Wednesday, July 25, 2007

You Are Loved

So much has happened since I last updated. I hope I expressed my deep emotions for Roger the Defensive Driving course instructor…I think I have. (I draft on word because I can’t get on the internet in my room…I pull the whole copy and paste business)

This installment of the recap of my journey is going to really long, but totally exciting. So much has happened and I am on the brink of so many exciting things to happen. My question, where do I begin?

I think I will begin with my announcements….tomorrow, Thursday July 19, 2007 is a day to mark down as one of the best days of my life….I will be embarking upon mankind. Yes, after 2 weeks of being formed in my spiritual bubble at Queen of the Family Retreat Center, I will be escaping the premises to take a trip to the amazing, the wonderful, the Mecca of consumers all across the U.S.—yes I am describing the one, the only, my haven, Target (I really hope you have said Tarje as if I am speaking to you in French, or it is not as exciting). Jesus has been blessing me left and right this week. Target is merely the icing on the cake. But first, allow me to explain my sick obsession with Target. While I was still a resident of Colerain, I would make my visit to Target at least 3 times a week. I just enjoyed looking around. Walking up and down the aisles de-stresses me. It’s totally sick and twisted, I realize. But I have been really yearning to just venture down the aisles marked in red, searching, imagining, picking up and putting down….and tomorrow at last my day has come! I actually told my Spiritual Guide yesterday that I was really missing it, and after announcing the dress code for the YFE (which is in less than a week! Eeeeeeee!) me and many others going through the realization that no we did not own a black skirt or multiple white shirts, a Target run had to be put on the agenda. What a sweet surprise.

The other ways Jesus has touched my heart this week…..

  • ECYD workshops instead of classes
  • Cinnamon rolls at breakfast
  • Ice cream sitting in the dish room—we all got to finish it out of this huge box—but see, you have to imagine this. 45+ young women swarming like bees to honey, spoon in hand, willing to sacrifice people’s eyes for chocolate…hilarious, totally unlady like and oh so freaking delicious after I was raving chocolate all day. Thank you Jesus.
  • On the day I am craving pizza, my favorite food on this planet, I sit down for lunch and what is put in front of me, none other than steaming fresh pizza
  • That night, we had French fries and real salad for dinner (by real salad I mean romaine lettuce. Yum!)
  • Adoration….I got to sing to Jesus and it was amazing.
  • New jeans in the smallest size I have ever bought in my entire life

So that’s been my little gifts from Jesus. I am so spoiled.

Now for the meat of this “installment”. As promised a recap from Missions. Let’s just say that I was not aware that I have potential to be as flexible as God proved that I am. He’s kinda sneaky.

Now lets talk about this quickly—I am told we are going to the ghetto. I was reminded that I was going to the ghetto about 27,000 times in one sentence. So I’m prepping myself for Over the Rhine, right? Like I am expecting to get shot. No big thang. I exercised my new favorite prayer, “Lord, give me the grace to be a saint, the stamina to be a missionary and the courage to die a martyr” and hopped in my car for a day of Missions.

Well, much to my surprise, we arrive to a parish in an area equivalent to College Hill. Laughter burst from me (charitable laughter). The other girls I was with were FREAKING OUT. Like ridiculously freaking out. One told me she was scared for my safety because I didn’t see the danger in the situation. At this point I am choking on my laughter as I mutter a “thanks for the concern”, but want to let out, “do you realize I want to me Mother Teresa. I want to be in Calcutta, with the poorest of the poor, in probably one of the more dangerous countries to be in right now” but, out of charity and prudence, I left it there. Hysterical. I’m laughing right now thinking about it. Mom, dad—thank you for nurturing my love for all people even in “dangerous” situations.

Allow me to explain Missions to those of you who don’t know what Missions are. Missions are when a group of missionaries go door to door and talk to people, inviting them to church, confession, etc and then invite the children to a mini-camp for the afternoon. Can you understand why I flipped when I heard this is what I would have to do? But Mary gave me the graces to suck it up and just do it. By the end of the weekend, I actually enjoyed it. There are 2 amazing stories I have to share, but first I have to say that I love little boys. I want to somehow upload pictures onto this page (I don’t how, and of course I did not take any of the pictures. Everyone else did. I had my camera, but I was just too busy living.) but there is the cutest picture of me and my little boy fan club. Adorable. This weekend God confirmed my vocation of motherhood and told me to take a deep breath because there are going to be a lot of little boys and all of my hair might be gone by the time they are grown, but there are procedures for that, right? J

Anyway, my stories…the first day as I was wondering the streets with my team member, I approached a homeless man aimlessly pacing the sidewalk. Confident, I walk right up to him, my partner Arlene dragging behind me, “Maria is this a good idea?” My response, “Of course it is! We are here for Jesus. If we die, we go straight to heaven!” I felt like MT. I know she was with me in this encounter. The eyes I looked into were the eyes of Jesus—gentle, curious—I immediately fell in love with stammering Leo. Despite the fact that I could barely understand what he was saying, we managed to get to the common understanding that he would be attending Mass on Sunday with me. Perfect! 1 soul! YEA! From Leo, I proceed to give a group of the nicest drug dealers I have ever met Rosaries. We even prayed a decade on their “corner”. Isn’t God funny? It was hilarious, because Arlene and I didn’t know they were drug dealers until we went to the next door and they told us. After this little adventure, we had the kids camp, and then came back home to debrief and get ready for Saturday.

As we were talking that night, I was discouraged to not have an amazing story to share and being typically selfish and being about “me”. God kinda put me in my place this weekend. Saturday, my group went to this house of Malaysian immigrants. Only one of them, a younger woman, spoke English. Our theme for the day was Mary, so that was our mission, to really share our love of Mary, whatever. So we start talking to this woman, and you could just see the desire fro truth in her eyes. Luke’s Gospel came to mind and the Annunciation, so we get it out and read it with her. Low and behold, her name is Mary and she has always wanted to know where it came from—all her mother told her was a Priest delivered her, and so she gave her a “Catholic” name. I gave her the Bible and assured her that Mary was with her in a special way—her whole face changed as my attitude toward Missions changed. God revealed to me in this encounter that He has called me to be a missionary since I was born. My idea of what that would entail (saving the starving children in Africa) and His invitation to be a co-worker and live my day to day life as a missionary in every single circumstance are both necessary and equally important. After that day, I can proudly say I am a missionary, but I am still asking for the grace and for the courage, but I think that is a process and a prayer that will be a part of the rest of my life.

And this brings me to Sunday. I miss parish Mass! You never know what you got until you don’t got it any more. Mary, unfortunately did not come, but I’m praying that mustard seeds were planted and will harvest. However, Leo did come. I saw him from above (their music director had a family emergency, so I sang and pulled one of our team members to play the piano), left the choir and went to sit with him. He was so excited! I gave him a huge hug, and lets just say that having the Good Samaritan as the Gospel was amazing. During that weekend, I was given the opportunity to be the Good Samaritan…what a privilege! This is funny—I know Jesus smiled. I asked Leo if he was Catholic, if he knew what the Eucharist was, etc. and he stuttered, “yes, yea” whatever. So I go with him up to Communion, whatever, I’m walking back and when I get to the pew he is still holding the host and says, “so I eat this?” all that is going through my mind is “Glory said to make sure they didn’t get Communion if they weren’t Catholic” and then there was peace. “Yes” I replied. I know Jesus was welcomed into Leo’s heart that day. It was actually simplistically beautiful. My quote to conclude Missions is one from our founder, Nuestro Padre. He says,

“Love gives an eternal value to our words and deeds.”

I came home exhausted, I couldn’t even dribble the ball down the court while we played basketball. People aren’t kidding when they say apostolates suck energy from places you didn’t even know you have it stored.

Ok, its Thursday. I fell asleep while writing last night….today was possibly the best day since we got here—most definitely the best outing. Lets just say that the Super Target we visited today will never be the same. 45 girls burst through the doors with a time constraint. Talk about pressure. Now I don’t know if I explained the reason for the Target run….for the YFE we have a dress code that no one brought with. So now, we all have the same black skirt and the same 3 white shirts. Awesome. But oh my goodness, I don’t think I have ever been so excited to see or be in a Target. And that as only the beginning of the day—so if you can possibly imagine, it only got so much better.

We then went to a park to play sports have lunch and go kayaking. I can’t help but burst into giggles just thinking about what happened. But before I go into the story, it has taken me 4 tries to finish this. I will not give in until it is finished tonight!

Okay so we are kayaking, I’m self-proclaiming myself Pocahontas, I had braids and everything, quite appropriate. The day couldn’t be more perfect, blue skies, sun shining…. So my French-Canadian friend and another girl are trying to catch up to me to splash me. Now I am going to shar a piece of information about myself to you—I absolutely 100% detest with a big burning passion to get wet while wearing clothes and underwear. I can’t begin to explain how much this irks me. So, as I’m sure you can imagine, I am hauling you know what down this lake to escape those two. Well on the way back around the riverbend, after they had given up, they decided to try again. This time, I am just laughing so hard, and at one point as I am trying to glide away, I look back, a bit too fervently, and TIP MYSELF. Shocked, I could do nothing but laugh. When I went to turn over my kayak, it was filled with water, so I had to call over two more kayaks, one with one of my favorite consecrated, Glory who is sometimes hyper-responsible. (but thank God there is one in the group). After what seemed hours and the use of muscles I didn’t know I had, we finally got the kayak flipped, which left me to get in. hahahaha. I literally, flipped over the side like a fish out of water. Curled up in the kayak, a single kayak, I add, Arianne, the mischievous French-Canadain is out of her kayak and wants to get in with me. As she tries to get in the kayak flips again. We are dying in the water, completely useless and suddenly, the sky turns black. I’m talking night here people. I thought the stars were gonna come out of hiding. Glory is freaking out, “GET IN YOUR BOAT. GET IN YOUR BOAT” which is not helping the situation whatsoever, I start laughing, Jan—it was a show, if you will. J eventually, as the waves (where did those even come from?) begin to dance to the shore, I flop again into the kayak in one of my more gracefully moments of my life and try to turn around for the dock. I’m not strong enough to fight the waves, and I am STILL laughing hysterically. All of a sudden, the lifeguards come out perched on their little motor boat saying into a megaphone ,”EVERYONE OUT OF THE WATER! EVACUATE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY!” I am already significantly far away from the others going my own little way toward a rocky shoreline, significantly from the beach the lifeguars were herding us to. In that moment, I decide to just go with the flow (hahaha) and stop paddling and trust that God would lead me to the rock—so I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. I was finally washed ashore, got out of the kayak, pulled it onto the grass and 2 girls came running after me to help me carry the kayak to the beach. While I am walking back, Arianne sees me, comes running toward me yelling, “I thought you died!” Glory sees me and begins to laugh a “Maria I should want to kill you, yet I am slightly jealous you got to live that adventure not me” laugh (she’s a thrill seeker) and then says, “we just told the lifeguards to go find you because we thought you were gone!”

And then we got pizza donated to us.

It was then dubbed the best outing ever. How awesome? And I haven’t been able to tell that story with a straight face since it happened, which was Thursday and it is Sunday.

There has been so much going on this week—I played basketball on our team against the Consecrated (huge deal) and knocked over our special guest, Monica Traveno, who is the head of the head if the consecrated women, like she works side by side with Nuestro Padre..whoops. My 5th grade aggression came back Dad, proud? HahaJ we lost, but they have a 6th player…JC.

Today was Co-Worker Appreciation day—and it was fabulous—we did nothing all day! And we were allowed to run to Starbucks for sports—yes I have been investing in a lot of running and have high aspirations to run a 5K at Christmas. I’ll have to see, and then next year the Flying Pig Half marathon? Seems like a nice goal. 2 days until we leave for the YFE and I can’t tell you the excitement buzzing through here. Aunt Meg got to yfe.org and click on the guest speakers I think and check out Eduardo and then google the movie trailer for Bella. Like do it right now—I will be meeting him in a few days, falling in love and getting married. I don’t think you will be at all disappointed in my choice. As one of the other Consecrated has said with such wisdom, “you have already given your 50% by falling in love with him at first sight. Now all he has to do is put in his 50%. Easy.” Mary Maher, how I love your logic!

Lets see what else…..God is still daily telling me to shut up and be still and know He is God regularly in prayer…..and to continue to form my will….But I know without one doubt in my mind that this is where I should be, and if I wasn’t, tonight confirmed it yet once again—Mom you will so appreciate this.

The Consecrated made us a powerpoint with pictures from The Passion of Christ (which I have still not seen and might be counted as a mortal sin here…whoops) and Mom my song, “You Are Loved” by Josh Groban was the song that played through it. I cried like I did Christmas Eve when I head it for the first time. He loves me—and He would do it all over again just for me. I am now trying to ease His pain and lighten the load of the cross my completely giving Him my life this year.

If you’re having a bad day, meditate on this as your personal message from Jesus—

You Are Loved

(Josh Groban—I have decided Jesus totally sings like him. If you have never heard him, buy, borrow—just get your hands on his music!)

Don’t give up

It’s just the weight of the world

When your heart’s heavy I

I will lift it for you

Don’t give up

Because you want to be heard

If silence keep you I

I will break it for you

Everybody wants to be understood

Well I can hear you

Everybody wants to be loved

Don’t give up

BECAUSE YOU ARE LOVED

Don’t give up

It’s just the hurt that you hide

When you’re lost inside

I will be there to find you

Don’t give up

Because you want to burn bright

If darkness blinds you

I will shine to guide you

Everybody wants to be understood

Well I can hear you

Everybody wants to be loved

Don’t give up

BECAUSE YOU ARE LOVED

Don’t give up

It’s just the weight of the world

Don’t give up

Everyone needs to be heard

YOU ARE LOVED

Jesus loves you.

I miss you and am praying for you.

Until after the YFE! (expect am exciting love story)

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Life is....

What day is it? All my days have been morphing into one giant day….but guess what is totally exciting? It’s Wednesday night, 10:57 pm. I am sitting at the desk in my newly arranged room (I got bored with the way it was a few nights ago and while praying, was inspired to move the furniture) after the best day yet after getting here.

I am in complete awe with this man whom I call my boyfriend Jesus. I don’t even know where or how to start what I want to say—there is just so much. I find it totally hilarious how God works in my life first of all—there is not a lot of in between—I am either with it or not with it if that makes sense. I think I will begin with my prayer experiences the past few days, because prayer is my oxygen. I need it for survival, I need it to wake up, to function, to run my apostolets, to be charitable, to just be fully alive as Maria.

For those of you (Jan) who were mildly freaked out about my state of mental stability from the last long post, things are on the upswing. Allow me to describe what has been happening. “Developing a Strong Interior Life” has been the theme of the week. For most of you, you realize a large motivation for me to give a year was to get my shit together (sorry, it is necessary) which basically boiled down to developing a life rooted strongly in prayer. Knowing that was a need in and for my life, this program was even more enticing. Our morning mediations have been based on forming prayer and having dialogue with Jesus. For our compositions of place, we have been guided to travel with Jesus and learn from Him how to pray. So this is Maria in the 5th pew of the chapel every morning: Jesus, I am focused. I approach you this morning with a humble heart. I desire to pray like you, to know how to love you more, how to form my heart like your heart so I can love like you. Please, let me join you….oh that is a cute skirt…..whoops. sorry Jesus, I got distracted..

He invited me to follow Him—where did we go? Let’s see to the top of a mountain (He wouldn’t let any of the other apostles go with Him, just me) I sat with Him in Gesthemane, but nothing was working. My heart desired to meet Him personally, so I could see Him as a real person, my best friend and the love of my life. Its hard for some to believe, but I am impatient, and even go so far as to challenge God with His timing of things. God what the heck? I am praying fervently. I am even not dominating the conversation. Do you remember yesterday? I didn’t even talk once—I listened even during my extra visits. What are you thinking?

Today, this morning, after breakfast I went into the chapel to visit Jesus. Sitting in my seat, the 5th row, I squinched my brow to begin my fervent silence of prayer. And then, it happened. Something just clicked—I was in a coffee shop. As I begin the whoops Jesus, distracted again, the glass door swings open, the bell rings and in walks a man in jeans, a t-shirt and sandals. His hair, shaggy and misplaced slid to the right and fell a bit in His eye. Eyes that glistened and spoke directly to my soul. He smiled—a beautiful, warm, welcoming and completely, totally loving smile, and He just said “hey Maria. Thanks for coming to see me.” Well not only was I stunned by His good looks, but it finally happened. Jesus was sitting down in front of me. In an atmosphere no one imagined I would find Him, not even me. Caught off guard I asked Him—“have you been listening to anything I have been saying?” and he just laughed, which caused me to crack a smile. In this moment, I made the commitment I have been longing to make for so long—the commitment to accept Jesus and welcome Him into my life as my best friend. We met all day in these casual ways—passing on the street, we got some pizza and walked down a crowded city street at sunset. It was beautiful and exhilarating. As we walked He stopped and looked at me and said The battle is over. You are mine—by your own decision. This doesn’t mean that you won’t fall, or it’s going to be easy, but now you know how to find me, how to ask for my help and my love.

Not only was Jesus meeting with me today, but Mary sent me some graces today that were amazing—one in particular. I hope Peter Donald my favorite friend, won’t mind me sharing this….you all know how athletic I am—I enjoy picking flowers on the soccer field and braid girls hair on the side lines and when the ball comes toward me I run away from it….Believe it or not, I am getting better and am becoming totally obsessed with playing basketball. But that’s not my story. So in the spirit of the movement, I am trying to offer up events in my days for souls. Each of my family members has an event, and Peter D’s just happens to be sports. Today, I was running (yes friends, by my own free will I was running) and after one trip around the loop I was panting, dripping sweat and my legs were sore. Turning to go in, my little angel Ashley calls, “c’mon, lets go around again.” Today was supposed to be my “hard” day, which constituted another lap that I was going to give up. But how could I let that request go? So I continued. When I was about ¼ mile away from the house, I felt like I was going to fall over. A voice inside nagged, “just stop. Walk the rest. You’ve done enough” and these comments were followed by an almost cackle. Satan. While this was happening I passed a statue of Mary, and suddenly I received a new spurt of energy that no joke sent me into full blast sprint for ¼ mile to the house. The whole time I combated Satan saying “by the power of Jesus and the grace of Mary, you WILL NOT touch Pete. You may not have him—and you can’t touch me either” and for the whole ¼ mile (that was a lot for me people going full blast) I said that over and over again until I somehow ended up at the front door in front of our statue of Mary. Talk to be about graces—so Pete, I hope you felt that one buddy. Literally, I was dripping in sweat—but I don’t think the running is all to blame—there was a minor battle going on also. My devotion to Mary is growing—I have asked her to meet Grandpa at the gates of Heaven with St. Therese, of course. One of the girls here says a beautiful decade of the rosary for Mary. For every bead, you ponder a virtue Mary possessed. I’ve started to say it everyday after lunch, and I encourage you to also and encourage your daughters to do it also!

Angelic Sweetness

Ardent Charity

Blind Obedience

Constant Mental Prayer

Divine Purity

Divine Wisdom

Heroic Patience

Lively Faith

Profound Humility

Universal Mortification

This is the prayer that accompanies it:

Ave Maris Stella

Hail, bright star of the ocean,

God’s own Mother blest,

Ever sinless Virgin,

Gate of heavenly rest.

Taking that sweet Ave

Which from Gabriel came,

Peace confirm within is,

Changing Eva’s name

Break the captives fetters,

Light on the blindness pour,

All our ills expelling,

Every bliss implore

Show thyself a Mother;

May the word Divine

Born for us thy Infant,

Hear our prayers through thine

Virgin all excelling,

Mildest of the mild

Free from guilt, preserve us,

Pure and undefiled

Keep our lives all spotless

Make our way secure,

Till we find in Jesus

Joy forevermore.

Through the highest Heaven

To the Almighty Three,

Father, Son and Spirit,

One same glory be,

Amen.

Isn’t that beautiful? I am obsessed. This is how I got it figured—I have her and St. Joseph covering my husband….I think we are in pretty good shape! ;)

So…a bit less deep—yesterday we had “Defensive Driving” with probably the funniest and cutest “baby boomer” ever. Roger…God love him. Unfortunately I was completely immature, I giggled through the whole class, but he totally loved us. My friend Ashley and I were sitting at the front table (yes of course, I was obnoxious out in the open) and we compiled a list of Roger quotes. I will share with you my favorite quote “If someone is tailgating you, don’t suddenly stop—they will get out of their car and shoot you with their gun.” I’m sorry—after four hours of this I couldn’t help myself. And also—it all goes back to Murphy’s Law. That was our Defensive Driving Class.

Today was our outing day and it was so much fun! We explored Christmas Town, otherwise known as Frankenmuth, MI. Cute and extremely German, we spent the day trying fudge, eating ice cream and exploring the shops including the extensive CHRISTmas Shop and we visit Stille Nacht Chapel. For those of you who are not up on your German, that translates to Silent Night. J And now we are back, writing letters and getting ready for our weekend of apostolates—I am working on Missions in a “ghetto” of Michigan. I am so excited to take what I have learned in class and apply it—I love to “do” Jesus and here I go. I am a team leader and once again I have no idea what to do, but am learning slowly but surely. Its also really funny, becasu e everyone thinks that I would love Missions, but I feel a bit uncomfortable, so it will be a stretch—but stretches are great—God is gonna teach me something!

I can’t wait for my next post—I’m sure I will have some great testimonies after Missions. Until then, you are all in my prayers. I’m taking your names to Adoration tonight! Keep me and the souls we will be reaching this weekend in your prayers! Love you!

Monday, July 9, 2007

Dad this one is for You

My daddy asked if I would update the blog more than once a week--I can't make any promises, but here I am!

Thanks everyone for the prayers--life is going a lot better. I am the PR representative and am working on helping the girls fund raise--Jan, you've taught me well. I'm lighting some fires if you will.

This is to all you coffee drinkers out there--I am slowly immersing my way into that jungle....Starbucks Vanilla Frappuccinos are an amazing mid afternoon pick-me-up (hint hint for any care packages....you can buy them in packs of 6 from any grocer/target or walmart!)

i love all of you and I'm especially praying for you Peter today!
hopefully a deeper reflection will come later this week!

until then--"if you are what you should be, you will set the world ablaze!" JP2

Friday, July 6, 2007

Hey There!

So I’m here, on day 5.

I don’t think I exactly realized I had signed up for spiritual boot camp—I’m realizing how sneaky God sometimes is. It is amazing for me to feel the spiritual growth I have experienced in the past 5 days—I can’t imagine what my insides will feel like in a year! Its so fun to be me, 100% crazy, fun Maria, and throwing into that mix a zeal for Jesus—I don’t think it is possible for life to get better.

The schedule is demanding—630 wake up, mass at 7, breakfast at 815, class 1 at 1015, class 2 1115, afternoon prayers 1130, lunch at noon, GLORIOUS NAPTIME! Class 3 at 215, free time until 5, sports 5-6, showers, dinner at 6:30, class 4 at 730, 815 night activity, 930 night prayers, 1030 lights out (thank God). That is typical, I guess, however, we haven’t had a typical day yet—the days have been crazier. They are long, but go by quickly if that can possibly make any sense.

Our group is AMAZING! We not only have barrels of fun together, but we all mesh—its unbelievable what loving Jesus can do for your social life. I am known as the exclamation point—the first night my team made up a song to the “YMCA” tune, but subbed the letters “COW” (a term of endearment for us CO-Workers), and we needed an extra letter or something, so I volunteered….you can bet that has gotten me a lot of publicity within the center—I am constantly throwing my arms over my head, smiling and yelling “EXCLAMATION POINT” to random things. And you can bet it has landed me many a job creating new activities—tomorrow night we are having “CO-Worker Ideal”—it’s gonna be a riot!

The Fourth was a ton of fun minus the fact that I missed my best friend’s birthday—we has an outing which included a trip to a park with a beach, a grill out there, ice cream (a rarity….there are no sweets here, so I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you I stocked myself up with chocolate at Dairy Queen—chocolate blizzard with Kit-Kats, cookie dough and Reeses….yum, yum, yum!) and ended with an awesome firework show on a lawn where we learned belly dancing, salsa dancing and swing dancing from each other. Talk about a blast!

I didn’t think I was going to have any second thoughts, or that I even made any real sacrifices, but its amazing how Satan has the ability to leak into our thoughts and make us doubt ourselves, or try to convince us that the one thing really wanted to escape is really what we are desiring. I told him to go to hell…..

In these past five days, I have had some amazing insights and convos with Jesus—I would like to enlighten you with a few key lines so you know where I am….

  • Listening is key to my relationship with Jesus. He has flat out told me to shut up and listen to him.
  • Along those lines, he has always been with me. I just have been too loud to hear him.
  • When I feel his presence/love its easy to love him back. But the most important time to love him is when I don’t feel it—it doesn’t mean he’s not there, because he always is. My passions are my gift, but also my cross.
  • Right now I need to focus on Jesus’ love for me, and my love for him.
  • PEERSERVERE! Don’t give up! Don’t allow your sensuality to rule you.

I feel like that it a lot. And I almost forgot—I like getting letters—my address for the summer is The Fabulous Maria (just kidding.)

Maria Lees

Co-Worker Program

751 W. Drahner Rd.

Oxford, MI 48371

I’ve been praying for all of you. I have asked Jesus to bless everyone who is praying for me in a special way—I know he will because he totally and utterly loves me…..and you too!