Trying to Catch Up

I've wanted to blog and have so much to write about. I am just swamped and exhausted by the time I have a minute, it is almost bedtime. Thanks for being patient, but I promise there is lots more to come!

Susie and Kristen

I pulled this from Susie's facebook post.

Work Day 2 was spent painting more murals (yes, somehow I was blessed to be with these amazingly artistic young ladies!) at Caliste Government School followed by fun recess, hair braiding and finishing a couple paintings that the rain interrupted yesterday.

 

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

It's Jenni.
Tonight we had Adoration. I could have stayed with Jesus all night on the beach. It was so peaceful, so moving, and so beautiful. The waves were crashing onto the shore less than 10 feet from the altar, and we were all surrounding the Blessed Sacrament on our knees in the sand. The weather here is perfect, so as the breeze blew in off the Caribbean Sea, my heart swelled with love for Christ. Listening to the water move and smelling the salty air with a clear sky of stars was overwhelmingly amazing. I am so thankful to be here.

Guest Blogger Chloe Johnson

Sunday:  Such a beautiful view from the most soulful mass I've been too...God is good (all the time) God is good. - at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception

Monday:  "Listen for God's voice in everything you do and everywhere you go." Proverbs 3:6. Such a great day visiting and hanging out with kids at a local school! My heart is full.

Tuesday:  Today we helped paint and redecorate a youth center here in Grenada. The mural outside of the center was to show Jesus's hands pouring out love from above to everywhere and everyone. Many kids stopped by to check it out on their way home from school. Their excitement and appreciation for our art brightened my day.

Facebook post updates

Our youth are busy out running around serving others, plus they have me lots of new people and are enjoying social time. With sketchy WiFi, it makes it hard to get time for them to blog, besides the fact that it is quite a challenge to keep the laptop charged so they actually can get on to blog. So I have pulled a few Facebook posts and some pictures to share with you.

Guest Blogger Josie Patton

First Work day in Grenada! I'd just like to start off and say how grateful I am to be here!
Today my group, as well as Mollie and Leah's group got to paint this old church! We ended up cleaning the yard, painting the walls, shudders and even the floor of this church. We had a ton of fun (as seen by the paint everywhere!) and even though I was hot and sweaty I seriously had the best time, and we even have made new friends from other church groups all around the U.S.! Apparently it's not common to say "pop" or "suckers" in California. (The alternatives were "soda" and "lollipops")

As a side note, yesterday afternoon the locals though a beach BBQ for our group, complete with Caribbean food, music performed live from a local band and playing soccer and sand volleyball with local teens! And there were ladies there doing hair too! I got a couple corn rows on my side and i think they are so fun! Just another example of how people from different cultures can come together to share their beliefs and lifestyles!

Guest Blogger Alexis

Greetings from Grenada! It is now Alexis Boeh speaking! :)

What an experience this has been! I have been blessed with so many opportunities and we have only been here for 2 days. When I committed to attending this mission trip, I honestly had no idea what to expect. I thought a week outside the country and helping others... sounds like a GREAT time! This trip has been that, but so much more.

Today, I spent the day at a nursing home in Gouyave, Grenada which is home to 27 residents. When I first arrived to the nursing home, I was honestly in shock. The building looked fragile, paint was chipped, the rooms were dirty, and there was only one television for the entire home. There were no card games, no materials for arts and crafts, or beauty products for makeovers (all things that can typically be found in most U.S. nursing homes). To make matters worse, the bathroom was filthy and there was no toilet paper available. Honestly, it took me 30 minutes to just get past the circumstances and focus on the job at hand.

At the nursing home, we painted the outside cement wall a cream color and then painted flowers over it. Unfortunately, the rain came and put a damper on our productivity on the wall. Just as Jenni Halley explained to me tonight, there are no "accidents" on this trip. The rain allowed us to spend more quality time with the nursing home residents. I spent most of my time with two amazing ladies. I met a lady named Sharon who was 47 years old who had down syndrome. For those of you who know, I teach Special Education at the high school in Maryville, so meeting her really did make my heart full! The second lady I met, was nearly 80 years old and was the most beautiful poet! She had a hard time communicating orally (due to being shot in the head years ago), but she had a way with her words on paper. All of her poems included the emphasis of God in her life.

Tonight's program included worship music and 2 nuns who came to speak about their life  experiences. It was really neat to see the dedication these ladies have to fulfilling God's calling. The nuns explained your life should not be about fulfilling "your moms wills or your dads will, but God's will" and God will always provide, the "finances will all fall in place". These ladies emphasized this does not necessarily mean we should enter the convent, but rather pay more attention to what God encourages each of us to do, regardless of our families desires, the money it will provide, or the reputation it will bring. We do not have to please anyone, but instead, LOVE God.

My heart is so full tonight and I cannot wait for what is in store for tomorrow and the rest of the week!

Sending lots of love to all my family and friends!

XOXO,
Alexis

Guest Blogger Candace

Hey followers! This is Candace Boeh speaking. We officially had our first day of getting our hands dirty. Many of us painted churches, preschools, and elderly homes. I was with Leah, Mollie, and Josie at an Old School Church in Gouyave. First walking up on the site, I was thinking "ok?? How are we going to do this?" I had never seen anything quite like this. Broken windows, rusted shutters, trash among trash, and walls that were taller than Manute Bol (the tallest NBA player :)).

The first thirty minutes were the most challenging. Learning on the job is a process. I was so proud of the girls in our youth today! They jumped right in and worked so easily with members from other parishes. I learned so much today about myself from not only working with the other adults BUT the youth too. It was amazing to see God's given talents and strengths working together. We worked our tails off. We spilled paint, we got soaked in the rain, we made mistakes, but most importantly we worked with all different children of God from all different walks of life on an overwhelming task at hand. We were able to paint the whole inside of the church aqua and all the shudders red. We cannot wait to see the church renovated and recreated! We still have the floor and exterior to paint but know with our persistence and trust we can accomplish this by FRIDAY as one big team.

The best part of my day (and most challenging) was the one hour bus ride (very hilly; quick turns--makes for one nauseous girl). I had the opportunity to sit with a Deacon from Georgia. He has been on 5 mission trips and was sharing story after story with me. It gave me energy and enthusiasm for continuation of the trip but also got me thinking about how I can share this experience with my friends, family, and community back at home!

I am not going to lie, coming into this week, I was really only thinking about the "work" to help others. I was not thinking about the sacrifices I have had to make while on the trip. Things that are minimal compared to what Jesus Christ did for us. I take for granted the warm water for my shower, the morning coffee before school, the water bottle I take out of the fridge, and having a snack when I am hungry. I have so very appreciation for the MANY MANY gifts I have on a daily basis. I pray that I continue to have a sense of gratitude for the many blessings I have when I go back to my life at home.

Your continued prayers are appreciated!! We are excited to see what the journey brings in the week ahead!!! :)

My motto for the week: "The miracle is this; the more we share the more we have!"

With love and blessings,
Candace Boeh

Free Day and Orientation

Greetings from Grenada! 1st off, I want to remind you to follow us on Facebook at StGregorys YouthGroup and on Twitter @stgregorysyouth. We are using hashtags #CHWCgrenada2015 and #SGgrenada. I can only post when we have WiFi, which is only when we are actually back here at the university.

Today was a planned free day to give us a chance to meet the locals and get acclimated, plus see this beautiful country. I love justb listening to them. They have what I would liken to a Jamaican accent, so some sort of Eastern Caribbean dialect.

We started with a 15 minute drive along the jagged coastline to get to.Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The landscape is very hilly and those little Nissan buses felt like we were on a rollercoaster. They can make a hairpin turn, which they did quite often as we gasped and held on for dear life! They honk at each other when we meet on the road, and we were trying to determine what the honks mean:
A. BEEP I see you and I'm not going to hit you even though it looks like I might.
B. BEEP I see you and I will hit you if you don't move.
We found out we were wrong. 1 beep means hello, and 2 beeps means they know each other. Apparently the passengers were the only ones concerned about hitting each other! My bus swung to the left slightly and then literally turned a sharp 45 degrees to go down a narrow alley. Oh, and I forgot that they drive as fast as the conditions will allow, so we made that turn with barely even slowing down. Needless to say, I had done quite a bit of praying before ever arriving at the Cathedral!

I have lots more to tell you about the beautiful Mass with island music, and the amazing sermon by the camp chaplain, a priest from Kentucky. No pressure Fr. Martin, but he rapped to the cheers of 150 campers, as well as the local parishioners.

I will leave some details on the Mass for later, as well as the BBQ and party at the beach, hosted by the local Catholic youth. Starting tomorrow, we will have guest bloggers so our campers can tell you firsthand what they are experiencing. And a also because the laptop isn't charging very quickly and it is taking forever to type this on my phone...and because we have a full day of work projects tomorrow and I'm exhausted! But my heart is happy and full.

Favorite quote of the day from Fr. Norman on growing closer to God and changing our hearts.
Stop hanging out with people who drink Hatorade. 

The Day that Seemed to Last Forever

I won't be able to publish this until we land and have WiFi, but I'm writing it right now somewhere over the Caribbean. We have had an exhausting day, but are all filled with anticipation and excitement. We left from the church parking lot at 3am on the dot, and immediately I took a wrong turn in Maryville and started up Maryvue Dr. Sleep deprivation had long ago set in, and I'm thinking super, we are lost before we even left! My daughter looked at me like I was crazy, and I promised to get her to Grenada safely!

We left a few minutes late, but arrived in Miami pretty much on time. I'm not going to lie, that 6 hour layover was so long. I think it was because of so much anticipation, and then we had to just sit there and wait.

We spotted some shirts that matched ours and did some introductions since we will spend the week together. Then I was introduced to a member of Grenada's parliament and he was so excited that his country is hosting us. He told us Grenada is as close to Heaven as we will ever get here on earth.

Now we've spent an hour filling out the Grenada immigration and customs form, and naturally I had to start over due to a mistake. I never do anything the easy way. Candace and Alexis flew in from NY through Atlanta and arrived in Grenada before we ever left Miami. They said it is amazing, and I can hardly wait.

I'm so excited to see the culture and visit with the people. Diversity is so beautiful, and I pray everyone will embrace our differences, celebrate each other and enjoy learning about different cultures.

Update: We arrived to great hospitality, along with several glitches, the biggest being internet service. It made it hard for us to contact home to say we were safe and check in with parents and kids. We started out with 13 rooms, then found out yesterday that we would have 11, then found out when we arrived that we only had 9 rooms.  But the great news is that the rooms are huge. This made it easy to bunk together, albeit stressful figuring it all out.

It was dark when we arrived. I knew we were close to the beach and just as I asked how close, I could hear the waves crashing. So looking forward to seeing for myself tomorrow.

I am running on about 3 sketchy hours of dozing sleep in the last 40 hours, so I'm done for tonight and going to crash.

Getting up early to celebrate Mass at the Cathedral Bascilica of the Immaculate Conception right here in St. George's. We are so very blessed.

Stay tuned...

Grenada or Bust

Outbound to Miami! Fellow passengers include other mission trippers... a large group from Project Hope headed to Nicaragua, a large group headed to Haiti, and a gal headed to Jamaica. This makes my heart happy to see so many people going out to serve others. Stay tuned.

T-Minus 8 Hours and Counting

It's been a crazy day getting ready to leave. It is less than 8 hours before leaving town, and I haven't even unpacked from the middle school camp I was at all week. Dare I say, everything I do seems to be complete chaos before it finally happens! I've been so busy this week, but camp has given me a great chance to quiet myself, to spend time in prayer, and to prepare my heart.

I took care of a bunch of last-minute details today that I didn't even know needed my attention until today! So they were more of an extra last-minute task than anything. I found myself a few times this week just feeling like crying. I am overwhelmed with the joy I feel to be at this moment in time, to be at the end of all this planning and preparation, and ready to actually go and do this.

Tomorrow will be a very long day of traveling. We fly into Miami and then have a pretty long layover before we head to Grenada. I will keep you posted, and will try to share lots of details and pictures with you.

Commence Organized Chaos

I am still up late tonight. I have so much on my mind, and my heart is filled with excitement. But to be honest, I don't want to go to bed because when I get up in the morning, I'll have to hit the ground running. Camp bags are not packed. Yet. And for goodness sake, I still have to go to Wal-Mart. Lord help me.

Fr. Martin gave a beautiful blessing tonight at Mass for our Grenada participants, and I am again humbled by the show of support for our mission trippers! We had a short meeting after Mass to go over last minute details. I started with about 3 things on the list and it grew as the minutes went on. Crossing T's and dotting I's. I keep thinking at some point everything will be done and we will just have to go as is. We haven't reached that point yet, but I am hopeful!

Thanks for your continued prayers!

This morning Amberlea said we should go to the store to get all the travel things we need for Grenada. I laughed and said that I thought I better take care of what Tye and I need for Camp Savio before making any other plans for Grenada. It's funny how so much is going on but I really wouldn't have it any other way.

Tonight we will celebrate together at the 5 p.m. Mass. Father Martin will call us up on the altar for a blessing. There are 23 middle school youth and 4 adults going to camp next week, and then next Saturday we will leave with 9 High School youth, 4 college students, and 12 adults to go on our mission trip. I am the only overlapping person in those two groups and I'm thankful to be able to do these activities with nearly 50 other people. Growing in our faith is very much an individual thing, but we rely so much on the support and love and guidance of our church community and our larger community in general. Sharing our faith with others gives us the chance to better understand ourselves. Witnessing others have a relationship with Christ inspires us to grow closer to Him too.

Backtracking

The countdown continues. My heart is filled with excitement and anticipation, and just seeing this come to fruition is amazing! I have learned so much on this journey to preparing for Grenada. I would do things differently the next time because an international trip is so much more expensive than staying here in the Midwest. The planning is different, the fundraising is different. But I have no regrets and am very proud and humbled at the same time to be able to bring this to St. Gregory's. 

As most of you probably know by now, I will be returning to teaching at St. Gregory's School in the fall. We are in the middle of interviewing some very qualified and amazing candidates to replace me. This means that any decisions about future youth mission trips won't be up to me. But I am hopeful that the plan will continue as I had envisioned, with youth going on yearly summer mission trips, and every so many years (maybe every 3-4), that mission trip will hopefully be replaced with an international trip. My job has been unique in the fact that I am both youth and stewardship, and I am excited that this Grenada trip has been able to meet a need for our youth, young adults and adults. I will continue as the stewardship director, and hope to work with our new youth director to plan for future trips.

Mission trips offer a unique opportunity to become immersed in your faith. I went on a mission trip to Minneapolis a few years ago, and I found myself drawn to prayer, drawn to participating in the life of the Church. It wasn't forced, but instead felt natural and comfortable, especially after spending the day in service of others. 

The group I was with happened to get moved to a soup kitchen unexpectedly. We were on site but not scheduled to serve, but they were short of help. I remember one gal crying all the way through the line. I remember a dad who made sure to get all of his family something to eat, but nothing for himself. We had to almost force him to eat, as he kept saying to save the food for the children. Children were scarfing down food like they hadn't eaten for days, and it breaks my heart to know that was probably true. People were kind. Really kind. They thanked us. Sometimes they hung their heads, maybe in shame, while others looked warmly into our eyes, connecting with us and sharing our humanity.

Some ignored us, trying to go unnoticed or blend in the wall. And inevitably, I'm sure some took us for granted and expected handouts.

I would go back again and again, day after day, if my life would allow me. I would share the joys and sorrows, I would humbly accept the grateful gestures. 

I could set aside my own worries, my own selfishness and brokenness.

Life has not taken me where I planned to go, both geographically and otherwise. I'm a planner and always need to know the steps in front of me. I have spent hours begging God for answers, pleading for a better understanding of what my purpose really is in life. 

Catholic Heart Workcamp shared this prayer with us before leaving for our mission trip. It seems quite fitting for our mission trippers, but really to everyone as we journey through life.

LEAVE OUTCOME UP TO ME
Follow Me wherever I lead, without worrying about how it will all turn out. Think of your life as an adventure, with Me as your Guide and Companion. Live in the now, concentrating on staying in step with Me. When our path leads to a cliff, be willing to climb it with My help. When we come to a resting place, take time to be refreshed in my Presence. Enjoy the rhythm of life lived close to Me. You already know the ultimate destination of your journey: your entrance into Heaven. So keep your focus on the path just before you, leaving outcomes up to Me.