Hey guys!

Mary here...another week has flown by in Espanola. One of us has probably said this already but it feels like we’ve been here for so much longer than we have. Things always seem to go that way though, so I should probably stop stating the obvious and get to telling you what exactly God’s been filling that quickly passing time with...

I had my first day volunteering in one of the elementary schools here last week (we started volunteering when we’re not working to get to know the kids here) and I must say, it was a bit intimidating. I guess it’s been awhile since I’ve been around kids – and that many, that I felt slightly out of my comfort zone. But that’s okay, because the more this mission goes on the more I am realizing that it doesn’t matter if I feel inadequate or ill suited for what I’m doing, God can use it. In the words of my spiritual director “Just do what He asks of you the best that you can. The results are His business.” Besides, the kids I’ve been working with are hilarious and fun to be around. Even if I spend the day around the kindergartners – who are obviously too young to know or really care about our mission or why I’m in their school, it’s good just being there and getting to be with them.

            Our adult retreat is coming up in just over 2 weeks and we’re pretty pumped. Michael Dopp is coming to do the talks. I went to this same retreat in January when I was at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy in Barry’s Bay and it was really cool. Michael goes over a lot of stuff, about our relationship with God and evangelization and just relating to other people in general. I always remember especially one thing he talked about, how everyone draws close to God by either Beauty, Goodness, or Truth, often a combination of the three but usually one moreso than the other two; and how quoting the truth of the gospel or Catechism to someone who has been hurt by the lack of goodness in someone in the Church will often not be heard, and how describing God’s beautiful creation or divinely inspired art to an atheist mulling over discrepancies in the Bible have little weight. It just really made me think about how I talk to the people around me, whether Catholic, Christian, or neither. What I expect them to understand and how I can be aggravated when they don’t understand me or me them. And how even within a small group of practising Catholics, we each relate to God in a different way, on different levels, from different places.

I think each of us has a bit of worry in the back of our minds about the upcoming retreat. There’s always that fear of failure. The worry that no one will come. Those moments where you don't trust God so much and start thinking it's about how good YOU can do, what results YOU can pull off. No wonder things can get a little daunting and bleak at those points.. This is us we're talking about..
;)
But then we remember that it’s God doing this, not us. So there is nothing to fear.
:)