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