Good things going on!

Hello friends, prayer partners, teens and family! Yes I am still up in the mountains and things here have been good. This weekend we have teens from St. Ann's doing their confirmation retreat and Sorority girls doing a weekend getaway to go over their values and mission from Kennesaw State University. It has been a busy but blessed day. It is exciting to watch the teens get excited about their confirmation and exhausting praying for them. Prayer lately has been hard personally because I am in a spiritual dry time, so I am trying to persevere. I know God will show up soon :) My challenge is to really be present to the people who come up so that God can work through me.

We are coming to the close of our second week. Community life is different then I thought it would be but really good! The other missionaries are great and crazy and fun all at the same time. It is like instantly having a lot of brothers and sisters around the same age. We live together, pray together, work together, and play together. Start praying for them now because they have to live with me for the whole year :)!! It is inspiring to watch them really pursue the heart of God in their lives. We are in the midst of planning an 8th grade retreat for Holy Redeemer Catholic School. It is a bit crazy planning a retreat in a week, but we will all be great spies as we make it MISSION POSSIBLE. God is in control and "all things are possible with God"... Anyway...thank you for your continued prayers and support! I love you all and can't wait to here from you soon!

Blessings,

Carla

Tuesday, Sept 16th Rafting Adventure

(Here are some pictures of the missionaries I work with.  The top pic is of Toph, Sean and Reggie.  The second is of Colleen, me and Danielle.  We are eating out at a Mexican Restaraunt on our first day off!  The third is Shawn, Kelsey, and Reggie on our first trip to get supplies from Home Depot.  Alex isn't in any of the pictures but I promise he is  still alive!)

So things here have been really good and challenging all at the same time.  I love all the missionaries and enjoy each of the unique personality.  The scedule is full and we spend about 3 solid hours in prayer, which is kicking my butt.  It has been really good.  I have been settling in a bit more and it has been fun to serve the groups that are coming up here.  It has been funny to be classified as a missionary, but it has opened up the door to have some real conversations to people about God and faith.  I find that as we serve the retreats coming up here and go out into the community in Clayton and Tiger Ga that people are waiting for the invite to talk about God.  There has been some really God moments and conversations over the last couple of days.

Today we took at Community trip White Water Rafting!!  It was an all day adventure and I must day that I didn't fall out of the boat once...but I did jump out a couple of times:)  We went down the Chattooga and it was really fun.  A great choice for team building.  I jumped off of 2 cliffs (not that big) and climbed under a water fall!!  It has been good.

Please pray hard for me!  If you guys have any prayer requests, email them to me, and I will offer them up at my holy hour!  Love you guys!

 

The first week...

(Pictures of Jamaica after Hurricane Gustav and a Jamaica Picture of Nathaniel and Me)

Hello friends, family, and prayer warriors. So the last couple of weeks have been crazy! I went to Jamaica to do mission work and ended up staying longer than expected when of hurricane Gustavo hit and flooded Sophie's Place where I was staying with the children. I ended up having to stay in Jamaica for an extra 4 days to help with clean up and to patiently wait for the road to be uncovered from mountain debris. God is good and he protected the children and the missionaries, so that no one in Mustard Seed was seriously hurt that day. Pray for 3 of the children who died the week following the storm. I firmly believe that they are in heaven running around and talking with Jesus!

I was home for a whirlwind couple of days, and then I was off to Covecrest for a year of mission formation and work in the mountains of Georgia. It is only Thursday and I already feel the blessings from this crazy experience. There are 8 of us missionaries as well as 3 families and 4 other single adults that are a part of the Covecrest mission. The missionaries for this year are an eclectic group of on fire Catholics. Reggie is from southern LA and loves everything Cajun. Chris "Toph" is from Ohio and just graduated from Ohio State. He wants to be a Youth Minister. Sean is from Florida and loves to cook and has crazy hair. Alex is from LA as well, and he has never lived away from home. The girls (and my house mates) are amazing. Danielle and I share a room. She came all the way from California! Pray for her extra hard since we are sharing a room...I woke her up this morning singing show tunes. Kelsey is from Minnesota and is very sweet. Colleen just graduated from Emory and loves to knit, cook, and anything that has to do with children.

Life at camp is an adventure in community. We have a Rule of Life that is based off of the Benedictine Rule. It focuses on prayer and our relationship with Christ. We pray together, eat, together, hang out together and serve together. We do a holy hour every morning from 7:15-8:15 then pray liturgy of the hours together. We eat breakfast then go into mission formation. After lunch, we do community and camp outreach. No task is too big or small for us to tackle. yesterday I climbed under bunks to clean baseboards:) We do evening prayer together and dinner then in the evenings continue our outreach or have some free time. On the weekends different groups come up to use the camp and we are the hospitality and prayer warriors for the participants while they are here. Monday is our day off! Our goal is that we are intentional with everything we do, that we give everything to God. I am excited about it this year!

I will continue to ask for prayers for me...it is a challenging living in community and surrendering some of what I want for the community. It has also been very blessed. The earlier mornings are kicking my butt too. I was used to a youth ministry schedule of sleeping in til about 8:30 a.m. The focus on prayer and the understanding that Christ is at the center of all we do is good. I desire to be so filled with Christ that his love overflows to everyone I meet. I love you guys and am praying for you. I apologize if I don't get to call and talk each week...schedules here are tight! Remember you are always welcome to come and visit!!