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