The Lost Get Found...

Today I was lamenting in prayer that I haven't been spending enough time evangelizing. I prayed so hard that the Lord would give me His words to say to His people. I am struggling immensely in prayer, being exhausted all the time (trying to remain joyful through it, thanks to Fr. Rocha ;) ), that it's been a struggle to stay focused on campus. A lot of my mind has been on just getting through the day, so I can just rest, so I can just have a good day tomorrow. Today was a day that I reminded myself that today is the only guarantee we have.

I was eating lunch in the University Center with one of our regular students. She dressed up and took me to lunch at the cafeteria to tell me she ended things with a relationship that just plain wasn't good. As we were chatting, my teammate Roger came by with another student I had just met on Tuesday. Soon after, a third student, and fifth person altogether, came by and sat with us at the lunch table. We were laughing and chatting, having a great time. When there was a lull in the conversation I made a comment about our country possibly becoming a socialist nation. The male student who came with Roger agreed and began a discussion about that. I had to step away from the table, as I saw my disciple out of the corner of my eye, and wanted to chat a few minutes with her. When I returned, the discussion of the table had gone from socialism to sexual education within the school systems. We seemed to have a healthy dialogue, and all agreed that there needed to be some kind of reform. It saddened me that the students weren't even entirely informed about the repercussions of sexual intercourse before marriage. I had the opportunity to explain my "abstinence only" view, and how it was really more than abstinence only to a "chasisty only". I explained how sex is a beautiful thing, but that it's meant within the confines of a marriage. I was able to show them the chemical bonds that human beings make during any kind of sexual act. It was kind of an eye-opening experience for them. All of the sudden, the male student sitting next to me said something about being in a Catholic school. So, I started that conversation with him.

I asked him if he was Catholic, and he replied, "Yes, well, not really. I guess I am, but I don't practice any more, so, yes and no. I guess I shouldn't say that I am." I asked him why he wasn't praciticing, and he said he didn't really have a good reason besides laziness. He told me about his parents, and how they used to be devout when they first went through the RCIA program, but how they grew complacent with time. He told me that he'd get into his faith when he was older. I knew I had an opportunity to share with him a little bit about not having a guaranteed tomorrow at that moment. I talked about a friend who died in a car accident when I was 15. She wasn't a close friend at the time, but we had played soccer together in middle school and wanted to be closer. We lost that chance. He said, "It would have to take something like that for me to get into my faith." I asked him, "What does Jesus have to do for you to practice being Catholic again?" (I learned this from another missionary.) He replied, "I don't know. I've never thought about it." Then he proceeded to tell me about his former friend, who he now hates, because he got into drugs. He just kept saying, "I hate him. I don't even care about him any more. I don't care at all." I answered, "Yeah, I think you care more than you're saying." His eyes teared up a little as he said that he agreed and didn't want to talk about it any more. At that moment, he got up from the table, mentioned to Roger and I that he'd always swipe us in if we ever needed to get into the cafeteria, and left at that. What a whirlwind of a day!

I definitely took to heart this conversation. You have no idea who you're going to bump into and what kind of healing they're putting off. I said a prayer for him today, and was able to share with Roger and the other student how I managed to get this guy to open up a little. Praise the Lord!

Now I'm off to make brownies in the dorms and lead my Thursday night Freshmen women's Bible study. I'm excited! Pray for me!

Isn't it a Joy?

"Isn't it a joy to be exhausted for the Lord?"

-Fr. Richard Rocha

This morning, I was running behind for prayer. Ok, I wasn't late, but I was enroute to be exactly on time. Normally this is ok, but this morning I ran into the Diocesan Vocations' Director, who also happens to be our chaplain at UMKC, as I was walking past St. Peter school to get to the chapel inside the "Legacy Center". Fr. Rocha is an amazing and joy-filled man. I wanted to share with him the joy the Lord had given me the previous evening. He said, "MANDA! How are you this fine morning?" All my mind could muster to answer at the time was, "So tired, Father." He smiled and said, "Isn't it a joy to be exhausted for the Lord?" I have to admit, that wasn't my first thought when my alarm went off this morning. I thought, "Wow, I'm tired." THEN I thought, "I had the most amazing three and 1/2 hours last night."

Last night I went to my first weekly Bible study. While this is my second year on campus at UMKC, I had the senior women in Bible study last year, and so I am starting over; I have the freshmen women in Bible study. I've been extremely impressed with them thus far, but I was a little nervous. The first Bible study is always a little awkward, especially when you have to explain to the women, who are still teenagers, that you're actually a college graduate, not even of this school, and you're a good 7 years older than them. Anyway, I had 7 of the many girls I called come; this is a very high number for UMKC. We started off just sharing a little bit about ourselves and our week. Then we dove into Scripture. We talked about God's amazing plan for our lives; how He is the only source of peace and joy in our lives. During the conversation, one girl answered one of my questions this way, "Ok, Manda, I know you want me to say that the reason there's unhappiness in the world is that there's separation from God, but I can't say that. I feel like a hypocrit." I asked her to explain, and she got vulnerable. It was an awesome moment to show her that we're all broken (I got to share my testimony), and for me to see where she is in her life with Christ. We planned a coffee date for Thursday evening (before I come home for the weekend for Alyssa and Sean's wedding in Greeley!), and I hope to talk with her more about her unanswered questions. Pray for me! I'm pretty sure I don't have the answers, but I'm finding hope in the fact that God is allowing her heart to be open to us even through her brokenness!

After Bible study is the part that really made me exhausted today. One of the girls was sticking around helping me clean things up. She's an amazing freshmen woman who just wants Christ to be at the center of her life. We talked about what study would look more like throughout the course of the semester and year, and she seemed really excited. We talked for a few minutes, and something came up that prompted me to ask her about her prayer life. This spurned into a long conversation about where she is in her life. She shared about this confusing situation with a man (isn't it always about men? ;) ). She told me about how she wanted to put Christ first, but didn't know where to go from here; she didn't know where to start. We proceeded to have a 2 and 1/2 hour conversation about prayer, situations, what we are supposed to do in our lives to grow closer to Christ. It was so providencial that I am currently reading a book (by raving reviews of friends, of course) called I Believe in Love. It's a personal retreat set up upon the writings of St. Therese of Lesieux (St. Therese the Little Flower). One of the meditations I read in prayer yesterday was that when Christ called St. Peter, the first Pope of the Catholic Church, the one He gave keys to the kingdom to, He didn't say, "Peter, will you be a man of character and great leader? Will you be as perfect as possible, as sinless as possible, in order to better my kingdom?" No, Christ said, "Peter, do you love Me?" I confided in this girl that it's a struggle of mine to strive for perfection all the time, but Christ only calls me to love Him. How, every day, do we love Him? Every decision, how do we choose love? It was perfect for her life. It was beautiful and providencial!

The point of this story is that Bible study started at 8:30pm. I didn't get home until midnight last night, and had a bunch of work to do before I went to sleep. I woke up this morning, not feeling joyful that my story, the Lord's pursuit of my heart, could have changed someone's life and relationship with Christ, but rather exhausted and wanting to stay in bed until five minutes before I was supposed to leave my house to walk to prayer. Fr. Rocha called me out, and prayer was amazing for it. What a joy it is to be exhausted for the Lord!!