Bonjour! Salaam aleekum! My name is Sofia and I am 23 years old. I recently grad­u­ated from Saint Mary’s College in Indiana where I studied International Development, Anthropology and German. I am very happy to say that begin­ning in January, I will be spending two years living and serving with Heart’s Home in Dakar, Senegal.

I have been a mis­sionary kid for as long as I can remember. My parent’s work in med­ical mis­sions brought our family to reside in Africa and then in South America. I am very grateful for my upbringing and the expo­sure I had to expe­ri­encing other cul­tures and under­standing the value in serving others with one’s time, talent and trea­sure. Now that I have grad­u­ated from col­lege, I want to expe­ri­ence mis­sionary life as an adult and dis­cern whether con­tin­uing a sim­ilar lifestyle is the path for me. I found myself drawn to Heart’s Home because of its explicit Catholic iden­tity and its emphasis on cul­ti­vating a strong spir­i­tual life. Heart’s Home was one of the few orga­ni­za­tions that I came across that brought com­mu­nity, prayer, and prac­tice together under the same roof. This is impor­tant to me because I believe that a strong rela­tion­ship with God is the crux of being able to more per­fectly serve, under­stand and love others. And really, that’s what this par­tic­ular mis­sion is all about: to be a loving pres­ence to those that society often finds exhausting to love or “un­fit­ting” to receive love, e.g. the elderly, the men­tally ill, the home­less, etc.

I wel­come all those who are inter­ested to join me in my mis­sion to be a loving pres­ence to others. Whether you are able to con­tribute with money, prayers, advice, (etc.!) please know that I am only able to take two years to make myself avail­able to others in this way because of YOUR gen­erosity. During my time abroad, I will be writing let­ters to update all of my bene­fac­tors and prayer war­riors on the work I will be doing, the friend­ships that will arise, my moments of epiphany, and the overall trans­for­ma­tion that will occur in my heart over the next two years. To join my mis­sion in any of the ways men­tioned above and receive these updates in your inbox (or mailbox) every now and then, please click the “Sponsor” link below.

I once heard a speaker say that no matter the sit­u­a­tion “if love hap­pens, then God wins!” This is the Heart’s Home mis­sion in a nut­shell. My dear friends, I invite you to join me in making this vic­to­rious love a con­crete reality.

Sponsor Sofia