In a life this filled, sometimes a little chaotic, and almost always “noisy,” I have been reflecting a lot on how my contemplative life and active life here on mission can coexist. The silence I’ve found here is more a stillness of heart than an absence of noise. This stillness comes in the moments when the...
Monday evenings, during Uruguayan snack time, we go to one of the poorest places in our neighborhood, “La canchita del rosario,” a place with many tin houses that surround a now fenced soccer field. For several years, this was also a very dangerous place due to drug consumption and violence. Our parish priest built a...
We have a friend- she’s quite unlike anyone I’ve met before. Though we aren't sure of her age, we think she’s around 16. From what we have heard from our neighbors and her, she has had a challenging childhood. We see her wandering around the streets most of the day, talking to herself or one...
Two months ago, I arrived at the airport here in Dakar, Senegal. I had previously heard stories of other missionaries being welcomed with big signs or parties and I had honestly hoped that such would not be the case. Thanks be to God, I was met by a tall French guy and a Ukrainian girl...
This past week, four fellow ex-volunteers and I were blessed to attend the SEEK 2025 conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Together, we represented Con-solatio at a booth amidst over 40 other organizations, sharing our mission with more than 20,000 college students. It was an incredible way to share our mission and invite others to...
Home. Just the word conjures up an ache in my heart. I lived in one home my entire childhood and it was a blessed place. I was homesick in varying degrees during my entire mission in Honduras, so I was grieved to find, when I finally returned home, that my homesickness immediately switched to being...
After working for many years in a professional field in NYC, I spent over a year in the Ukraine doing work for a humanitarian NGO. Having returned from a conflicted country, I was feeling out of place and having difficulty adjusting back to our affluent society....
Every Wednesday we take a short bus ride to the hills outside the city, to a town called Mintia, where we visit many Roma families and play with the kids. Many of the families here live in poverty, and the conditions are hard to see and harder to forget. However it’s the beauty of the...
There is such a simplicity in what we do every day. Every visit, event, or meal that we have is simple and sometimes very small, but still done with great effort and intentionality. I remember being struck by this on my first day here. After finishing Adoration, I figured we would immediately go out and...
On Friday, October 25, Gabriel M. (alum who served in Argentina) and Diana C. celebrated their wedding in San Antonio, TX. This joyous occasion was special for many reasons. It allowed us to witness the couple’s heartfelt “yes” to one another, support them on their journey, pray for and with them, and give thanks to...