Hello, Goodbye

We just finished up our first week on our own. Time flies. I'm praying so hard that I will truly be able to live in the present and make the most of this summer. We still have four more weeks to go, but I'm so sad that we're already this far. One of the hardest things about Totus Tuus is saying goodbye to everyone on Fridays. We spend an entire week investing pretty much every moment of our time to a parish, and now we have to say goodbye, possibly forever. I'm not very good at saying goodbye to people in the first place, and knowing that I may not be able to see any of these kids again is really hard for me to accept. We don't only invest our time in these kids; we invest our emotions and souls. By the end of the day, I am so exhausted physically, but spiritually, I'm so extremely alive. It's a really strange feeling to try to explain. The gist of it is that in order to be a good missionary, I have to give a little bit of my heart to each of these parishes. We have to be so vulnerable, so open to what the Holy Spirit wants to do with us. I love totally devoting myself to God and to these kids, and I'm so sad that I only have the opportunity to experience a snippet of their lives. It's probably a really good thing, though, because leaving people behind forces me to truly be a missionary and not use this work to glorify myself at all. I need to make myself replaceable; I need to just show them God then let Him take over. Lord, grant me the grace to offer up my devotion to these kids for Your glory!

Tomorrow, we head to Columbia to start all over again with a new parish. I'm so excited to meet these new souls and walk with them to Christ for a week! My team is a bit incomplete for the weekend because Katy had to go home. I miss her so much already! She'll be back on Sunday before the teen program begins, so we won't be separated for too long.

More updates on our week in Columbia later! Please pray that I will have as much internet access there as I have had here!

God bless!