Being Missionary Where God Has Us

We visited Doña E., a sweet 96 year-old woman, during a recent mission trip. She is full of life and loves to praise our Lord. After singing a couple of songs together at her request, the girls with the group continued singing songs and Doña just soaked it up. 

Doña’s niece was with her and caring for her. She told us Doña fell recently and cut her shin, and she showed us her leg with the small piece of gauze covering the place that was sore. We asked if we could pray for her and of course she was glad for prayer. During our prayer, we asked Jesus to heal her leg. Following the prayer, Cassie, one of the women with the mission trip group, said she was a nurse and asked if she could look under the gauze at her sore. Doña said yes and when Cassie looked at the sore, she said it was mildly infected. Doña’s niece said that they had topical medicine for it but only had one piece of gauze left. She appeared to be changing the gauze infrequently so that she would not run out. We were able to bring her more gauze so she would have plenty and Cassie re-dressed the wound and guided Doña’s niece to change it and treat it daily. Praise the Lord! He chose to use Cassie to help answer the prayer we had just prayed for Doña’s leg to be healed. Had Cassie not felt and responded to the urge from the Holy Spirit to look at her sore, we would have never known that Doña’s niece was unable to care for her appropriately because she was almost out of gauze.

This interaction and movement of God caused me to stop and think about how amazing it is that our all-powerful God chooses to use our gifts, talents and desires in His plans. He creates us with our unique abilities to participate in His plans. Wow!

It also caused me to stop and think about who God is putting in front of me that He wants me to care for and share His love with whether in big ways like caring for my children or in small ways like smiling and greeting the people I meet on the sidewalk and everything in between. I pray “Holy Spirit, come and nudge me to the people you want me to love and give me the grace to hear and respond to you."

The call to be missionaries isn’t just for those of us He has called into foreign lands. Sometimes the more difficult call is to be missionary in our hometowns. Saint Pope John Paul II says in his encyclical Mission of the Redeemer, "Missionary activity is a matter for all Christians." If we are Christians, the question isn’t if we are called to be a missionary, it is where and to whom are we called to be missionary. It may be right where we are. Who is God putting in front of us that He’s calling us to love? Who in our communities, parishes and neighborhoods is God inviting us to bring His love to by using our unique abilities and gifts?

May we all continue to be transformed, encouraged, and motivated by the overwhelming love of the Holy Spirit.

With love in Christ,
Lisa

Settling Back In

Blessings of Christ Jesus be with you!

It’s been a month and half since we returned to Mexico so I am overdue for sharing an update. I also received some feedback and requests for more pictures and information about how our family is doing here so I’ll be attempting to share more about us in my posts this year, too. We returned to General Cepeda at the beginning of February. We spent the first couple of weeks primarily settling back in. The first day back, our kids spent the day with Jeremy at the farm where we are keeping the horses (in exchange for Jeremy training their mare). They came back at the end of the day and Jaylyn stated they spent all day exploring and it was the best day ever! I realize this may not be the norm, but our kids were very used to having acres of pasture and woods to “explore” independently on our farm before we went into missions so having access to this farm beside a desert mountain here in rural Mexico is a huge blessing to our family.

Our four oldest kids exploring and climbing the mountain by the farm

Simon counting for Hide & Seek

Jaylyn and Lincoln started back to school. We were really praying for Lincoln to become more comfortable in his class and make some friends that he likes to play with. Sometime during the first week back, Lincoln chose to eat lunch and play with his own classmates instead of with Jaylyn and hers. Most days, he now enjoys playing with his friends during his free time at school and is much more comfortable in his classroom. Thank you, Jesus!

Jaylyn and Lincoln pausing to pose for a picture

Our family

Jaylyn (and the boys) love to hold Gabriella.

We resumed our Wednesday morning prayer group (open to the whole community), and Jeremy resumed the Friday night men’s group. One of the men Jeremy discipled with last year, Ivan, began another men’s group in his father-in-law’s house a couple of weeks ago with his father-in-law and several of his brothers-in-law. Jeremy and Ivan go from the men’s group at the mission house on Friday evenings from 7-8:30 or 9 and then to Ivan’s father-in-law’s house beginning at 9 or so. Ivan has reported that his father-in-law has begun going to Mass with the rest of the family on Sundays and the men are really enjoying the prayer group. Glory to God! 

Gabriella is one happy girl in spite of her pants never being clean.

She is pulling up and crawling everywhere now.

Jeremy and the kids began working with the horses again. Our friend, Cesar, and his daughter, Mariana, are teaching our kids rodeo events including barrel racing and goat tying. Our kids are beyond excited to have this opportunity. We hope to share our common love for horses and Jesus with the youth in this community through the kids cowboy ministry soon. At this point though, Jeremy continues to meet other cowboys here and share his faith and witness.

Lincoln learning the goat tying event

Looks like we have another little cowgirl

Zane's blonde hair gets lots of attention here

We hosted a mission trip the last week of February. Mission trips are such a blessing to the local people here and to the people who come on them; we are grateful to be a part of them!

Simon (with no lack of style) helping on the work project.

One more of these two

Because of your generosity, we continue to have the opportunity to share resources with those in need here through meeting alms requests for medicine and medical equipment, doctor and dental visits to those who are un-insured or who cannot afford their co-pays, laboratory and other medical tests, diapers and formula, and a funeral service for a young man whose family could not afford it. I've also had the opportunity to help a mother give her ill daughters medication. She is unable to read and understandably reluctant to tell professionals this. Therefore, she is unable to understand the directions the doctor and pharmacy give her. My eyes continue to be opened to the challenges of being illiterate. The Lord put on my heart again recently that the most important thing we can give people is prayer. This mother is frequently stoic and likely somewhat hardened by life. During the recent mission trip, a group of us visited her in her home and prayed with her. She was visibly touched by the love of God as she began sobbing while we prayed over her. God's love is the one true remedy for every need.

We are super blessed to have two other American missionary families who will be serving with us here this year! The Sokolowski family spent a couple weeks here in February before leaving for language school; we are looking forward to their return next month. The Oakes family will be coming here this summer.

Zane and one of the Sokolowski's sweet girls "leading" the music.

We are praying for all of you who continue to support us in prayer and with finances. Please continue to pray for our mission here as your prayers no doubt sustain us.

God bless you!
Lisa