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| My Team Team 3 11-12 |
Leaving for NET, I knew that I would "Do something
Amazing!" NET's slogan for their recruitment campaign. I was ready to preach
the gospel to the young people of the Catholic Church. I was ready to abandon
most of my worldly possessions and take with me only a suitcase, backpack,
sleeping bag and pillow, and truly live as a disciple of the Lord. I did do something amazing during my time on
NET. My team gave 124 retreats, to over 6,000 young people; we travelled over
21,000 miles across 19 states. I have had 595 young women who I have in small
groups. Young women who I got to spend time getting to know and got to share
the love of Christ with.
But while I did something amazing, something amazing was
done in me. I brought something back with me that did not I did not pack in my
suitcase or backpack nine months before. Deep in my heart I came to the
understanding of what it means to love Christ and what it means to live my life
totally for him. I came back home transformed.
I was transformed into a new person, a new creation. "Therefore, if anyone
is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has passed away, behold the new has
come." 2 Corinthians 5:17
I was changed spiritually, mentally, and even physically.
The physical change came from all the pizza, pulled pork sandwiches, and random
van food that I ate. But that is another story, the real change happened
inside. Prior to my year on the road, I knew that God loved me. I grew up
hearing that God loved me, but I never could truly say that I loved God. Sure I
was coming close to understanding but I just could not grasp it. I felt that He
loved me but I just wasn't quite good enough, in his embrace of all his people
but I was just beyond the fingertips of his embrace. I felt he loved me but he
loved other people a lot more than he loved me. During Training at WAPO when
Christopher Krocker gave the "God the Father" Talk, something clicked
inside of me. It made sense. I KNEW what it meant to be loved by God. The next
day we sang the song "How He Loves" and I sang it with all my heart.
"If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking and heaven meets earth like
an unforeseen kiss, and my heart turns violently inside of my chest I don't
have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way Oh, how He loves
us." I sang those words with all my
heart, as I received Him the Eucharist at mass that day and I truly felt the
tender embrace of our Lord. I understood what it meant to be in love with the
Lord. My heart felt like it was going to pop right out of my chest. That
feeling has not left me. Every time I receive Him in the Blessed Sacrament my
heart is overwhelmed by the love of the Lord.
The theme verse of my NET year was "that your love may
increase ever more" taken from Philippians 1:9. That theme transcended
over my entire NET year, the theme of God's love and my love increasing. My personal
prayer was very much focused on what it meant it be loved by God. My team's
unofficial song was "Unending Love" by Hillsong. That tiny
understanding of what it means to be loved by God is what I took away from NET.
It is something that will hold dear and continue to seek to grow in
understanding of.
While I learned what it meant to be loved by God, I was
learning how to love and to be loved by others. My team taught me that.
Something I have learned is that everyone has this one major fear that drives
the way they live their life. My fear is to be unwanted/unloved. I am so afraid
to end up totally alone. In my past I have had some rocky times that have
deeply rooted my fear in my heart. I didn't have many friends and was from a
very young age teased and bullied. I was made to feel that I had no worth from
the people around me. I have only been
in one relationship with a guy, and it was not very healthy. He used "love"
to try and make me change the core of my beliefs, and made me feel worthless
for the sake of what I thought was "love." When I refused to sleep with him, he told me
that no one would ever love me because I was pathetic. I had a warped ideal of
what love really was.
My team showed me
real love and allowed me to love them back. Through them I truly learned what
it meant to love your brothers and sisters.
God's love for me was made evident for me in my teammates. Team life and
living in community was something that drew me to NET. I wanted people in my
life to affirm me and to push me to learn to be closer to Christ. I wanted true
brothers and sisters in Christ. God answered my prayers. My brotherhood did
something for me that I cannot even express in words. They restored my faith
there are truly good men in the world, men that seek to guard women's hearts
and want to up hold their dignity. Something that I had lost faith in before I
served with NET. My sisterhood taught me
to listen first, to put myself last, and what it means to be a beautiful woman
of God. They listened to me and wanted
to understand what was going on deep in my heart. My team loved me and showed
me that I deserve to be loved. They made me laugh for hours on end, they made
me cry, and at times they made me angry, but through it all they led me to
greater holiness. Anney, Matt, Nichole, David, Mary, Kolbe, Chris, Zach, and
Jessica, you all have shown me Christ's love and helped me to be me a better
person.
"I thank me God
always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of
the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints, and I prayer
that the sharing of your faith may promote the knowledge of all the good that
is ours in Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my
brother(s) and (sisters), because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed
through you." Philemon 1:4-7 (The Lord revealed this verse to me during
one of our team prayers, since then it has been my special prayer for my
teammates)
Life with NET was not easy. Those days when you wake up at
4:45 AM after going to sleep well after midnight, or when you are crying
because you don't know what your mom looks like because when you left she had
no hair from going through cancer treatments, or even when you were sick and
running a fever on a overnight retreat at a camp in the middle of nowhere,
while your female Team Leader is away, and you wake up in the morning to find
out that the heater was not working and it was 43 degrees in your bedroom, or even you have a small group that
tells you that everything you are telling them is BS. Those are the days where
you want to just say, "God Today I give up! I want to go home." But
somehow even with the bad days God still worked. Even if everything seemed to
go wrong on retreat, there was always at least one young person that walked
away changed. Even in our weakness God used us. He doesn't need perfection. He
alone is perfect, what he needs is us. When we open ourselves up to be used by him
that is when our lives truly can change and can impact the work around us.
Life post NET is just as hard as a year on the road. With
NET you spend nine months in a bubble, surrounded by people that love you and
push you to grow in your faith. They understand what we are experiencing
because they are going through the same things. Life after the road was
difficult because no around me understood what I had been through. I was in a place where no one really
understood what NET did to change me. My parents didn't even come to the
Thanksgiving Banquet, so they didn't get the taste of NET that most parents
experience. I found it hard to put
myself back into normal life. I mourned the loss of my team and really missed
the positive atmosphere that I had been surrounded by. I especially missed
praying with my team. That is something NETters know, how to do is give the
Lord praise. While I have personal prayer almost every day community prayer
time is limited. It was hard to cope for a while. It was not something I was
prepared for.
Life didn't stop for me after I got back home. I was one of the older people who were on my
team. I turned 24 on the road and had already graduated college. So I didn't
have any set plans coming off of NET. During the summer I kept up with doing
ministry work. I even got to share my testimony to over 2000 young women at
Steubenville on the Bayou, which was an amazing gift. I staffed a camp in Colorado with my diocese. I interviewed for a couple of ministry jobs.
But that was not what the Lord wanted for me. I ended up taking the most
humbling job I could imagine, working for my parents, picking pecans. It was an
experience that was very painful at times. It is hard to be a 24 year old who
is used to freedom and live under your parents. Working for them reminded me every
day that I am called to follow the Lord even if He leads me to a place that I
really didn't want to be. The Lord put me exactly where he needed me. Working
with my parents I had the unique ability to minister one on one to them. I was
quietly able to minister to them by example, by wanting to stop and pray before
meals, wanting to know more about the faith, having the ability to share my
faith, and a willingness to serve. With time my mom, took notice and began to
ask me questions about faith and my relationship with God. It was such a gift
and truly amazing to be able to minister to the people that raised me.
My ministry work has not stopped it had just changed. I
moved to San Antonio in January and started to work as an administrative
assistant. I am not working directly in ministry but I know I exactly where I
am supposed to be. I have been able minister to the people I work with and have
some really beautiful conversations with one of our agents about why I am
Catholic and about how the Lord has work in my life. I have explained more
people than I can count about NET. I explained to some wide eyed Jehovah's
witnesses that Catholics really do send out missionaries. I am currently on team for a Young Adult
retreat coming up this June. I am even
helping with brainstorming and development for the newly formed Young Adult ministry at my new
parish. I am also lucky enough to be a member of the same parish as one of my
teammates and a couple other former NETters and some future NETters as well. I
know I am in a good place and that the Lord has great things planned for me.
I have experienced something that only a few people well
ever understand. Serving with NET not only allowed me to minister to the young
people of the church, it allowed me to grow and blossom as a young Catholic.
The fire I received from the Holy Spirit at my Confirmation was set aflame for
the Lord through NET. NET is a gift to the Catholic Church. They take willing
Catholic young people and transform them into powerful missionaries for the New
Evangelization. I know this because I am the product of their ministry. I first
went on a NET retreat when I was in the fifth grade and I remember thinking I
wanted to be like the NETers. I never would have guessed that more than ten
years later I would be a NETter myself.
The only talk I gave on the road was the "Fear
Not" talk. It was the short wrap up talk that explained what the four
things are we can take away from the retreat and use in our everyday lives.
They are the four things I have come to depend on, prayer, sacraments,
fellowship and service. I seek the Lord every
day in prayer. Sometimes I fail at my 30 minutes a day but try to give the Lord
at least a tiny bit of each day. I find
my true nourishment on the Eucharist and acknowledge my sinfulness in
confession. I try and surround myself with people that will bring me closer to
heaven rather than those who would lead me away from Christ. I also serve
others. Blessed Mother Teresa said, "We cannot all do great things, but we
can do small things with great love." I am not in the position to do great
things. Yes, I served a year with NET and it was great, but I cannot do that forever. I am called to
serve the people around me, to be a missionary right where I am. I spread the
love of Christ in my own community, thought the way I talk, the way I dress,
and the way I act. I am called to be an example.
While a year has passed some much has changed and much has
remained the same. I am still broken, I am still imperfect, and I still am a
sinner. What has changed is that I am confident in knowing that I have the love
of a father that surpasses all understanding, and I have true and lasting
relationship God whom I am in love with. I know that while I am broken I am not
shattered. I am a work in progress and He will bring his masterpiece to
completion.
I pray especially for NET and their mission. I am so
thankful for the opportunity to serve with such an amazing ministry and am
honored to be called a NET Alumna. It was the most challenging thing I have
done to date and has transformed my life. It opened my eyes to the love of
Christ and allowed me to share that love. It gave me true brothers and sisters.
The talks given during training are still helping me to grow in my faith. The
tools I was given by NET have help to form me into a lifelong missionary. Pope
Francis said in his homily on March 14 2013, “We can walk as much as we want,
we can build many things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ things go
wrong."
"I am confident of this, that the one who began a good
work in you (me) will continue to complete it till the day of Christ
Jesus." Philippians 1:6
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