The Many and Varied Experiences of a Missionary

Sorry for not writing in a while. I am doing well. Right now we are in a more calm time right before the summer excitement begins. That means we have time to dedicate to our usual ministries here in Comayagua. For me, that means a lot of tutoring and other things with our scholarship program as well as catechesis in a couple of villages the Missionaries of Charity work in. Those kids are so fun.

Even though we are following the normal routine right now, it amazes me the variety of things that a missionary experiences here. There are times where you want to cry in gratitude for all that God has done, times where you don’t know what you got yourself into, times when laughter comes easily, times when you give to God the situation because it’s too big to carry. You never quite know what each day will bring and have to be ready for whatever comes. For example, coming back from one of the mountain missions we were waiting at a bus stop. Two teams had just been reunited and we were talking about how our week went and about how tired we were. Lo and behold, all of a sudden, we ended up in a deep conversation about the Church teaching on confession and the Eucharist with another person waiting. A couple weeks ago I was visiting the families of the kids in the scholarship program to hand out letters we had gotten from their sponsors. It was supposed to be a quick and easy visit, but we found out that one of the fathers had been severely burned in a cooking accident the night before. We ended up staying to talk and pray with him for quite a while. Last night I had planned to relax a little bit after dinner and work on a couple little projects I have going. God had other ideas. At dinner I learned I was going to be spending the night at a nearby retreat center with a mentally handicapped women staying there who had come to the local clinic after suffering severe abuse. I never know when my plans will be completely changed and these are only three examples, but conversations, talks, and pretty much everything else have the potential to happen without any warning. I am learning to always be ready and flexible. I am learning that one is never not a missionary. And most of all, I am learning Who’s in charge here (hint: it’s not me or any of us in the Missioners of Christ).