Hello! My name is Rhiannon, and I am an eighteen-year-old from Chicago, IL. Despite being raised Catholic and always trying my best to follow Jesus, my life has for the most part remained centered on worldly things. I always wanted to achieve in school, sports, and clubs, often putting faith on the backburner. So when I got into Stanford University (my lifelong dream school) this past March, I was more than ready to continue on my fast track to college life and then a successful career. In August, though, God called me to take a break from all of that and instead dedicate the next year of my life to Him.
What drew me to Con-solatio was the beauty of its charism: how simple presence can make an immense difference in a person’s life. As I learned about the mission and met the people who had shaped it and been shaped by it, I felt evermore drawn to their way of serving God. At orientation, we learned about how little actions and brief encounters can have such a great impact, then experienced exactly that through the friends we met. We worshiped and adored Christ through our intense prayer life, intertwining His peace into our days. Even the community life glorified God as we constantly served and relied on one another. And for the first time in my life, I learned to enter into suffering rather than shy away from it; to stand with those most in need of a friend, like Mary at the foot of the cross. I felt so close to God during that time and only desired more.
This gap year isn’t a year off from academics, but rather a different kind of schooling–an experiential, reflective, reverent way of learning. I am thrilled to be spending my mission in El Salvador, “enrolled” at a kindergarten of love. After all the graces I received from less than two weeks in Brooklyn, I can’t wait to see the innumerable ways God will work in my life over the next nine months! But this can only be possible with your prayers and support. Will you walk with me on this pilgrimage to San Salvador and to Christ?