www.lifeteen.com then click on Missions in the top right corner to check out my blog and all other missionaries! See how God is moving in all our hearts and truly forming us to be sent out for Him!!! God is Good!!

AND YEAH for ZOE!!!! I cant wait to see her again! I am so fortunate that I was able to go for the birth and was able to witness the love between Rebecca and Zach! It was so beautiful and truly made my heart full of joy! Thank you God for family and the miracles we are able to experience together!

Trust Fall

In formation we are reading the Return of the Prodigal Son, an amazing book that we are diving into and discussing how we each can relate to the Younger brother, older brother, father, and bystanders of the story and how we grow closer to God through the realization of the struggles we face in these characters. On the front cover of the book is Rembrant’s painting of the moment when the son returns to his father begging to be his servant because he is unworthy of being his son. How many times have we fallen to our knees begging for Gods mercy and then when we stand up we fall right back into our sin because maybe its comfortable or maybe we think we can leave “home” without leaving God. What is it going to take for us to fall to our knees and then lay our head on God’s chest to listen to His hearts desires for us? This is the question we discussed in formation today.
Flash back a couple days ago…after evening prayer I felt like I needed to stay in the chapel a little bit longer. I sat in the chapel alone and just began to cry. God had been placing trust on my heart so much lately and I did not understand. I thought I was being vulnerable and trusting my community and Him by sharing my struggles and what had gone on in my life to lead me to this missionary year. I was being open about my past and trusting that no one would judge me. God was not calling me to trust Him with my past…its the PAST…it cant be changed…He wants me to fully trust Him with my future! It may seem obvious to some people but I guess I was not always trusting Him with every part of my future just when I came to Him in prayer about something. So in formation today I came to an understanding that I really need to be trusting God with it all, stop thinking about what I want or what makes me comfortable and my doing that I also need to be trusting my missionary brothers and sisters that they will help me grow in that Trust. Now comes to the title “Trust Fall”…I have never done the trust fall (if you do not know what it is, you stand on a platform maybe four feet off the ground, with your back to all the people who are going to catch you, and then you just fall back and pray they catch you. SCARY I KNOW)…I was never even able to get on the platform without sweating and shaking and breathing hard…but for some unknown reason I mentioned that doing the trust fall might be a literal and physical step to me trusting my brothers and sisters and God…trusting that they would care enough to catch me. After the words came out of my mouth I wish they had the capability of going right back in because Paul immediately goes “Lets do It!” and so began the heavy breathing, sweating, shaking, o and the walk to the trust fall….ugh…along the way we ran into David who of course wanted to join in on the fun :/ but I felt better about having another set of arms there. Thanks God for that comfort! We reached the platform and I climbed up (it felt higher then ever before), everyone is telling me their advice and I knew that I didn’t want to turn away. I really wanted to do this. I wanted to trust them and God. I began to have images of how they were not set up right or someone in the middle would sneeze and move their arms right when I was falling and SPLAT, mud and my back would make contact…So I quickly screamed “I TRUST YOU” and in unison they all yelled “TRUST US, FALL ON!” I closed my eyes, screamed, and fell back…It was over very fast and they just held me for a couple seconds, smooshed between the two sides of people, like a giant net. They did not immediately let go. But when they did, they made it seem like I had just accomplished running a marathon in 2 hours. They were really proud of me. At that moment I felt comfort and knew that they would walk with me on my journey to trusting God’s plans for my future, that they would hold me up and not let me go until they know I was ready…And that is exactly what God wants us to know. That He will hold us, smooshed to His chest, and never let us go.

THANKS Chris, Paul, JJ, Mark, David, Paola, Haylee, Sara, and GOD! You

Glory Stories

Glory stories are experiences people have with God that completely give glory to His divine power working in our lives! Glory Story from St. Brigid's confirmation retreat...Elizabeth is a sophmore, beautiful, talented, sweetheart, everyone's friend...The first time I met her she was coming out of Confession (huge smile on her face)...She told Paola and I (who were waiting in line to go after her) that she had not been to confession in 8 years! We were so excited for her and we all began to jump and hug ha ha like little girls. Anyway to continue the Glory story, at the end of the retreat the group has a wrap session where everyone goes around and tells how God moved in their lives this weekend. Elizabeth stood up and said "Before this weekend I did not believe in God. I felt He had never done anything for me so I just cast Him aside. He was unimportant. Now I KNOW Him and have seen how He has been working in my life." GLORY GLORY GLORY!!!!! Ah, I love being able to experience these things! God is so good....so do you have any glory stories?! Share if you want...I love hearing them!

O and this other girl Chelsea came up to me and asked if I ever worked at High Harbour and I was thinking she was one of my LIT's or helpers of some kind...but NO she was my 9 year old camper and now she is in HIGH SCHOOL!!! I felt old...at 21!

God Bless

Kaitlin

HEY

Hey...so I figured out my Lifeteen blog!!! WOO HOO I feel so official having something on the national website ha ha...anyway I will probably continue writing in both places but probably not the same things so check them both out!!!

St. Brigid confirmation retreat is coming this weekend so pray for them!!!

Kaitlin


www.lifeteen.com/missions

John Chapter 6! AMAZING!!! Got me through a really difficult talk. The retreat has been going really well so thanks for the prayers. JJ was suppose to give a talk on the Eucharist but little did we all know that God had other plans for me. JJ got sick this morning and has been in bed all day hence I became the replacement through prayer for the talk on the Eucharist. But I could not have felt better about it. I LOVE the Eucharist probably because I love Jesus so much and it is Jesus. So I felt so great about being able to give a talk about something I am so passionate about. So why was it so difficult? Although the eighth grade is from a Catholic school half of the class is not Catholic therefore the talk was made a little bit more difficult. Through prayer though I felt God calling me to just be BOLD and to speak truth and that the Holy Spirit would flow through me so that through His words spoken through me, He would be able to reach the heart of every child. And the response was phenomenal so thanks for your prayers. Majority of my small group is Baptist and they just had such a great response to the talk.

Remember "we are meant to embrace no just accept it"(needtobreathe)...EMBRACE the truth that God has given us do not just accept it!!!! Dive into it each day in prayer and in His Word. That is truly what I have been able to do with the Eucharist. I have never had trouble believing in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist but recently I have been able to EMBRACE that truth and it has made Mass and Adoration that much more beautiful for me. So EMBRACE the truth God has given to each of us in our faith!!!

SHOUT OUT TO CARRIE ON HER 22nd BIRTHDAY!!! I CAN"T BELIEVE IT!!! (I feel like we say that every year, but knowing someone for their whole life is something to be amazed about :)

Holy Family Pray For US!!!

Kaitlin

God is so good!!!

Set Free

We are currently in the middle of running our first retreat as the seven of us. Today was the first day and as of right now I am praying even harder then before for these kids. Our theme is "Set Free" meaning that through a relationship with God we can be set free from the burdens that weigh us down. We really came to the theme all in prayer because originally the theme was Mission Possible but we just felt that things needed to be changed. St. Mary's is only a group of 25 kids so we are in one of the smaller rooms at Covecrest to make it more intimate. The students are all really close and we had so much fun on the high ropes today but in small groups they are tending to be really shy or make things into jokes (which we were warned that they do). If you read this please be praying for their hearts to be opened more fully to hear and receive what God has for them. Also pray for our retreat team that we can continue to minister to them fully through the Holy Spirits direction.

Something really cool that I have been noticing throughout the planning these past few days and today is how much this is a retreat for the seven of us as well. We just got back from traveling to Boston, returning to our fellow brother and sister missionaries not being here, and automatically planning a retreat...needless to say we were barely able to breathe but God is blessing us through it. When I say this is a retreat for us, I mean that the seven of us are getting to know each other a lot better...good and bad...hahaha. We are sharing witness stories in almost every session about our lives and our struggles...things that some people are only opening up about for the first time. My brothers and sisters are being so vulnerable for these kids but also for the seven of us. If we are not able to be open and allow the Spirit to say what He wants then how do we expect the kids to be. I am falling more in love everyday with my missionary family even when we disagree. We are all striving to grow closer to God and are trying to maintain the idea to regard other people as more important then ourselves.

Completely different topic is that I am now a God Mother!!! Little Greg was baptized on Saturday. I feel so honored and special to be his God mother...that now I have a little piece of him forever (that might sound weird but its true). Its almost as if I have been given this shield to protect him from things ha ha ha....I dont know what Im trying to say hahah. But thank you Greg and Alyshia for listening to Gods will for your son and intrusting me with this important part of his life.

Becca is getting really close to having her baby too. She said she almost sent herself into labor while watching the Alabama Tennessee game.

Anyway please keep praying for me as I pray for you everyday.

Kaitlin

HEY!!!

Hey okay so it might take me a little while to post about Boston because I have so much to say but I dont want to be rushed through it! So know a post is coming! God Bless!!!

NEW BLOG

Hey everyone,
Okay so LIFETEEN has decided to give us our own blogs that you can check out right from the website...I feel legit! So I will not be using this blog anymore.

The link to the blog is www.lifeteen.com/missions

You will see EVERY Missionaries blog but if you click on my name (i dont have a picture yet) then it will take you directly to my posts. But its pretty cool that you can check out EVERYONES!

Eventually you will be able to just go to lifeteen.com and click on something that says MISSIONARIES but for now you have to go through the website above!

St. Francis

Sunday we had the day off so went to Mark's (missionary) old church in Blairsville, St. Francis. They have Life Teen mass at 11 in the afternoon and then a "Life Day" instead of night. They have an amazing youth minister, Stephen Smith (father of Matt Smith for those Life Teen people). Stephen is such a loving man who is like a father to all. The whole church was so welcoming and we felt like it had always been our community. We (about 10 missionaries) were able to partake in the choir at mass, bearing of gifts, the chili cook off for life night, and adoration during the Life Night. The community just has the feel of God's hospitality that all churches should have running through it from the minute you walk in the door until you leave. After mass and life night we came back to Covecrest and SURPRISE my dad was here! We spent the rest of the day in prayer, eating, and showing him my house. Thanks dad for coming! I love you!

Pictures!

Carrie and I at the ropes course! Drilling the plywood! We went back the next day to lay the tile! It turned out beautiful and I totally felt like Trading Spaces!

Work Project! We rebuilt Catherine's floor...I measured and Maria cut. I used the powertool once and decided I would rather measure!

The four Covecrest girls

Sara, Paola, Haylee (my roomie) and ME

So a tradition that last years missionaries started was to hide this statue of JP II in funny places! They received it as a white elephant gift. So far the girls started and hid it in the boys shower. Next the boys hid it in Paola's bed (paola is in the pic with me) and they also hid St. Francis in our fridge! He looks kind of creepy in there but we have yet to remove him ha ha ha

Our Kitchen!

Our Living Room

Haylee and I's room...I had yet to decorate yet...

These past two days Queen of Angels has been here so the other retreat team has been working with them while my retreat has been doing random work projects around camp! I LOVE DIGGING!!!! I came to this love because I did not want to organize a pantry and remove mice so In opted to work with the guys and move furniture and dig ditches. We have had to dig this four foot deep hole to build a wall and protect pipes from freezing in the winter! I have gotten to use a chain saw and hammer in these intense nails! I love it! I have had so much fun and everytime we dig something we offer it up for another teen to hear the word of God...my arms are really sore but I am ready to go again tomorrow! Cant wait to show you all the wall when you come to Covecrest!

I have also gotten to push a couch over the side of a balcony and it was perfectly fine so later we took a sledgehammer to it and destroyed it. I have also had to help get a van out of the mud while David, Mark, and Tim were getting very muddy ha ha. Thank God for all the beautiful weather!!! We only have one more week of all of us being together and then we go to BOSTON!!! I am very excited about my teams roadtrip to Boston but asking God to prepare my heart to say goodbye to my fellow missionaries who will go to Mesa and Germany.

KEEP PRAYING PRAYER PARTNERS!!! I am praying for you everyday! Send intentions if you have any :) And I would ask you to pray for my family as we are preparing to welcome a new memberin a month :) !!!!! And just for all of our vocations and discernments that we are going through :) God Guide my family to be an image of your holy family to all those we meet!

Kaitlin

Catherine

So much has been going on in the past three days. Saturday was my desert day. It was really nice to just have some time all to myself but I was really struggling with whether or not I should go home on Sunday for my sisters baby shower. I know being a missionary part of the way of life is having to sacrifice some things and not be able to go to every event. I prayed about it really hard and talked to some people who all said I should def. go. So I decided to go which ended up being such a great decision! Rebecca was sooooo happy to see me and I was so glad I could be there for her and see my family for a bit. I was also able to stop by and see Little Greg Koerner who was born wednesday (right as I was giving my God Is Love talk) and Alyshia and Greg asked if I would be his God Mother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have not stopped smiling and praying that God will equip me with all the graces needed to lead this little man into discipleship! He is so precious and I just cant wait to watch him grow!

Today my retreat team was able to go do some community out reach in Lake Mount. We went to a ladies house named Catherine whose floor had collapsed and it had been that way for about two years and she couldnt get anyone to help her. We went there and Extreme Home Makeovered her kitchen! It was awesome. We ripped out cabinets and leinolium (really wrong but o well) flooring. Then Maria and I measured and cut all the plywood (with powertools) while mark, sara, ruth, and tim secured them all into the floor with their drills! It was so fun and we all worked together to really bring the floor together nicely. We are going back tomorrow to lay the new tiles down for her. We were just able to sit and talk with her a bit too which was nice. She has helped create over 17 fire stations up here in the Tiger Georgia area. She is a great woman of God and she was as much a witness to us as we were to her. She has led an incredible life thus far and I am sure will continue to do so.

The second retreat team begins their retreat on Wednesday with Queen of Angels so please be praying for them that the Holy Spirit will just rain down in them, calm their nerves, and help them to spread God's love to all those they will encounter!

Alright I need to go get my laundry that has been in the laundry room since yesterday morning :)

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21
Psalm 100

So many updates!

Wow I have a lot to talk about since it has been so long since I have blogged!  

Tuesday:  Tuesday was spent planning alot for the retreat for Holf Redeemer 8th grade.  My group really wanted to put on a powerful skit and perform it the next day but nothing seemed to be working out.  We took a break from planning because tuesday nights are family dinner nights and also it was the feast day of the Archangels which we celebrated to the fullest with cupcakes and balloons!  I also cooked Swiss Chicken for about 12 people and it turned out sooooo good and everyone loved it!!!  Anyways we had the celebration and asked Fr. John Welch, who was in town for the week, to say a blessing over us so that all would go well.  We went back to the lodge to practice and the skit came together in about five minutes!!!  God is soooo good!

Wednesday:  Holy Redeemer arrived around 10:30 for the retreat to begin.  For those of you I was not able to tell, I was the host for the whole three days.  I wasnt nervous about it but I really had no idea what to say but the Holy Spirit just poured through me and He had a lot to say ha ha.  Our them for the retreat was Mission Possible...Gospel of Mark "All things through God our possible"  For our entrance we were all dressed in all black and hiding in random places all around the room.  We set of a zipline in the main lodge for us to make real secret agent entrances as we as two people belayed from the ceiling, one floating down like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible!!  It was really cool.  I also gave my talk later that day and it went really well.  It was the first time I probably ever left a talk not wishing I had remembered to say something.  Praise God!  '

During all this I was trying to keep my phone near or around me so that I could know when Little Greg arrived!!!  He arrived right as I was giving a talk all about God's Love and wow what could be more of God's love then a new born baby!!!  Congrats Greg and Alyshia...he is beautiful and I cant believe he is finally here!!!  Makes me even more excited to see my new niece or nephew!!!

Thursday:  Retreat continued...We had mass ourside and the kids really enjoyed that a lot.  These kids were just awesome and really opened to just letting us shower them with Gods love.  Before the retreat even began, my team prayed a lot about what our focus should be about.  In our prayers many of us were revealed to that we needed to Build up their relationships with God and their families.  These boys and girls were just so open to letting us pray over them and help them through their brokenness!  God works wonders and I truly love being able to be a witness to it everyday! It was really funny because when we were offering confession EVERY kid went running to get in line and I mean literally running towards Mike's Place porch to talk to the priest!  They were being greedy for the sacraments which is so AWESOME! We also had adoration that night and it was many of their first times...but WOW  God was good...Fr. John placed his hands on the monstrance so the kids could come up and touch it...they all did and you could just see some of them shaking and crying and being so thankful to touch Jesus!  

I was also able to FINALLY talk to Kara after being here for almost three weeks!!!  She truly knows what it is to feel Gods love and what it means to yearn for it too...so it was really nice to be able to talk to someone who has always been a huge support of my walk with Jesus!

Friday:  Everyday we as missionaries have a holy hour at 7:15, then morning prayer (about thirty minutes) and then we go eat breakfast but today we were going to have mass after morning prayer....we invited the kids to come if they wanted to.  A lot of them showed up for holy hour and prayer but they were all there for MASS!!!  And it was a beautiful mass...our singing rang from every corner of that chapel out to the whole camp!!!  I loved it!  We also prayed over every child in our small groups about whatever they needed prayers for.  Please Please Please pray for families all over!!!  That they can find and put Christ at the center of their families!  So many of these kids have families  that are troubled and could really use some prayers to remember the Holy families model!!!  The kids were able to share about themselves and how God moved them this weekend...and I was in tears!  PRAISE HIM!!  You can never put a limit on Gods might!!!  I was actually really sad to see them go today!  But I pray that they will do wonderful and glorious things through Christ when they get home!

Because the last week has been crazy stressful my team is getting a desert day tomorrow.  Basically its a personal silent retreat day.  Just me, my journal, my Bible, and God all day tomorrow!!!  I am Sooooooooooo excited!  I have really needed some personal time since we are always running around crazy!!!

Good songs:  We had a girls session this week and we played this song for them "Why?" by Nicole Nordeman (sp?)  watch a video on youtube while listening to it!  Its really powerful

Our skit was to a song "Youre not alone" by Meredith Andrews...also very beautiful.

Anyways I think it is about time for evening prayer and movie night tonight!!!

Love always and Gods Blessings

Kaitlin

Phil 1:21

Home Cooked Meal!

We had a homecooked meal tonight! It was so yummy and finally didn't make my stomach feel super bloated and full of air. A woman named Betsy Orr wanted to come and make us dinner tonight. She is from Buckhead and has recently had a conversion into the Catholic faith and longs to make a family retreat center somewhere in the north Georgia mountains. She loves Covecrest for many reasons. Her daughter, Corinne, son, kyle, and husband Larry also came with her. Her husband has an inopperable brain tumor but he is doing really well right now. Their children go to Pace and do not have school tomorrow due to the fact that its a Jewish holiday so they wanted to come spend the night. There were probably about 40 people at dinner and we played telephone! We have two non-native English speakers with us so it was really funny when some things came to them especially "How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood." JJ is from Holland (he is staying in Covecrest) and his english is Amazing!!! But Ruth is from Germany and she just came over for two weeks to spend time with us because Life Teen has a group of missionaries going to her church in Germany. She speaks english very well also but does not know the tongue twisters. Both JJ and Ruth have been helping me learn some german and dutch. Who knows maybe God will call me to mission there (I would be terrified though so lets not put that in our prayers just yet :) Anyways I learned a fun little song in German but I dont know how to type it but it basically says " I am hungry hungry hungry, I am hungry hungry hungry, I am hungry hungry hungry, I am thirsty" Its what the kids in Ruth's youth group sing when they want dinner ha ha. Kalt (i think is the spelling) means Cold, warm is the same in both but the w sounds like a v, and I cant remember what else but its so fun because you all know how much I LOVE language! And you know how Americans sometimes think Germans sound angry...its because they use the deep back of their throat. Its so hard for us to make that noise because we dont use it! Anyways I think thats about it for now. Keep praying for the retreat with Holy Redeemer this wednesday-friday! I am giving a talk about Gods Love and when we were praying about it in adoration everyone felt that I was called to be the MC (well everyone except ME! but maybe I was just not wanting to hear it :)) So pray that the Holy Spirit fills me with words!

NIGHT!!!

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21

CHICKFILA and RAIN!

all 21 of us went to Chickfila. We pretty much bumbarded (sp?) them...O and its raining again. Please be praying for me and my fellow missionaries; MArk, MAria, Ruth, Sara, Paul, and Miller...we will be putting on a retreat for 8th graders from Holy Redeemer next week. We are really praying for the Holy Spirits direction so that we can reach out to these young teens and show them Christ's love. We had a beautiful adoration this morning but continue to need guidance:)

I also made a trip to Wal Mart (which I have not missed but its all we have :/) I was able to pick up PUMPKIN BREAD!!! I am so excited to make it as well as some Swiss Chicken for our family dinner on Tuesday.

St. Oliver's is here for this weekend and they seem to be having a really good retreat. They have about 100 kids here. Amazing since it is high school football season and all.

I am now just enjoying my day off and listening to my roommate, Haylee, sing her songs that she wrote to God...so pretty and Praise God!!!

Alright I think thats about it for now

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21

Musicians Retreat

Just so you know I am writing this in our office as we are all SINGING/SHOUTING O Holy Night...not pretty but hilarious

This week was filled with a lot of formation on Monday and Tuesday about Discernment and Intersession. Also Randy Raus came and spoke to us about the history of Life Teen and their hopes for the future and our roll in that. It was very inspirtational as most things are around here when we talk about our roll as Christ's hands and feet in the world. But what was really exciting this week was the Life Teen Musicians Retreat. Musicians arrived on Wednesday from all over the country and even Canada. Michael John Porier (?) was the host and he was amazing and so inspirational. At holy hour he played for three hours singing no songs that had ever been recorded just whatever came to his mind. BEAUTIFUL and spoke to everyones heart. Fr. J was also able to be here with us and we were able to have mass throughout the week. It was just so fun to talk to the musicians and hear their stories. We were able to partake in a lot they did. But the best part had to be last night...everyone gathered all their instruments and we jammed on the back porch of the lodge ALL NIGHT...Guitars, drums, mandolins, singers, tamborines...playing and dancing all over the porch praising God! I just stopped and listened sometimes and it was so beautiful the talents God had given everyone. We also played games, ate tons of candy, and just enjoyed each others company. I was playing Catch Phrase with some people and this guy, Russ from New Mexico, thought that the word was Christ so he said "Jesus" and we all yelled Christ and then he was like "um actually its the best part of a pizza" and I said Crust...we all could not stop laughing the buzzer went off before we stopped crying! I did not want any of them to leave today but we have to prepare for St. Oliver's to come this weekend! And hopefully the Youth Minister will bring my keys since I locked my copy in my car.

This morning I was able to go with Eric and Paul to deliver Meals on Wheels. We went to seven different homes. Majority of them were single and old and unfortunately in pretty bad positions. Those houses that you pass that seem condemned are actually some peoples homes up here. It was sad but it was so nice to serve them and we were even able to pray with some of them. My favorite was this lady who just welcomed the fifth generation to her family! She is 96 and her great great grandson was born four months ago. She was so funny and so excited.

I am still incredibly enjoying everymoment and feel so blessed each day. I see God in everything I do and its soooooo cool!!!! I am not too sure what else to write about today other then I am so excited because I have tomorrow off and I think I am getting Chickfila!!!! The food is kind of beginning to hurt me!

Thanks for joining me on this mission!!!

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21

P90X

Alright so P90X is this workout that has this really creepy man leading you in INSANE excercises BUT us girls decided to start doing it. Last night was the first time and it was pretty much all push ups...yeah I don't do push ups and they were weird ones too. Anyways today is cardio so I hope I don't die!

O and the sun is shining!!!!

O and Matt Maher's new cd came out today so go get it! Its awesome!!!

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21

Floods Literally and Spiritualy

So I have officially decided that I could probably never call Seattle home. This rain has not ceased for days. I have been looking at pictures from Gwinnett and I just can’t believe all the flooding. Both Saint John Neumann and Brookwood have experienced some flooding as well as the Connamara neighborhood near church. You are all in my prayers! I must say though, living in a double-wide during non-stop rain has begun to make things feel a little damp…poor ventilation.

The retreats this weekend went very well though so thanks for your prayers. We had St. Gabriel’s from Fayetteville and First United Methodist from Douglasville (which they probably should have stayed here since its all flooding down there). The Missionaries were able to feed so much off of their energy and in return the teens said they enjoyed our energy just as much and that they were really moved by our service to the Lord for a year. What an affirmation! On Wednesday the Life Teen musician retreat begins. All the praise and worship leaders from various churches all over the country are coming to retreat together. I must admit I am a little sad because Matt Maher usually leads this retreat but he won’t be this year L. But I am so excited to just have amazing praise and worship sessions and be rejuvenated!

I have been learning so many amazing things but I have been taking my time on blogging them because I want to make sure the messages are perceived the way God intends them and not impose anything on anyone. Everything I am going to blog about in this post will really be my response to the things I am learning during my formation periods but other people may have different interpretations. The Lord moves in many ways and I am so happy to express and witness to all of you through this blog. So the rest of this post may seem a little random and scattered but I just learned so many cool things. I hope you enjoy!

Being a missionary requires a lot of things; a calling to die to self, be comfortable with not knowing what’s next or having a schedule, intense prayer and giving up of many worldy treasures just to list a few. Lately we have been talking about our YES! We, the missionaries, have said YES to God calling us to missionary life without really knowing what we were going to be doing. Many people before I came up here always asked what my schedule would be or day to day would look like and I never could answer and I still couldn’t. Everyday is different but we should all be willing to say YES to God without necessarily knowing the details, just like Mary. Mary didn’t question God about how she would conceive without having sex or how she was going to care for this child. She said YES to God’s plan and walked in with Blind Faith (a marian virtue)…a thing many people struggle with because it can be uncomfortable…but I can tell you that from my experience it has been God-filled…I have not yet questioned God moving me here although the questioning may come. Saying Yes is not always the easy step but think about this advice...Once you say YES to God, all the pressure is on Him. Whatever He was calling you to it is His responsibility to reveal it to you, all you have to do is have an open heart to receive His glorious gifts! Pretty cool, huh? But you can’t think God works on our time either. It could take days or months for those gifts to be received but He will bless you for your YES to follow Him, love Him, trust Him! I thought this was good advice.

Something Chris Benzinger (our formation director/ runner of Covecrest/father/AWESOME) has been telling us is that God is totally showing off with this group of missionaries. None of us came in knowing how to build a community and yet the Holy Spirit has put a community together in less then a week. We are truly a close community already. God knew what He was up to when He picked the 25 of us for this missionary year. Even how He divided us up into our locations, Arizona, Covecrest, and Germany, is perfect. We are all able to laugh, cry, joke, share our brokenness and share the ways God is moving in our lives without hesitation, question or judgment. What a blessing! But with a community with a similar goal of growing closer to God, the enemy is going to try and get in wherever he can. Mortal sins are usually how he breaks in to our souls and begins pulling them but it’s a little different for me and my fellow missionaries and many other people seeking God. The devil is going to break us down by making us feel unworthy and he can do that in your lives too. He will make you feel that your prayer isn’t good enough or you should be at church more because you are not faithful if you aren’t. We can’t let these anxieties or fears pull us from Christ. Instead they are an invitation to draw closer into the arms of Christ because he wants to heal you from your anxieties and make you feel worthy because you ARE!

I really need to take a moment to thank all of my benefactors that are reading this blog. I am so close to your hearts even if you don’t realize; “For wherever your treasure is, there also your heart will be.” Matthew 6:21. And because of that you are being drawn even closer to God! Your support, prayers, and dedication to this mission is my first tangible proof from God working for me for this mission! Without you all this year would be impossible. You are constantly prayed for!

Alright these are just a couple of random things to consider and think about:
· Let personal prayer time be for God to draw you closer into His embrace- not to necessarily figure out all the mysteries of your life. Do not be afraid of the silences and begin your prayer by Praising Him! If you don’t know what I mean, here is an exercise. Write down what you refer to God as (Jesus, Lord, Father, etc.) then after that write “you are” and then list three adjectives you refer to God as (loving, all powerful, almighty, everlasting, etc.) Pray this and eventually you will start lifting up more adjectives and praise to God. This really opens your heart to the Holy Spirit and we are called to praise the Giver of all gifts!
· He created us all for great intimacy with Him. God is intimately concerned about every detail of our life (I can’t think of a single man who would ever Love me that much!!!).

O and this is a really cool thing for us Catholics! When making the sign of the cross, when you are moving from shoulder to shoulder, imagine that you are crossing yourself out and fully giving yourself to God during your prayer! It can help you to not only think of yourself in prayer time! I thought it was a pretty cool thing J

Anyways I think that’s about it for now…I know it was really long but this is a couple days worth of stuff. Hopefully I will be able to have a little bit more free time to blog more often but WHO KNOWS!!!

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21

Rain Rain Rain

It has been raining so much up here which has just made a luciously green place even greener! I love waking up to the fog over the mountains or well I guess I should say I love seeing the fog over the mountain after I get done with my morning Holy hour and prayer...its dark when I wake up :)...Anyways the boys come back today. They were camping about an hour from here (in all the rain :/) Hope no one got sick. So the girls have some down time today until the boys return and we prepare for a crazy weekend with two church retreats coming up. I am so excited about the first retreat weekend! Please pray for the groups that are coming, One is First United Methodist and St. Gabriel. Pray that the Holy Spirit will come and fill their hearts this weekend and bring joy and comfort to their hearts and that they will truly experience Gods presence here and when they return home (run-on much?)

We had a great day yesterday. We fell deep into prayer with our seperate mission teams and prayed over each one. We were asked to express what our heart is truly feeling right now. I asked for a more openness in my prayer and that I will truly know when it is God speaking to me or me just putting ideas in my head. My new sisters had such beautiful things to pray over me...the Holy Spirit worked wonders!!! And when I was called to pray over my sisters I could truly tell the words were not coming from me. I couldnt even tell you what I said ha ha but it was such a beautiful experience. Then the four of us just sat around and talked about God and his gifts and how this life is not truly ours. It is a gift He gave us and we should want nothing more then to live it for Him (so easy to say)...we had to make commitments to each other for the year and we all commited to being accountable and making sure we are bringing each other closer to Heaven. We should all be striving to bring our loved ones, friends, anyone we come in contact with closer to our resting place with Jesus. So think about your actions...are they bringing you or those around you further or closer to heaven?

This morning My mom sent me a message to say have a great day...I told her I was on my way to holy hour and morning prayer and she responded saying "Make a joyful noise"...so beautiful...MOMMY I am so proud of you and everything you are doing with your life! Anyway, in Morning prayer the Psalms and gospel were all about being Happy in God and praising, rejoicing, and being joyful in the Lord. We go around and share what spoke to us during prayers afterwards and I talked about being joyful in everything God does for us today. Be joyful that you eat breakfast or get to impact a childs life or routine. But we must remember to be joyful in our suffering too. If someone we know dies be joyful that God gave you the chance to know this person...if you lose a job be joyful that God has a better plan for you...God LOVES when we express our praise, happiness and joyfullness...Just think about How happy you make Him when you are praising and smiling and happy even in your sorrows because it shows your trust and love for Him which is all He asks. I can picture Him with a pretty stinkin big smile on His face.

Kaitlin
Phil 1:21

First 3 days

I sit here with my coffee/hot chocolate blaring Matt Maher in my new "office" a.k.a room B in the lodge and I have no idea where to begin. 3 days have had such an impact on my life already. God is moving and is always doing.

Arrival: I arrived to my new double wide (probably the prettest one EVER) to two of my roommates; Paola and Haylee. Haylee is my actual roommate and Paola is across the hall. So my room is perfect other then I really did not think I would have space to put anything up anywhere but I do so I need to have some pictures brought up to me. Anyways the double wide is beautiful and Molly (not a missionary but staff who lives with us) decorated it for us perfectly :) ...I will put pictures up when I get my camera from home (sorry I was really excited to get here so I forgot a lot). So I just unpacked and talked to my new roommates/sisters for a while...deep immediately...I LOVE LOVE LOVE being able to talk about God even when it has to do with decorating, nature, a double wide, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING!!! Then we went for dinner. Good ole Covecrest spaghetti :) Then we all sat in a circle (meaning all missionary members about 25 of us) and talked about how God led us to this moment, to this mission, to this community. I can't tell you how beautiful it was to hear my new families journeys with God. I did not want it to end...BUT I HAVE A YEAR!!!

P.S. Pray for Miller, one of the missionaries, his mom is converting from Buddhism to Catholicism, GOD MUCH!?!?! If you can't tell I am so overjoyed

Moving on...we then had night prayer...The next day we woke up at 7:15 for holy hour and there was a group in town so we were able to have mass. Unfortunately mass wont be everyday because there wont always be a priest on sight but there was Tuesday. After mass we had breakfast, then our first class/ way of life course. Then the girls all packed up and left for a lakehouse to have a night to get to know the women and our new sisters. AMAZING!!!
We talked about what our hearts were feeling about everything because women are all heart and God wants it to be filled with love for Him. Its amazing to me that we are all beginning this year as missionaries but all our hearts are in different places. In morning prayer God was just making me feel that my heart was NEW...whatever I have done the past 21 years that has been holding me back from loving Him doesn't matter...New beginnings, New Birth, JUST NEW! Clean slate...I feel kind of reborn and its glorious! I know I have such a long way to go before I know, trust, love, completely but I WANT it so bad so PLEASE be praying for me!!! And I am exactly where I am supposed to be; yearning for nothing but to Love Him.
The next day we had an amazing breakfast (pancakes and bacon) and then began to talk about what made us nervous and what we were most excited about. But really the afternoon season was the most moving. As missionaries we have made a promise to the single life for the next year and Michelle and Melissa (the moms of Covecrest) really wanted to stress to us the importance of staying focused only on our relationship with Jesus. What really spoke to me about it all though was our Longings need to be brought before God. Whatever I am longing for/need I need to bring before Jesus and not anyone else. He will help me through everything.

Tonight the boys made us an amazing dinner. We have not really gotten to know the boys very well but again I have a whole year.

I am so excited to be a witness to you all and that you are all taking this journey with me:) Please let me know your prayer requests kbyrne115@gmail.com.... i pray for everyone by name and intention. I do not know how frequent I will be able to blog. Our schedule for this month is a little different because all three mission sites, Arizona, Germany, and Covecrest are all here till the middle of October:) And the phone is probably even less likely for me:) It is there and I have time but I really have had no desire to spend my time on the phone rather then sharing with my sisters/prayer/or even sleeping!

I hope this finds you all in a good place...


so far I have realized my days will be
7:15 am Holy Hour
8:15 Morning prayer
then breakfast when ever we complete morning prayer
Class/work project/ whatever else till lunch
We also have evening prayer around 5, then dinner
Night prayer at 9:30 with just our houses....so girls with girls, boys with boys


LOVE AND PRAYERS: Phil 1:21

Kaitlin

ALL Glory to God!

O yeah my roomies

Haylee: 19, went to Marist, beautiful heart, guitar player (going to teach me), so outgoing
Paola: 25, nurse, spanish speaker, missionary to Ghana, loves the Lord so humbly
Sara: FSU grad, meek and humble, HILARIOUS, CONVERT at 16 (I love converts:)
Molly: Louisana, mother figure, beautifully blessed,

They are all going to be amazing sisters and people to walk through my whole life with:)

HEY

alright I am about to run to evening prayer but I just wanted to get this up and running!!! Tell people who are not on my email list that this is up :) Well that is if they want to read it!!!

LOVE YOU ALL and you are in my prayers
KAitlin