Love Begins Here

I am now about 24 hours removed from my first mission trip, Love Begins Here, and I had an amazing time. The following quote, from Mother Teresa, was the inspiration for the trip,

"And so here I am talking with you - I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people. And find out about your next-door neighbor - do you know who they are?"

The idea, of course, being that before we can go out and save the world by doing work elsewhere we need to first take care of the rest of us. It was ideal for our parish, since, for liability reasons we won't be doing far away mission trips.

I took a group of 11 kids, seven of which were from SJB, the others were friends and relatives of parishioners. It was a great group: Kayla, Megan, Heather, Jessica, Danielle, Madilyn, Angelina, Matt, Slade, Dylan, and James. We stayed the week at a house (the family was on vacation) - all 30 of us with no air conditioning (they don't have it) and worked on a site in east Madison. If you want more details of the trip itself, here's the Love Begins Here blog.

But my impressions are great. The leaders were amazing. Lindsay, whom I'm briefly worked with as a fellow youth minister proved herself to be a great organizer. Gina, who I met at Youth 2000 was a fabulous motivator. Michael was steadfast and solid presence and Jeff was a sort of spiritual leader. All four are fabulous young adults and I am so glad I had the chance to work with them this past week.

It was also odd to the be the oldest person there, at 28. Also, the only married one and, thusly, the only parent. I was surprised at how being a mother has changed my perception of service. The selflessness that is inherent in being a parent carries over quite well to service work. I've long admired Mother Teresa, but I've always known that I couldn't do the work the Missionaries of Charity do. However, now that I am a mother and I've cleaned up the most helpless of the helpless my perception has changed. The idea of serving the poorest of the poor no longer disgusts me, or seems impossible. The selflessness of service is inherent in being a mother. I was surprised how it hit me.

I was also struck by how the kids responded to daily mass- they enjoyed it by the end of the week. Not all of them, of course, but enough of them acquired an appreciation for it that we'll be going on Tuesday this coming week and many of them are making plans to attempt o get there at least once a week now.

I also enjoyed getting to know these young people. They are not the church of tomorrow, they are the young church of today. Their faith and willingness to grow in that faith is what keeps me working as I do. I see good people, willing to give their time and comforts and routine for others. Especially others who live somewhat similiarly to them - the home we worked on was in a neighborhood like the ones they live in. It was the same size as the one they live in. And it was good for them to see how the people near them - in their own community, needed their help.

I also realized a big part of the 'why' behind why I'm Catholic and why I enjoy it and continue to explore it. When a topic captures my attention I try to find out everything about it; comic books, Harry Potters, movies I enjoy, the Barnevald tornado, etc. I research, read, learn as much as I can about whatever has currently caught my interest. And the same goes with Catholocism. But there is so much out there that every time I think I've got something cornered and figured out a question gets posed to me, or an article will mention something I'm not familiar with and off I go again. And there is so much out there about the Catholic faith - 2,000 + years - to keep me occupied.

This past week was very good for me as much as the kids I brought and I am so very glad I was given the opportunity to help the family and grow spiritually, and work together with our group of 30 to attempt to do some good in this word and spread the good news of Jesus risen from the dead.