To All the Confused, Doubting, Lonely Catholics

My heart is stirring for you tonight. I want to say something to you that you may not have heard in a long time, something maybe you've never heard.

Don't leave. Don't walk away from the Church. We want you. We need you. You are a part of us and we are not fully ourselves without you. 

Don't believe the internet trolls who shout things like, "Well, if you don't believe it or can't agree with Church teaching, stop calling yourself Catholic." I can't pretend to know who they are talking to, because I personally try to keep a very safe distance from religious bullies, but I know they say things like that.

And look, I understand where they're trying to go. If you have decided to proclaim yourself publicly as a Catholic and then openly align yourself with things contradictory to the moral teaching of the Church in a sort of willful public disobedience, then, yes, in all honesty, we'd rather you stop calling yourself Catholic.

But you, you who is just not sure about some things, who is wrestling with how to make Jesus' command to love our neighbors as ourselves fit with moral stances that you know have hurt and distanced people whom you love from feeling worthy of Christ's mercy and salvation? We don't mean you. I don't mean you.

I want you to know that if you are wrestling and struggling and railing at God because He confuses you with His kindness and compassion and demand to be better all at the same time so that you never feel good enough, you are not alone.

If you look at the Church and wonder how it could be that so many Catholics seem to have gone so far off mission of loving people and welcoming them into a relationship with Christ, you are not alone.

If you feel like there is no safe place to say out loud that there are teachings of the Church, that even when you understand their intellectual reasoning, are difficult for you to assent to or proclaim publicly, it's not just you.

If you wonder about the Eucharist and the real of it all and long to understand more, to feel more than you do, but just, don't, that does not make you a bad person, or a bad Catholic.

If you struggle with repeated sin and fall over and over and are tempted to just walk away and find some place where you can rest and they will tell you that you are okay sin and all, we get your weariness. You're not the only sinner here.

If you have watched friends find their way to another church and seen them flourish and grow and find their purpose and be empowered there and you are resentful of that, you are not the first.

But can I ask you a favor? Please don't ditch us just yet. Because the truth is, I know if you walk away, it is not Jesus you are really rejecting, or two thousand years of beautiful tradition and sacramental grace, or the faith of your childhood that was wide-eyed for the wafer that was the Savior. It's us. 

The people next to you in the pews who don't know your name in real life but will happily rake your "type" over the coals publicly and call for your ex-communication. The people who yell and rant and make you feel like a two year old in time out for asking an honest question. The ones who live to use your sin to justify our own.

Can I just offer you my sincerest apology? I don't know how we got here either and I am with you when you think this is surely not the Jesus of the Gospels alive and active. I am not sure how to help you find a safe place for wrestling out the hard stuff, but can I just stand next to you and hope with you that somewhere within our Church there is one? And tell you that I will wait and I will search with you and I will not leave you alone in the dark?

Please don't leave us. We don't need an army of dissenters calling themselves Catholic in the public square. But we also don't need an army of believers who despise honest questions and real seeking and dark places of unbelief and drive out the parts of our own body, the Body of Christ. We need people who walk together. Who stop for the injured and the hurting and rest with them until they are ready to have their wounds bandaged and get back in the race. We need to make sure we remember that you, you stuck in the muck of life that has made you cynical about the Church, you just might be the best part of us if we could stretch ourselves out long enough to invite you to move with us, in communion with us, again.

So stay with us, please? Let us sit with you and wrestle with you and be honest with you about the fact that we too have doubted and wrestled and struggled. That we still do.  Give us a chance to make right our failures to love you where you are and be Christ present to you.

If you feel alone and like there is no way God can love you or you can stay Catholic with the thoughts and the questions you are having, can I just please say to you right here and now that He does and there is.

And can I make you another promise? If you cannot say "yes, I'll stay", if you walk away for reasons that are not mine to know, can I tell you that I won't condemn you, vilify you or stop seeing you as part of the Body of Christ? I will long for you and yearn for you, but I will not ostracize you.

But I can tell you that I will pray and I will hope that you will wrestle your way to the freedom and the joy that was meant to be ours in the sacramental life of the Church, that I will pray that on the other side of your doubt is wild abandonment to grace and a light that cannot be extinguished? That my greatest hope for you is that this place in which you find yourself now is the crossroads that leads you to a love a affair with God and His Church that you cannot help but share with others? Because that is my prayer for all of us, each of every one, those trapped in the dark place and those stuck in obstinate rule measuring and every one of us somewhere in between. Because I firmly believe it is what the Father desires for us as His children and His Church, His brothers and His bride.

And I hope and I pray you will stay and that we can find you a beacon of hope and a safe space and some light in your darkness. That we will be that hope and safety and light for you. Because that is what we were meant to be after all. And I pray you accept my apology for all the times we haven't been it.

Let us pray that the Spirit makes a way for those who long to run together towards him.

Letter To Self: You Shall Not Perish

Dear You,

 Yeah, you. You with the brave word KNOWN tattooed on your heart for the year. You with the new commitment to sink deep into the Word and speak in tongues not your own. You who thought maybe John 3:16 might be an easy place to start.

I watched you this week. I know you found out it wasn't. You found out that familiar isn't the same thing as easy with the Word of God. I watched Love pierce deep in a dark place. Say a hard thing to you.

Because you, daughter of the King, child of Light, lover of Love, you've had a pretty messy year. A good one in so many ways. You counted more than 1000 gifts. Marked them out in pen. But even still, you were dogged by the darkness of anxiety more than ever before, felt the pain of loss open fresh old wounds, trusted and mistrusted yourself for the trusting then felt the guilt of unfounded mistrust. In the Word this week, you heard it. The hard word from Love itself. You have been living like you are perishing. Instead of living this:

You who lay down your life to help others believe, you have forgotten to believe yourself. Forgotten to live knowing no one is relying on your heroics to save the day, and that the dark villain chasing you has already been defeated by the only Superpower. You forgot that at the beginning of it all He WAS. And at the end, He will be. And right now, He is.

You have spent your days swirled in the dark mist of discontent, the bitter sting of hope dashed. And you have refused to believe in eternal life. Day after day, you lived like you were perishing, like any minute now, it was all going to fall apart.

You lived, dear one, in fear. In that unspoken and lonely fear of failure who is your worst enemy yet long-time companion. You courted her a bit this year, invited her in for coffee one too many times. And she wooed with quiet accusation. Made you believe you not only needed to fear the possibility of failing but that you had already failed, that you were a failure.

That the dishes left in the sink overnight said more about you that a God who put on skin to save you. That lack of routine and continuity and kids who went to bed too late and didn't do as much school as they should have said more about you than the miraculous fact that the God of the Universe trusted you enough to put eternity in your hands in the form of people who are His. That your body's betrayal, its inability to cup life safely in its womb, its bleeding out of hope said more about you than the Blood He shed so that your pain matters for something.

That the to-do list without the check marks and the so many days you made no lists whatsoever because you didn't care any more mattered more than the fact that it is done in eternity. That what people thought about you and their approval of your work made you who you were more than the knitting He did in your mother's womb.

You ran and raced within from the menacing threats, from mortal peril, from perishing, so many days. And more often than not, you still felt you had not run fast enough, that the darkness had caught you. But:

And as you have dug back in over the last month, heard Him say, "I know. Come out of hiding, sweet one. You are known. You are loved. Even with, even if, and even when. You are loved. And there is mercy and there is grace and there is light enough for all your dark battles. I put on skin for just this reason. So you would know. I laid my head in the meanness and cold of your cruel world so you would know. I held out my hands and embraced the tears of the woman who wept at my feet and the one who his at the well and the one who banged pots and pans in the kitchen in frustration so that you would know. I became incarnate in the womb of a woman that you would know. From the inside from forever until never-ending glory shines, I have known you. In the beginning, I WAS. And because I lived, I live in you. And you do not have to perish, only believe."

I hear the question forming before you ask. And I know that you know that you already know. All you have to believe is this one little thing: it doesn't matter if you are enough because He is. It doesn't matter what you know because you are known. It does't matter what you do, because it has already been done. So just live and breathe grateful. Keep counting. Live in the embrace of His Word.

You have chosen well, sweet soul sister. This is your year to remember that you are known. And to believe. And to live like you have eternal life in you. Because you are not in peril. You shall not perish, dear. So live in the light. Let it shine on your darkest places and let them be known. Because you cannot fail at what has already been won. And you cannot perish when you know you will live forever. So live lavishly and love long and let it go. He's got you. 

Come link up with us at the Grove at Velvet Ashes  this week.
You don't want to miss the opportunity to be part of this space.

Posted: Most Clicks of All Time

When I decided to link up with the lovely Sarah's new Posted. series, I wasn't realizing how much I would need to re-read the post she would choose. Sarah asked us to link to our post with the most clicks ever.

I had an inkling and I was right. It was this post about saying goodbye to the little one we lost to miscarriage just before we headed to the mission field. Clearly, the sadness and the hop in that post resonated with people. And today, after experiencing two more miscarriages in the last six months, I needed to hear that voice of hope, surrender, and resignation. 

As I seek to spend the year letting myself be KNOWN by God, these last few days I have realized how I have hidden the deep sadness and pain of those losses from Him. Of course He sees and knows all, but in my time with Him, I have not let myself go there, feel the hard feelings, say the sad things, wonder about His will. And I need to. Because on the other side of that lies reconnecting in intimacy with my Father, and that is the road to hope, the road to heaven.

The hope that will let me repeat these words again today:

For I realize, that even when my body is well past the age of bearing babies, even if I should live until I am 100, always, I will be an expectant mother, until the day I hold my babies for eternity. And the hope of that day makes the suffering and struggle and strength to do His will in the hard times all worth it.  For with every drawing near to His cross, we draw near to the glory of the Resurrection as well, and with every bowing low to His sovereignty, we come closer to bowing before His Holy Throne.

So I am thankful this little link-up let me re-visit a part of me I needed to be blessed by today. I hope it blesses you as well.

Day 7 of Giving that Gives Back: The Philippines

A many of you know, in the last couple of days, a monster typhoon has wreaked devastation on parts of the Philippines. The death toll is rising by the minute and news is heartbreaking. The typhoon is now headed for Vietnam where it could do even more extensive damage. It is hard for us to understand the magnitude of this kind of event in a developing nation. The death tolls are higher, the recovery is endlessly more difficult and many areas that are hit in an event like this never fully recover before another disaster strikes. The people live in an endless cycle of crisis, poverty and fear.

So today, why not stop where you are and think of a way you could intentionally scale back a bit this Christmas in order to be able to help in this disaster response. There are a number of reputable organizations already mobilizing their existing forces on the ground there to get food, water and shelter to the victims.

What if you skipped stocking stuffing this year for the chance to get a family into safe shelter? Or didn't give gifts to one another as a couple and instead helped provide meals to the victims? What if you offered your kids the chance choose something to forego in order to be able to help? Like a trip to the movies that might have been on the schedule or one gift they might have been expecting. In my experience, kids are simple and heroic in their responses when offered an opportunity to help the hurting. Let your kids' be heroes.So often, we try to shield our kids from the sacrifice necessary to make a difference. We don't want them to "suffer" for the choices we want to make. But you know what? I think if we really want to change the world, the direct impact most readily available to us is our kids. If we can give them the outlook that they have the power to bring hope to a hurting world rather than trying to shield them from it, we are going to launch young adults into this world with vision and passion for justice.

Ask them what they would do if they were in charge of the response. What are their ideas on how to help? You'll be surprised at how innovative and pragmatic they are. Then introduce them to organizations doing the things they have proposed. Ask them how they might support that work. Give them the chance to think big, hope long and be heroic.

It won't be hard for you to find a group to help in the response efforts. I'm sure many of your favorite organizations would be a very worthy choice. I am going to link a few here for those who might be unsure of how to help. These organizations are groups that are already established in the Philippines and have the infrastructure in place to respond immediately to the needs that have resulted from Typhoon Yolanda. That is the one thing I would look for in choosing an organization. You want someone who has the ability to respond immediately and then sustain long-term recovery.

Here a few groups I know meet those criteria:

Feed My Starving Children

Food For The Hungry

Caritas International

Let's see what we can do this weekend to slow ourselves down, model care and compassion to our kids, encourage them to see the needs of a broken and hurting world and respond to them. However you decide to respond, I encourage you to make it a conversation with your kids. Let yourselves be surprised and moved by their hearts for their brothers and sisters and their creative problem solving skills. Give them a change to show you their inner hero.

All posts in this 31 day series are linked here.

A Common Depravity

So I stepped off a plane in the U.S. mid to end of September and then made my way toward Austin, TX. Without really knowing why or plumbing the depths of it, I had felt a magnetic pull to get myself to the States to attend Idea Camp/Human Care the moment I read about it on Jen Hatmaker's blog (which I present to you because if you don't know about it and you like to laugh while you love Jesus and ask hard questions, you should). I had already been trying to get to New Orleans in early October so this opportunity sealed the deal. I jumped on it and what developed was a month long whirl wind tour of the States for which I left my husband and five children behind in our mountain mission post caring for a 37 week pregnant woman and her four year old (a story for another day). I told you, there was not much in-depth forethought here...a blowing of the Spirit, a tongue of fire, and BAM I was off.

It wasn't really until I woke up the morning of the first day of Idea Camp in my friend Nickie's house that I started to question myself. First of all, my most wonderful hostess allowed me to prevail upon her and her family even though we had only reconnected since high school on Facebook. She jumped to open her home to me when I zipped off a message saying. "Um, if I randomly come to Austin in September to go to this thing (insert Idea Camp link), can you provide me food, lodging and transportation for free?" Because she's a good girl and she loves Jesus and a NOLA girl so loves company, she was all, "YES!"

But I woke up on Friday morning to get dressed and await the ride she had arranged for me with a neighborhood friend and had a moment AKA freak out. What the heck was I doing? My family was far away, my husband holding the home front and ministry fort, while I was about to head to some hybrid conference/conversation thing with people I did not know to meet other people I did not know who did really awesome things I did know about. And all I could think was 1. I'm way out of my league and 2. Don't genuflect and make the Sign of the Cross when you get in the pew at that Church because you are totally going to creep these people out.

You see, I was pretty sure that I was going to be the only Catholic girl at this rodeo (That's a Texas reference, get it?) And that freaked me out because...well, I don't really know why. I think it's because I really do not care. I feel comfortable, inspired and hopeful about the future around Jesus-lovers and world-changers of all sorts. But I am never quite sure if that feeling will be reciprocated. I feel like I have to awkwardly work the fact that I am Catholic into the first line of every conversation to allow people the opportunity to walk away from me if they like. So I did. And they didn't. Not one person walked away.

What I found was a space where there was a unique commonality among those gathered. It went way beyond our antiquated "we all love the same Jesus" platitude (which by the way does nothing to cross ecumenical bounds and reach out to our deepest common places and is really just kind of dumb). It took me a while to figure out what it was that was there.

There was a van ride where two women became my instant friends. There was praise and worship that just felt right. There was a room and a conversation where I felt confident that I had something worthwhile to say. There was the lady who slipped into the pew beside me and then it turned out calls Costa Rica her second home. There was excitement about the work we are doing, and ideas and thoughts and offers for collaboration. There was lunch where we broke every health code and walked straight through the kitchen to our table. And where smart women had insightful conversation.

And that was all really, really cool. But it wasn't quite the heart of the matter. There was something deep happening in the hearts of the people I watched and listened to and talked with and prayed with over those two days. Something that bound us together differently than I had found myself bound to a group of people before. I heard in their voices, sensed it in their countenance, watched it glisten in their tears. We were not made brothers and sisters by some vague same Jesus we believed in.

If you heard the conversations that took place in that space out of context and without being surrounded by that atmosphere, you would have likely though the lot of us crazy. We cried and we were angry and we were disappointed and we were confused and we felt like we had no answers. Yet we were hopeful and we were brave and we were raw and we were in the fight. And we had been broken. Fallen in love with a real God who did the hardest thing for us, broke Himself wide open. And who had in turn sent us into the world with bleeding hearts that had broken for the least of His people. And we stood there together with the pieces in our hands and wondered what came next. We shared a common depravity.

And in that broken, depraved place where we admitted that we had fewer answers than we ever thought we could and that when we really were honest we knew less now than when we started, there was a new hope born. A hope that in admitting to our common depravity we could find ways to help each other keep being brave, keep asking hard questions, keep walking through the muck and the mud of relationships and Church and Christianity and charity and what the heck does it all mean. That the blind leading the blind often find their way in the dark faster than those who think they see and so need no one.

I left that space a little timid to face the world again. There was something so, so nice about being a mess among messes and knowing it was good. And knowing that even after we had quietly admitted to our common depravity in that space, we would take the pieces of our hearts, go back out into the great wide broken world and dig in again. Do the hard stuff. Ask each other questions. Invite one another into our craziness. It framed the entire rest of my time in the States. It changed me. It gave me new friends. Friends who love my Jesus, but not only that, love Him to that point of broken wide, messy crazy. Friends with whom I share a common depravity.

I have made many friends in the last couple of years with whom I do not share denomination. And yet I am drawn deeply to them in so many ways. This is my final explanation of what it is that draws me. It may not make sense to you. That probably just means you're not crazy. Yet.

More of What We Do and Why We Do It

As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to take the time this week to highlight some of what we do in the mission field here in Costa Rica and why we do it. My last post talked about the material help we provide for poorer communities in the form of our chapel building projects.

Our main day to day work here in the field is the work of evangelization. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines evangelization as “the proclamation of Christ and His Gospel by word and the testimony of life, in fulfillment of Christ’s command.” Evangelization is also part of the fulfillment of the Great Commission in Matthew's gospel: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Movie Night in Grano de Oro

Notice that the commission Jesus left us does not only ask us to baptize the nations, but to make disciples of them and to teach them to obey everything He commanded. For this reason, we undertake a two-fold evangelization in our area. One aspect is to continue to effort of firmly planting the Gospel among the Cabecar indigenous people so that they will be baptized and made disciples. The second is the formation and discipleship of the faithful in rural Costa Rican communities of our parish. 

One aspect of the life of the Church in poor countries that can always use support is adult faith formation. Whereas the devotion and deep commitment of many adult Catholics is heroic, often their understanding, appreciation and ability to articulate the basic tenets of their faith is lacking. The priests who serve them are heroic too in their efforts to preach, prepare and form their flocks, but as anyone can tell you, it is not a task they can complete on their own, especially in rural areas where they are often responsible for a huge amount of souls spread out over a wide geographical territory. And without continued formation and discipleship, the Catholic faithful at the ends of the earth are at risk. First, there is a risk that they will not find the understanding, motivation and sense of belonging they need to live in obedience to the Catholic Church's teachings. Secondly, there is the grave danger that a faith based simply on cultural devotion, while it is a testament to the last-lasting traditions of our faith planted so many years ago by the earliest missionaries, will not stand the questions, doubts and cynicism of the next generations who are increasingly enticed and influenced by secular culture. For this reason, we are consistently seeing a need to enliven and strengthen the faith of the faithful in traditionally Catholic cultures as well as to re-evangelize the younger generation to give them a deeper understanding of their faith and the teachings of the Church. This need is prevalent all over the world, in the wealthiest, most well-organized parishes as well as the poorest third world missions. But the poor Church lacks man power and the sheer challenge of geography makes the work even more difficult to accomplish.

San Martin Chapel

For this reason, we have made the ministry the teaching, formation and discipleship of adults in our widespread parish a large part of our ministry. In word and by the testimony of our lives and friendship, we hope to give our brothers and sisters new eyes with which to see their faith and to allow them to "be transformed by the renewing of their minds" so that they will "not be conformed to the patterns of this world" (Romans 12:2).

The main way we are taking on this task is by circulating through our communities using our projection equipment to show quality Catholic movies like For Greater Glory (which is pertinent to our communities since the central church of parish houses a relic of the finger bone of Blessed Jose Luis Sanchez del Rio below the altar) and facilitate a short discussion or teaching on it. These raise interest and bring something new to the catechism efforts previously undertaken in our area. It also offers us a way eliminate the language barrier issue and go far deeper thematically than we could on our own. We follow the "movie night"event in each community by introducing them to the Catholicism Series by Fr. Barron. We then return to the communities to show the series and facility the discussion over the course of a couple of months.  While these types of outreaches are effective in many places and parishes, imagine the effectiveness of this type of outreach in places where the nearest movie theater is two and half hours away and many of the people have never even been to the cinema before. It is fun and exciting for them in addition to being educational. Thanks to modern technology, we can follow Pope Francis'exhortation, "Dear young friends, Christ has confidence in you and he entrusts his own mission to you: Go and make disciples!". by going out to the poor in remote places and bringing them more fully into the fold of the universal Church.

One community we recently visited with both For Greater Glory  and the first episode of the Catholicism Series was the small pueblo of El Progreso. El Progreso is home to our friend Don Oscar (not this Don Oscar, more on him later). Don Oscar is a faithful Catholic man with a radiant smile and a love and zeal for his faith that bubbles over into warm hugs and contagious enthusiasm for every single Mass, Holy Hour, or activity that ever occurs in the chapel just across the dirt footpath from his home. Don Oscar is battling colon cancer and weakening by the day. Each time we go, we arrive early enough to go to his house and visit, thinking surely he will be too weak to come down to the chapel for the presentation. And each time he surprises us by telling us he is going to get ready to come.

Movie Night in El Progreso

                                     

The last time we visited El Progreso, Don Oscar's son-in-law carried him to the chapel on his back like a child. He sat gingerly in his wheel chair and looked pain. But still he smiled his radiant smile. And we talked about cancer and praying for healing and death being the ultimate victory is eternal life is our goal. We hugged. We cried. His faith community lifted him up and encouraged him as we sat in that chapel together waiting to begin the first episode of Catholicism. Then the lights went dim and for a brief hour, Don Oscar got to travel to Rome and the Holy Land and see the birth places of his wife. He got to see the faces of his brothers and sisters from far way places. And he learned about what we mean when we call Jesus Messiah and how He is the fulfillment of thousands of years worth of Biblical promises. And, I hope, in that brief time, that three things happened: one, that he was happy for a while, resting from the mental, spiritual and emotional battle with his own mortality and the physical battle with pain, and second, that his hope in heaven, his real faith that this will be his ultimate cure and greatest victory when the moment comes was enlivened, that his thirst for Christ whetted and his knowledge that he is loved and supported by a cloud of witnesses felt deeply. 

This is what it means to evangelize, to make disciples. At the end of the day, it is an exercise in love. An opportunity to go out, meet our brothers and sisters where they are, an offer them the three things that abide: faith, hope and love. To Don Oscar and so many of our brothers and sisters like him, who need someone's strength to see the struggle in hear and now through the lens of eternity.

Pray for Oscar? That's him there in the white shirt.

                                      

You can help us in this outreach by making a monthly subscription to cover the fuel expenses of getting out to these remote communities regularly. You can set up your paypal subscription on the Saint Bryce Foundation web page. Also, donations of quality Catholic media presentations and movies that are available in Spanish are welcome. Contact us at stbrycemissions AT gmail DOT com if you have an item you would like to donate.

What We Do and Why We Do It

I am going to take some time this week to write a little bit more about our missionary foundation and the work we do. This blog has mostly been a place where I processed thoughts and shared my heart, but it occurred to me that there may be some newer readers who are stopping by and have very little idea why I live in Costa Rica or what we do as missionaries here.

If you weren't around in the beginning and are not sure where we live, I shared a little geography tutorial here.

If you don't know our personal story and how we ended up back in the mission field in early 2012, you can read my personal perspective in a guest post at My Crazy Adoption.

In order to say "yes"to God and answer His call to serve him in the mission field in Costa Rica, we founded our family foundation: St. Bryce Missions. You can find much there about our history and our mission and what we do. Our mission statement says this:
                                                              Mission Statement

   Saint Bryce Missions is a lay Catholic association of the faithful  established to aid and serve the poor in foreign mission and domestic evangelization. Faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and under the direction of the local Bishops and Pastors, we promote the rich teachings of the Catholic Church and support the third world missions by serving in lay apostolates such as teaching, evangelization, projects for the poor and helping build church infrastructure. Consecrated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the source and focus of all endeavors of this lay apostolate is the Most Holy Eucharist and devotion to Our Lady. 

Over the course of this week, I will highlight some of the ministry we work we are currently doing in our large, rural parish, San Antonio de Padua de Tayutic. It is a parish that is comprised of a vast geographical territory which includes 18 rural communities and the entirety of the Chirripo Indian Reservation. While our main work in the mission field is the spiritual work of evangelization, we undertake many material works to aid the poor as well. The principle work among those is the construction and renovation of chapels in poor communities. The reasoning behind making this our principle work is expressed today on the foundation's Facebook page: 

Why building chapels for the poor is such an important part of the new evangelization, a great witness to charity and the virtue of hope. Blessed John Paul II said in his Papal Encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia" "Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no extravagance devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassed gift of the Eucharist. No less than the first disciples charged with preparing the large upper room, she has felt the need, down the centuries and in her encounters with different cultures, to celebrate the Eucharist in a setting worthy of so great a mystery." 

This is our goal St. Bryce Missions: to help build and restore chapels in poor communities. The poor in many cases want a place to honor the mystery of the Eucharist but do not have the resources within their own community to build a chapel. The poor struggle everyday just to feed their bodies and it is part of our duties to help them meet their basic needs for food and shelter. But along with feeding their bodies, they must be nourished spiritually and come to the understanding of the reality of the hope of heaven so they do not despair at the harshness of their lives and fall into many sins. For Catholics, that nourishment is found in the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, and the life-giving grace of the other Sacraments as well. A chapel built in a poor community is a beacon of hope that rises out of a sea of despair that can draw all men to Christ. For very little of our resources simple chapels can be built from materials that will last for several generations. In providing a sacred space where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can take place and the Blessed Sacrament can be made available in the tabernacle, we are honoring Christ and the poor whom Christ loves and desires to be with in His Real Presence. 

This video shows the process and simple design we have created to provide long-lasting, dignified places of worship that will need minimal maintenance over time:

We have completed a number of projects over the last year and a half in the area in which we are working directly, including the chapel above in the indigenous community of Quetzal. All work is funded through donations from sponsors (parishes, groups, families, and individuals) who adopt a particular project and sponsor it.

Last month, our supporters at St. Nicholas Church in Lydia made it possible for us to fulfill our dream of spreading the work of chapel building to other poor areas of Costa Rica, Latin America, and the world by funding the construction of a long awaited chapel for the community of Bella Vista in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. We spent a week visiting with the community and visiting homes to share the joy of our faith and the Eucharistic presence with our brothers and sisters now.




We have a number of new collaborations in other areas we will soon be seeking sponsorship for, but our current priority projects awaiting adoption can be viewed on our funding site. In addition to the Bella Vista chapel above, a chapel reconstruction for the indigenous community of Nimari is fully funded and underway, as well as the Padre Pio chapel in the rural community of Bajo Pacuare de San Joaquin.

Our current priority projects are now the two chapels needed on the island of Chirra in Costa Rica:



There are also a number of smaller renovation projects that can be seen on the funding page as well as information on how you can organize your group to raise funds for a project you would like to adopt. Take some time to look around the site and see if God pulls on your heart to reach out to your brothers and sisters at the ends of the earth and care for the poor by nourishing their souls with the Most Holy Eucharist and plating the virtue of hope in their hearts.

1 Corinthians 13:13 calls faith, hope and love the three remaining, or abiding, virtues:

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

And the Catholic Church calls them the theological virtues and the foundation of all Christian moral activity: 

 The theological virtues are the foundation of Christian moral activity; they animate it and give it its special character. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity (CCC 1813)

I can think of no better way to act on these virtues and make them apparent to the poor than in your charitable love for them building them a place to practice their faith and renew their hope in the presence of God among them.

Help us by sharing this post, our web sites and Facebook pages with your contacts, spreading the word about who we are and the work we do, and considering if your parish, ministry, community or family might want to adopt a chapel project and work for its completion. E-mail us for more information at stbrycemissions AT gmail DOT com.

**We are often asked about short term groups sponsoring a chapel and coming to participate in its construction. We welcome your group and would encourage you to visit and get to know the community you are aiding, but we prefer to allow local builders to hire workers from within the communities to complete construction problems. It provides much needed work, increases the community's involvement in and responsibility for their project and ensures the work is done according to local quality standards. Thank you for understanding.

If I Got to Pick

The life I live here in missions is a life that places me, for the most part, totally dependent on the Lord, His provision, His timing and His holy will for our lives. It is good. It is the way I really, truly desire to live.

However, it is totally contrary to my personality. I am a girl who likes to have a plan. I wake up in the morning and within the first two sips of coffee could easily tell you how I would prefer the day to play itself out in 15 minute increments. I can plan a vacation in my head complete with packing list at the mere mention of it over a dinner. I am the kind of girl who makes lists for fun, who would willingly pack for someone else simply because I enjoy the opportunity to organize. I once spent the night at a friend's house after a recent move. Our husbands were both out of town for work. There were boxes everywhere and she was totally overwhelmed. By the time she woke up in the morning, I had moved all the boxes to the correct room, labeled her closets and unpacked her kitchen and bathrooms. She had to call me for months afterwards to ask me where things were. It was some of the best fun I have ever had.

So you see, this life I lead can be hard for me at times. The trust it takes to leave timing and planning in God's hands is a huge leap of faith from my natural temperament. So is having five sons, but that's a story for another day. At the time that we left to take up our mission here in Costa Rica as the St. Bryce Foundation, one of the greatest challenges for me personally meant that it left leaving my oldest brother and his wife and his children and the rest of my family as we united with him in his fight against ALS. It was a sticking point for me with God.

My big brothers and I on our first night back in the States
February 2013

But my brother had always one of the most faithful servants of God I have ever met, and I knew he, more than anyone else, would want me to do what God was calling me to do. He assured me of this himself. Shortly after we arrived in the field, he entered into a medical emergency that threatened to end his life. I was horrified that it would happen that way, that God would take Him home just as I had left. That all my family would be there at his side and I would not. He did not go home then. He fought back, chose life and kept battling.

So many days it hurt that I did not get to pick the timing of things. That I didn't get to be there when I would've chosen. But I did get there. Last July, we spent quiet evenings together enjoying my sister-in-law's kick ass cooking and holding hands and watching So You Think You Can Dance. We had Skype sessions where I laughed at him sipping Red Stripe through a straw and he laughed at me sitting on a tree stump to get good internet reception. In February, we launched our candidacy for the papacy (There is no logical way for me to explain this to anyone who did not know my brother. I can only be sorry for you that you missed out. It was big fun.)

And in March, I headed home to see him again, this time with my whole gang at my side. Our first full night home we went out to dinner. Both my brothers and their families and us. It was glorious and heart wrenching at the same time. I was so happy to meet my sweet niece for the first time, to hold those big brother hands again, to hear my sister-in-law's laugh, to watch my boys giggle maniacally with their cousins, to share quiet conversation with the man who is my first nephew and open my eyes to what a stellar human being he is.

Cousins at dinner

But it ripped me up inside to watch my brother fight for every breath, to see the look of panic in his eyes, and to realize how tired he was. I went back to our guest house that night knowing deep in my soul he was ready to go home soon. And with a panic in my heart. I was there. Then. But I would leave again soon. What if the timing God chose happened to be the one that left me far away in that moment? What if I would have to leave knowing I would never see him again here on earth? And I was angry about the lack of control my life demanded of me.

Cousin Dinner

In the days that followed, my brother entered the hospital and we began to realize that his battle with ALS was drawing to a close. Difficult conversations had to be had. Hard decisions made. A birthday had to be celebrated. And seafood had to be eaten. And a family had to come together to figure out how to live, laugh, love and say goodbye. And do you know what? If God had said to me, "Colleen, I am going to take your brother home and you have no choice in that matter, but all the other details, I will let you plan", even in my eager to plan brain, I could not have come up with a more perfect scenario as we experienced in the days surrounding my brother's going home.

So many of the details are too intimate. Words are great tools to express certain things, and for others, they are cheap. So much of what happened would be cheapened by them in this case. But here is what I would like to share. I do not have a family that has followed a cookie cutter path. We touch every point on the spectrum when it comes to personalities and temperaments, life choices, and religious, spiritual and moral orientations. But I am blessed beyond belief with a family who knows without a doubt how to love fiercely and stand in unity despite those differences. And I believe a large part of our ability to do that was won as we watched my brother live and fight his battle with ALS with that as his only priority -- to love well, to point people to the love of Christ, and to live with unbounded joy.

These apples don't fall far from the trees, y'all
Cousin Shenanigans

So in the moments surrounding his going home, that is what we did. We laughed loud and loved strong and teased relentlessly. We drank too much and ate too much and talked too much (so much so that we were "shushed" by the ICU nurses while we were still outside in the waiting area). We cried and we embraced and we figured out where our strength lay. So that in the moment that Kevin ran into Jesus' arms, we could leave all of our differences behind and stand hand in hand singing. And cheering him on his way. I have no absolutely no words to describe what that moment felt like. It is forever suspended in time for me. The woman my sister-in-law was in that moment has forever changed me. Being the daughter who first lost a child of a mother who now sent her little boy home is the most breakingly beautiful title of womanhood I now carry. Standing in the embrace of my remaining siblings is a moment I will take with me forever. The faces of nephews and nieces and their expressions of love for their father and their uncle and the love shared by our children, the great big band of cousins that make up this family is for me a joy beyond all belief, a hope for a future that shines with radiance. These young people that we raised? They are good, y'all. So, so good. You will thank us one day for our procreative gifts. I promise you.

Celebrating Kevin's birthday in the ICU waiting room the day before we cheered him home to heaven
Me with some of my favorite people on earth, my sister, my niece, and my cousin

I look back on that time and feel overwhelming gratitude to my God. I didn't want my brother to have ALS. I don't want him to be gone. But these are things God does not consult me on. However, I did want to hold his hand and be next to him when that moment arrived. And I was. I did want to feel a tight part of my family circle and share that experience with my mom and my siblings. And I did. I did want to see him one more time outside of the hospital when he was still "well" and I did. I did want to be able to tell him all the reasons I loved him and was so proud of him and I did. I did want to celebrate with joy when at last he had beat the beast and won the crown. And I did. I did want to sing to him the songs that had beat in my heart for him while I was far away and I did. I wanted my sister-in-law to know how deeply beautiful she was and how much I appreciated her. I wanted to say out loud to her that we supported every choice she had made in this difficult journey and we supported her as she began a new phase of life. And we supported her relief that the battle was over. I got to say those words. And I did want to laugh and have a good beer and eat fried stuff from the Gulf and talk in my New Orleans accent. And I did. I wanted a piece of my brother to take with me forever. He left me that. That man, he knew how to live well, and you know what, because of that, he knew how to die well. I know that sounds weird, but anyone who witnessed it would unequivocally agree with me, I know.

Crawfish and beer. It's how we live. It's how we love. It's how we roll.

I didn't really know how to write a to-do list for my brother's death. I didn't want to. But when the moment came, I knew, he knew, we all knew, how to live it. And if I got to pick, this is how it would have been. If I get to write the script for my own going, I want it to be just like his.

And just to keep reminding me that this was just a sweet tender mercy and not to let myself get used to it, God went back to his usual ways and put me back in my place of humble submission, when, on the morning of the funeral, I found myself late and lost and in the midst of an utter panic attack, screaming at my older sister on the phone for help. And then the brunt of the pastor's joke as I walked into the church having scorned my poor family into beaten little pulps in my grief and pain and the anxiety of things being out of my control again. Crying and laughing at myself, and seeing that once again, He had worked it all for good even when He didn't give me a say. And me, back to my sheepish little apologies and promises of greater trust in the future.

And do you know what? I'm pretty sure I could hear that man, my big brother, giggling at me from heaven. And I think he might have been tying my baby's hands to his shoes too. But that, too, is a story for another day.

Family bonfire in my brother Stephen's yard

Let's Thank the Guys Doing the Hard Stuff

A couple of weekends ago, a surprise meeting at the immigration office landed me in downtown San Jose with my husband for the evening. We stayed in a lovely old hotel and enjoyed a stroll through the downtown shopping area that afternoon. As evening set in, we strolled past an infamous "hotel/casino" in the heart of downtown that is widely known to be a front for a prostitution ring. You can find it listed in just about any tourist guide to Costa Rica and an image search of its name will give you an eyeful of what's really being marketed there. It is also widely known that most of the women (girls?) working the place are not Costa Rican. They are Columbian, Nicaraguan and who knows what else. Which of course led me to wonder how many of them got here by being trafficked here. And how many of them were under-aged and stolen and trapped.

For a quick moment, I wanted to tell my husband to march in there and have a look around, to scope it out and see if there were any girls who looked too young, who looked afraid, who looked like they had been hit or hurt, who looked like they were there against their will. I wanted to tell him to ask to see their boss. To ask if they were any girls for sale. To ask specifically for foreign girls and see what he said.
About a minute later, I realized, of course, that this was not an option.

We are not equipped for this, us two foreign missionaries. We proclaim the Gospel to an indigenous people. We build chapels in poor areas. We are working to provide meaningful work to women. We have committed ourselves to taking whatever action we can to fight modern slavery. I am humbled and feel a great privilege to be called to this work. God gave us the perfect job for who we are, what we know and  what we feel called to do.

We are not undercover investigators. We do not have the collective experience, the collaborative cooperation, the expensive equipment or the strong sense of purpose that sends us into the world's darkest corners to find, gain the trust of, record the stories of modern day slaves, then coordinate their rescue, the prosecution of their captors and the beginning of their journey to recovery.

But The Exodus Road does. They've got all that. And they're using to set captives free. 

And right now they're inviting those of us who care passionately about the fight to end slavery to offer our support and encouragement to the men on the front lines -- the men who strap themselves up with undercover surveillance equipment and spend their nights in brothels in Southeast Asia collecting the information they need to rescue the underage victims of sexual slavery. That's a hard job description to carry around day in and day out. I am certain there are days they'd rather not do it. I am certain there are nights it feels hopeless. And I am certain they often feel all alone in those dark places full of scum bags thinking not rescue but ruin.

Would you take a moment to write them and express your gratitude some time between now and January 10th. Hand-written notes would be greatly appreciated. They can be mailed to The Exodus Road |  PO Box 7591 |  Woodland Park, Colorado, 80863. 
If you are unable to get a hand-written note in the mail, you can submit a letter online here. 
Could it be any easier than that? For those of us who want with all our hearts to fight this atrocity but have been called to the front lines of a different kind of work, what better way could there be to offer our hope, our support, our encouragement to the guys doing the hard stuff for us. 
I'm taking away your excuse that you don't know what you to say too. Here's Laura's letter. She and her husband Matt founded this work. They lived it on the ground for two years. The lady knows what she's talking it. Let her teach you. And I am pasting mine below too. So there. No excuses. 
Make a little room in your inn this Christmas and shine a little warmth into a dark world. Because really, what better way is there to honor the light of heaven dawning on earth?
So go do it. Do what you can. Don't wait. Night will come quickly in Southeast Asia and these guys will hit the streets once again. Let them know they are not alone in the dark.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dear Investigator,
I just wanted to take the time to tell you thank you for the work you do. I am a wife, mother and foreign missionary with a passion for the cause of ending human slavery and sexual exploitation. I want so badly to run right into all those places, wrap those little girls up in my arms and take them home. But that's not how it works, is it. You know that way better than I do.
The more I learn about what it takes to go nightly into the darkness of the world of human slavery, find and gain the trust of its victims, coordinate their rescue, prosecute their offenders, and put them on the road to recovery, the more I am humbled and grateful for your commitment, your sacrifice, your heroic passion.
I know there must be nights when you don't want to leave the comfort of your home and hang out with scum in dank corners of this broken world. I know there must be moments when you want to scrap the process and just punch someone square in the face, or grab a little girl up in your arms and just run. Yet you don't. You stay the course knowing what real rescue means. You do it night after night, fighting the discouragement and the hopelessness that hangs over these places for the ray of hope that is one person freed from captivity.
For this, I personally am so very grateful. I want to be part of the solution to human trafficking. I want to face the darkness of that reality and shine hope. I want to love enough not turn away from ugly situations. Often it seems that from where I am, there is little I can do. But I hope by letting you know that your work and your sacrifice are deeply appreciated by those of us who do not fight on the front lines, you will feel a little less like no one notices what you are doing,  a little less alone in the darkness, and a little more like you are a part of an army. Your back up might be far away, but we will not leave you alone. And we will not forget you. I will offer a prayer for your safety and the success of your work each night as the darkness creeps over my part of the world and hope it makes its way to you to be a small beacon of encouragement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being the one who does the hard thing.
Colleen Mitchell

Let's Take Advantage of An Opportunity

This has got to be the easiest way of taking action against human slavery I have posted yet in this series. And it's lovely too. And full of joy and HOPE. Sweet, sweet Hope.

So here's what you do.

1. You go read over at Ann's blog. You read about Hope. And you read about Ashoka. And you read about Mary and Jesus and Ann and her Mama. And you be moved to your core by the faces and the beauty amidst the ugly and the truth born into the middle of it all.
2. Then you click on over to this amazing story. Don't just click to buy straightaway. Pay the women of Freeset a visit. Get to know them. Get to know their work. Learn how you can fight trafficking with them.
3. Then you can scoop yourself up one of these awesome bags. Buy the message. Buy it and be all in. you are blessed and you can bless. Because He was born and broken for you and turns it all beautiful. Buy a big bag full of hope. For you. For Ashoka. For Hope herself.
4. Then live it. Live the message. Be the message. Be broken and beautiful and blessed. And bless. Bless everyone you meet by leaking the grace given right out of you and into their hands, their lives. 

See, easy. Now, what are you waiting for? Go. The time draws near. He comes. Do you not want to be about His Father's business when the heavens open to announce His presence and sing 1,000 "Hosannas"? Do you not want to already have sung His goodness with your life? I do.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. 

Let's Stand With Those Who Set Captives Free

Early on in this series of posts, I encouraged us to really listen to stories of the victims of trafficking and slavery that we are hoping to help. Of the course of these couple of months that I have been reading, researching and speaking out about trafficking, I have spent a lot of time connecting with those of the front lines of the fight in different ways, visiting their web sites and really getting to know and understand their work, communicating via e-mail, reading their blogs, and even talking to some over the phone. I hope to add a face to face meeting to that list soon with a trip to the Salvando Corazones facility some time this month.

I want to join them in their fight and am passionate about keeping the reality of trafficking and sex slavery in front of people's eyes. But in reality, my mission is not on the front lines, and because of that I lacked the opportunity to give voice to the real stories of this battle. The more I read and connect with this issue, the more strongly I feel we need to be careful how we talk about it. We cannot use these stories to create drama, to sensationalize a situation or to break people's hearts just for the sake of seeing their "oh, how sad" reactions. We have to speak and give voice to the reality behind the "issue" in a way that creates community of soldiers armed to fight, that draws real and committed support to those actually called to do the work, and that catalyzes action in individual hearts and organizational structure. It is important that we know and share the stories of trafficking and slavery, but it is equally important that we know that the source of those stories is first-hand, is trustworthy and has broad knowledge and understanding of the scope of this issue based on collective field experience.

I don't have that. But I do have a voice and a passion to use it to tell those stories. For this reason, I am humbled to begin helping the amazing team at Exodus Road as a part of a team of bloggers that is helping them share the stories of their work, their rescues and the lives they save. In this season we prepare to welcome Him who came to bring glad tidings to the lowly and to set the captives free, what better good news is there to share but that He is still doing it? Still reaching into the ugly dark places of our world, taking the captives and slaves by the hand and bringing them to freedom?

The team at Exodus Road is on the ground in Southeast Asia fighting trafficking with targeted interventions. They have formed a coalition of undercover investigators with years of experience and a broad field of knowledge in this area. These brave souls who enter some of the darkest places of our world and collect invaluable evidence using covert recording equipment. That evidence becomes the key that can unlock the prison doors for one, two, or many modern day slaves being held and sold within the sex industry.

Like a 15 year old girl named Sarah, whom a member of the Exodus Road investigative team met in a brothel in Cambodia three days after her mother sold her for $600 USD to pay off a debt. She was being marketed as "fresh" by the brothel owner, her virginity a prize to purchased. On the investigator's first visit, with Sarah, even though he had been able to record her sale and put her in communication with a social worker who spoke her language and could help her understand that he was there to rescue her, not hurt her, he was not able to gain her trust, make her understand that he could help her escape.

But he went back. Because setting the captives free is unrelenting work. And when he did, Sarah was ready. She slipped him on a note on piece of paper begging, "Please rescue me."

Read the story of Sarah's rescue here.

This is the story of one of the 27 million modern day slaves who do not know, cannot believe, or even imagine that their deliver is coming. But He is. He will come. He will come when we stop turning away and begin to stand beside those who can fight the true fight, like Exodus Road's 15 investigators and their respective support organizations.

Knowing the stories of the faces of slavery, true stories, not sensationalized scenarios, opens our eyes and makes it impossible to dismiss this reality. “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.” -William Wilberforce

If you don't want to be one to look the other way, if you want to be one who walks beside those who set the captives free, take the time to follow Exodus Road on Facebook today. Subscribe to the Exodus Road newsletter here. Watch this video on how Exodus Road began: 




The Exodus Road: Fighting to End Child Slavery from Justin Lukasavige on Vimeo.

This is a fight no one can win fighting alone. After all these weeks blogging and learning and trying to action, I am honored to stand beside those at Exodus Road and fight together. The captives are waiting. Let's sing to them in one voice that their Deliver is coming. He is standing by. And He is waiting on us to go.

Let's Not Forget

It's been a long stretch of blogging about action to end human trafficking. And I'm nearly halfway there. And to be honest, it's starting leave me tired and raw. Reading about the atrocity. Thinking about the pain and the problem and the solution. Writing letters. Waiting for results. Reading about the work of those on the front lines. Fasting in solidarity with the victims. Hurting for those who are hurting? Well, it hurts. Facing the horror and suffering wrought by the most inhumane of injustices? It painful and heartbreaking.

I have asked the question of a few friends this week. How do we know these things and live? How do we bypass ignorance or selective knowledge for action and avoid depression? How do we battle the weariness of operating machines to wash our clothes and preparing the food that feeds our families without feeling like utter failures for the Kingdom? Because on this earth where our bathrooms beg our attention and we can't find the energy to give it and where we fuss irritable at kids who won't head to beds or stop kicking a soccer ball in the house, on this earth where we raise our hands in praise to a merciful Savior, little girls live in cages and are groped by perverse men and teenage girls are being trucked across the highways of our prosperity to a life of slavery and poverty sends people running ignorant into a life of exploitation. And we bear His name and so must bear His pain at it all. And yet we must live and love and serve these in our midst and not forget our first duties. And sometimes it makes my swim and my heart beat too fast.

And then I remember that all my strength for the battle lies not in me and my weak-kneed terror at the battle, but in Him and in His victory over it all. And I remember that if He can save me from me then somehow He is able to save them. And that I am not the Savior but the sick needing saving. And on the days when I am not incapacitated by my own sickness, He mercifully lets me play the role of servant, rising up like Peter's mother-in-law to serve those in my midst. And I remember that the medicine I need to stay strong, to suffer with the suffering without breaking, to embody at the same time death and resurrection, is there in Him -- in His Word written across the ages, in His presence waiting, hidden in the facade of sustenance we call bread, in the caresses of those who love me and of the encouragement of others who love in His name. And I run back to the heart of prayer where He waits to mend my brokenness and tells me that it's okay to admit that I'm the one who needs to be rescued and healed today. That He will give me what I need and strengthen me to rise again to serve. And it takes only moments -- silent moments -- to know the grace is enough. To feel the questions that threaten to paralyze fade away and the paralysis loosen its grip. And my heart slows to rhythm of mercy once again and my feet begin to keep pace with the Spirit once more. Over and over this is how I live. This is the breaking heart of the broken.

So today, I invite you to pause and remember with me that prayer is our first weapon. It keeps the warriors fighting and heals the wounded. It moves the heart of the only real Savior and reminds us of the victory. It meets in the tomb and transforms it into resurrection glory. So if you take no more action than this today -- or tomorrow or ever -- this is something. Something big. It is the way the saints suffer and break and yet still live.

So keep praying with me? Our collective prayer:

Or the missions rosary devotions I've been contributing over at Suscipio:

For Africa

For the Americas

For Europe

and today, for Oceania.

Because He has promised that wherever two or more gather in His name, He will be in their midst. And oh how I need Him in my midst.