidney Savoie: http://cajunmissionary.wordpress.com/

Sarah Carroll: http://www.raininthedessert.blogspot.com/

Madison Dold: http://missionarymadi.blog.com/

Susanna de Almeida: http://suz-missionpossible.blogspot.com/

Hello everyone!! Peace and joy in Christ!!! Every few months I do my best to mail out to my benefactors a newsletter telling them of what I’ve been doing in my mission work. For those of you who want to be added to my mailing list, feel free to e-mail me your address at missions.james@gmail.com!! For those of you who simply would simply like to glance at my newsletter… here it is!!!

Fall 2010 Newsletter!

Prop up a shovel, take a load off, and click on the link above to read my Newsletter!!!

Sit down for a good read and check out SERVE SUMMER 2010!

Staying the night, we took off early in the morning to cross the border and head down to General!!!  Arriving at the border, we prepared for our usual no problem entry… however little did we know, we would be having a few bumps that day.  After having gotten everyone’s Visa for entry into the country, it turned out that my brother was not being allowed in because Mexico would not accept his Enhanced Driver’s License for a Visa.  Hours later, having exhausted every possibility, sadly we had to return to the States and put Daniel on what would turn out to be an 80 hour bus ride home to Upstate New York, missing out on the mission trip.

After all of that, I finally make my way across the border and begin the final stretch down to General.  A short four hours later, I meet up with the girls and the rest of the group who had left the border earlier happy and awaiting our arrival!!  Settling back down into our home, we awoke the next morning ready to drive to the airport to pick up our newest short term group from Denver, Colorado!  Coming home, we shortly saw off Eric and Sarah on their way to language school in Cuernavaca and began our mission with the group!!!

- Our good friend Don Pedro sitting front and center at one of our Rancho evangelization visits!

- Pouring lodo (mud) onto the adobe blocks to build the wall of a home.

- The second time this wall fell.  After re-building it again from our last work trip (St. Norbert’s), midway through our day the wall fell down on myself and Teresa’s sister Charlotte who was on the trip.  Weighing a few thousand pounds, we just praise the Lord that we were not hurt!!!

- Desert Day in a beautiful cave with an incredibly cold pool of water to relieve me from the heat of the day!!!

- Jonathan and myself after desert day in the cave!!

- A happy part of our group after rebuilding our re-built wall!!! Praise the Lord its finally standing strong!!!

Next up:  Moving back to Louisiana.

With the desire not only to use the Spanish that they had been learning, but also wanting to focus on Evangelism, we spent our week going out to the local ejidos both in the morning and in the afternoon.  Breaking up into teams, Father Manuel decided to have us sent out each morning to the same three ejidos, meaning that these three ranchos would be having a weeklong retreat given to them.  In the evening, we continued as is normal, for us to go to a different ejido each evening in an effort to reach as many people as possible.  The blessings of the week were incredible and these people, so hungry and thirsting for the truth, were able to receive the sacraments with a frequency that had never been offered to them before.  God worked miracles this week and the ripple effect of these seminarians, alive and burning with the fire of missions, going back to their own dioceses and parishes one day, to share their experience is going to bring an awakening to the Church that I simply cannot wait to see!!!

- Our first day out at the ejidos for Mass (Pilar de Richardson).

- Our morning rancho group at Fermin!!

- Cutest little girl at Macayu who wanted to learn English and sit with us at Mass

- Giving my testimony in Spanish at Agua de la Mula.

- Happy after a blessed evening at La Parrita.

- Me, Kristen, Paz, Breanne, and Padre Gama on top of the mountain overlooking General Cepeda!

- Father Matt, Father Brett and Padre Gama concelebrating Mass in the Cathedral in Saltillo!!!

- Cowboy Gama taking a load off his feet after a long week of ministry!

- The group of us in the patio at the Mission House!!!

LORD, SPREAD THE FIRE OF MISSIONS THROUGH THESE MEN WHO ARE GIVING THEIR LIVES TO BE YOUR PRIESTS!!!

Next Up: Young Adult Mission Group

- Deacon Ephraim preparing to be ordained.

- Father receiving the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders through priestly ordination!!!

- Bishop Jose Raul Vera Lopez celebrating the Holy Mass.

- Padre Ephraim con Padres Manuel (derecho) y Francisco (izquierda) celebrando despues de la ordinacion!!!

After an incredible ordination, our group quickly transitioned into short term mission mode and getting ready to receive our second group of missionaries!!  As the afternoon rolled around, I found myself sitting in the Mission House, awaiting the team that had gone to pick up the missionaries from the airport when before I knew it, our quiet little house was being invaded by 20 teens and young adults who seemed wide-eyed and excited about their new surroundings!!!  Having had such an incredible week with the group from Our Lady of Sorrows, I was filled with excitement with what the Lord was going to do through this group this coming week!!!

- Everyone eating a delicious home-cooked meal upon arrival at the Mission House.

- Could you really ask for a more beautiful morning to wake up to and begin your week with?!?

- One of the two work projects we accomplished during the week, building a home for an elderly man who had been sleeping outside on an old mattress which would get rained on.

- Van got stuck after hiking the mountain… 1, 2, 3… PUSH!!!

- Padre Manual (from General) and Padre Nelson (from Columbia) celebrating Mass together in the sala (our living room).

- Cathedral in Saltillo for  pilgrimage day.

- Padre Nelson celebrating Mass at La Jalpa our last evening in General as a group.

- Walking an elderly man to Mass, he soon taught us that blindness of the eyes is nothing if you can see with your heart and soul…

- Mexican Math Equations…  Marta’s Food = Best Food in the World.  OR Marta’s Food > All other Foods.

- The whole group of us at the end of the week!!! Thank you Lord for such an incredible opportunity to serve you!!!

Next Up: Mount St. Mary’s Seminary Group

Our week was filled with many of the usual happenings of a short term trip down to General Cepeda: visiting the sick and homebound, participating in work projects (building a new roof on a chapel and building a room on the home of a single mother with her kids), as well as continuing our ministry out at the racho’s, evangelizing, giving out testimony, witnesses to the Lord, and praying with the people.

Along with many of the usual things that happen on our trips, we also came across a number of the unusual’s which make each trip different from the next!!  The notable’s would include flash flooding, storm with dime-sized hail tearing though the mission house (creating perhaps the greatest, and COLDEST!, slip-n-slide of all time!!), getting stranded at a rancho and having to ride through the desert via motorbike for help, amongst many others.

With so much having happened, it would simply be impossible to recount it all… so as has become my custom, enjoy reliving the week via some photos!!!  And just think, if a picture is worth a thousand words… then really this is a 7,000 word post!!!

- Our Lady of Sorrows marching into town sin vergüenza (without shame) ready to preach the Gospel!!!

- Mr. Ken and group working to rebuild a roof on a local capilla (chapel).

- Falling asleep while playing with the kids, hehe

- A group of the young kids who came with their families on mission!!  Children are the greatest missionaries!!!

- Pilgrimage day to Saltillo, talking with our good friend Hugo who daily sits outside of the Cathedral.

- The whole group after lunch on Saltillo day.

- Praising the Lord (with an abundant blessing of rain!!!) for such an incredible week of missions!!

Next Up: St. Norbert’s Youth Group

- Market place in Mexico City.

- Cathedral in Mexico City.

- Interview the Gringo!!!

A few days later, after an incredible, fun and refreshing stay at Big Woods, I find myself up early to catch a flight out of New Orleans, final destination Mexico City, Mexico.   Two flights, a bus and a taxi ride later… Erika, Teresa and Myself, find ourselves seated outside of IDEAL, a language school of Cuernavaca.  Our journey was beginning!!!  After a little wait, we were each carried off to our individual homes where we would each be living with a local family for the duration of our stay there.  After a few days of getting our bearings and settling into our new homes… classes began!!!

- Beans galore!!!

- Taxco, the city of silver.

- La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Guadaloupe.

- Nuestra Senora… ruega por nosotros!

The next four weeks were composed of five hours of Spanish classes, taught completely in Spanish, five days a week.  Having arrive with the idea that I was a student, I may have neglected somehwhat the fact that I was still and am always first a missionary.  However the Lord quickly reminded me as I was blessed with opportunity after opportunity to share, not only with other students, but with the professors, my host family and a number of others who the Lord brought through my path, my testimony of how the Lord called me to missions and all that He has been doing with me and my fellow missionaries throughout all of our missions this year!!!  With my broken Spanish, I thought that anything like this kind of sharing would have been impossible… however the Lord knew.  He knew that He has the power to give us the words to speak when we cannot, that He can give us the grace, strength and inspiration to witness to Him even when it seems impossible.  And this is exactly what He did.  He gave me the words I needed, my Spanish once almost incoherent, was still very poor, but was enough… just enough.  Whenever we share the Gospel, whenever we share truth, there is a look… a look that comes across the eyes or someone who is really listening.  Whether they have decided yet to believe or reject what you are saying, as long as they are truly listening, this look is bound to come.  Because with truth is God, God IS TRUTH!  And with God, there is always change, there is always action.  Needless to say, during our time sharing at the school, this look, this change was all around… not because of us, but because of Him!

- Me and Erika in front of the Basilica.

- Tepyac… the site of Our Lady of Guadaloupe’s apparitions.

We spent our evenings going to daily Mass, walking the city, stopping to visit the poor and the homeless… doing all that we could to be missionary, to be what He has called us to be!  We may not have been able to say much more than “hola” y “como estas?”, but you would be surprised at what a simple hello can do.  A simple smile can light up the streets of the darkest city.  Helping others is hard, changing the world is hard… but one of the hardest things about it is our unwillingness to do it!  Our unwillingness to love without reserve, to dive into the effort with all our being!!  However once this hurdle is cleared… the rest continue to fall.  Before we knew it, we were walking around the city on the night before our flights home.  Having gone one last time to the cenrto, we found ourselves walking up Avenue Morelos one last time.  Approaching San Jose, a church we attended for many of our daily masses, Theresa see’s a couple sitting across the street and suggests that we go talk with them.  Jose and Teresa were a couple that we had stopped to visit with a number of times during our walks downtown.  As always, they greeted us with the most beautiful.  Teresa told us that she’s happy to see us, that she had seen us walk by on the other side of the street earlier but she knew that we’d be stopping by to see her on our return.  We don’t stay for too long, but our time was blessed.  They shared with us how happy they were to have met us and seen us during the past month.  We tell them that it was really them who blessed us.  They had so little, and yet so much.  Without the things of this world, they were still happy, and they had nothing to stand between them and Jesus.  They were closer to God that many of us who hold so many other things dear in our lives.  They not only showed us a way to Christ, but they showed us Christ Himself, as He shone through both of their beautiful faces… faces that I will not soon forget.  After a goodbye filled with smiles, we returned home to pack, to once again pick up and move where the Lord was calling us.

- The Old Cathedral… it’s sinking!!!

- Walking around the ruins of Xochicalco.

(Below- Exhausted from Language School )  Next stop… Home!

1. Finishing up studies at Franciscan University: a year and a half of studying the faith and the Church.
2. Unsure of status after graduation: youth minister, dre, high school teacher..?
3. Prerparing to go on a mission trip to Mexico with the University: not quite sure what missions are but I’m sure it will be a fun time.

March 2010 -

1. Finishing up Mission Europe: three months of sharing the Gospel and giving testimony throughout Europe.
2. Unsure of where my next permanent mission post will be: General, Coatzacoalcos, Unknown..?
3. Preparing to return to Mexico to help lead the short term trip from FUS that I was on one year ago: blessed beyond belief.

What a difference a year makes!!! If anyone had told me at the beginning of last March what I would be doing with my life, how the Lord was going to change all of my plans and show me His, I would have told them they were insane! But oh how our God is faithful!  Exactly one year later, the Lord was blessing me with the opportunity to return to General Cepeda, to the place where it all started, to once again serve Him there in mission.  And to do so with the group that would be coming from Franciscan University, the very group I was on for my first mission, those short twelve months ago

After a breif two night stop on Long Island, after leaving Ireland, me and Jonathan made our way down to Louisiana and then drove down to General Cepeda.  Upon arrival, we were joyously surprised by a very warm welcome of the short term group that had been there for a week from Miami University (OH).  Within minutes I was thrown back into the reality of the beautiful General Cepeda. I could already see the smile and the pure joy that readiated from those who had been living in this humble place for nearly a week. The unique beauty that never fails to shine through each and every person to spend any amount of time serving the Lord in this beautiful little pueblo!  I was already getting excited to hear all of the glory stories and ways that the Lord had changed these students lives over the past few days.  Later that night, I was blessed to sit down with a number of the missionaries from the group and hear their witness, of all the things the Lord had done for them, how He had opened their eyes and broken their hearts to love the poor in a new way!  I was also blessed to share my own story of how the Lord worked on me during my first short term trip down to General.

The next day, with an early wakeup, me and Jonathan rushed off the the airport in Monterrey to pick up our short term group, flying in from Steubenville!!!  Waiting outside of the International Arrivals gate, one by one we saw students with looks of anticipation, excitement, and a bit of nervousness walk out into the lobby, getting ready for what would soon be one of the greatest weeks of their lives! (whether they knew it yet or not, hehe). With twenty bright eyed students led by Daniel Telles, Theresa Haines and Fr. Rick Martignetti, we piled up our two vans and headed home to the Casa de Misiones!!!

The minute we arrived at the mission house, all twenty-one missionaries began their week by kissing the ground of their mission field… and never looked back once from there on out.  From day one, each and every member of the mission team, gave fully of themselves to everything and everyone.  Serving above and beyond, loving without reserve and stepping outside of every comfort of home, this group was such a blessing not only to the people on General Cepeda, but to our mission team as well!!! They were always shining examples of what it means to die to self and to serve, to be fearless and bold in preaching the Good News!

Our week as a team was chock-full!!!  Our work projects were many and ranged from building roofs and bathrooms to painting homes inside and out.  We had daily teams going out to the rancho’s to evangelize and offer Mass and we also had teams doing home visits, visiting the poor and the sick who are unable to leave their homes.  One of our rules of life here at FMC is that ‘in all things, praise the Lord’.  Well this group did just that!  From the moment they woke up in the morning they could be heard singing joyful songs to the Lord.  Throughout all of the morning service projects, General Cepeda was ringing with praises to our God… even after lunch, when most groups would be resting after a long morning of work, this group could be found all gathered in the coral with guitars and drums having praise and worship together!  It was just so beautiful to have the rooms of our humble little mission house echoing with shouts to God at all hours of the day!

- Jonathan preaching to the little ones in a Rancho.

- Franciscan students filling buckets of fill for a newly made roof.

- Missionaries painting the inside of an elderly man’s home.

Just like with all of our short term groups to General, our evenings were spent driving to the local rancho’s to share testimonies, have praise and woship, to offer prayer to the people and at times to offer mass.  The first night out at the rancho’s, anyone there could tell that this group had not only prepared what they were going to share, but that they had done so prayerfully, that they really took the time to listen to the Lord and to have Him reveal to them how He has worked so powerfully in their lives!  All week long, the testimonies shared by the missionaries were beautiful witnesses of how the Lord wants to, and IS, working in all of our lives.  We were even blessed to have two students come forward and volunteer to give a teaching.  Each of them waited upon the Lord to share with them what He wanted to speak, and faithfully they delivered His message in a powerful way, speaking truth, light and love into the hearts of those who listened!!

- Theresa reading some Scripture to a woman who we were building a bathroom for.

- Work Project team who built a new bathroom.

- Happy Missionaries!!!

As we approached the end of our week, we were blessed to be able to take a pilgimage day to Saltillo.  In Saltillo, the missionaries truly used this day as a day of pilgrimage.  Students headed off to the market to buy blankets for the homeless or food for the hungry.  We then moved on to the Cathedral which was a time of prayer for us and the group, to thank the Lord for all that He had done with us, for us and through us throughout the past week. After eating dinner as a group, we returned home to General… stopping briefly out in the desert to see the beautiful stars which the Lord was blessing us with on such an incredible evening.

- Building a room onto the house of a young family.

- The entire group in front of the Cathedral in Saltillo on our day of pilgrimage.

The following day would be our last full day in General Cepeda as a group.  After breakfast, we all took off for Desert Day, a day of prayer out in the desert to be refilled and renourished, to thank to Lord for every blessing He has poured out upon us, and to seek His will for each of us.  Going off in our seperated directions, many of the missionaries grabbed a seat near a little stream or found shade under a cactus.  However I knew where I was headed… back to my cave.  A year later to the day, I was able to return to the spot where the Lord had first called me to missions.  Stepping into the cave I was excited and a little saddened… excited to be back, saddened to see that the back of the cave had caved in.  However the Lord showed me that what once was dark, the inside of that cave, was now filled with light.  What once was unclear in my life, my vocation, now was shining brightly in my living as a missionary.  The Lord is, has, and continues to bless me abundantly in this life as a missionary.  After our desert day, we had an incredible opportunity to go to the rancho San Jose and celebrate their feast day!!  Their celebration included Danzantes, a beautiful mass, and a feast for the entire community.  Returning home after a long day, our final evening was spent together in the sala, sharing our experiences from the week and how the Lord had blessed us.

- Danzantes at San Jose.

- Padre Ricardo (Rick) walking with a woman to begin the ceremonies of the Feast Day at San Jose.

A week of blessings!!!  These young Franciscan students came to General unknowing… but ready!  They left as missionaries, on fire to serve the Lord and their brothers and sisters.  I pray that all of those who left with a desire for missions, continue to seek out the Lord and His will!  That He would give them the grace and the strength to answer this call and that the doors would be open for them to do so!!

Missionary Randoms

- Me and Mirna, one of the Garza children, a family of full-time missionaries from General Cepeda.

- Really no explanation

- Cannonball!

- Preparing for when the world is turned upside down by the transforming love of God being brought to the ends of the earth!

- Flying Ninja Jonathan!