A year in review...well, the 2nd half at least

Since I wasn't as good at blogging this year as I had hoped to be, I decided to recap the past six months, like I did the first four, in pictures. Here I have some of my favorite moments from the year. Obviously there are the many more memories throughout the year, but this is what Allison caputured on camera. (I relied upon her for all pictures this year!) This year was incredible and putting it into words is way too difficult, but I will try.


In January the 2nd half started with my friends Sarah and Meghan visiting. It was great to show them everything I did in San Diego and it was mainly just amazing to see them.


We celebrated Mardi Gras with the Augustinian priests. They had lots of fun treats, beads and hats/masks for us to wear and even Fr. Bob's famous mojito's!


We had a big alumni night at our house. There were a couple alums that were in the area for the week, coming back to visit, so we decided to have them and the alums that were living in SD over to our house. It was a ton of fun to hang out with them and hear some great stories! This is a picture of the people that have worked at St. Pat's for the past 3 years, minus Stephen. On the right is me and annie, 2009-2010. The middle is Dan and Elizabeth, 2007-2008. And on the right is Jeanette and what would be Stephen, 2008-2009.


Bower, one of my old bosses from American Eagle, came out to visit in the middle of March. We did the ENTIRE tour of San Diego in about 3-4 days. I enjoyed finally being able to see everything and getting the chance to see her.


If you can't tell from the picture, St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays! I love it because I like to celebrate the fact that i'm Irish and as you can see from my outfit I wore a lot of green to celebrate. When we got home the festivities commenced.


eventually we got dressed up and made it out! We went to a place called Kate Sessions Park for the evening to hang out.


We ventured out to Nevada and headed to Las Vegas! It was so much fun to get away from SD and see another great part of the west coast, and a weekend we all really needed. Emily, Ali, Mike Roderick and one of Ali's friends from home went. Emily and I spent a lot of time together. We saw a show, cirque du soeil's "love" all to beatles music, and fell in love with the bellagio...we saw many light/water shows and sat at an amazing piano bar.


on our way home though we were in TONS of traffic! It was supposed to take 5 hours but ended up taking 11. We saw lots of signs along the way for Peggy Sue's diner and decided to stop to take a break from traffic. Good marketing if I don't say so myself...they got us there!


In April I headed home for Easter, but took a stop to the Bronx first to visit my best friend, Alli Lua! She has been volunteering there this year and it was great to see where she lives and work and take a lovely tour of NYC. I loved being home as well and just being able to relax with my family.


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we had a variety of nights where we decided to just stay in and enjoy the evening to ourselves rather then going out. Whether it was 1. drinking unexpectedly 2. playing a game of catholic kings with alumni visiting 3. just having a relaxing evening smoking cigars outside or on the deck, the 6 of us. or 4. just enjoying ourselves with our "manos al aire!"


In May, Lisa from Chicago came to visit us! We loved having her with us!


frozen yogurt was a big part of our year...we went a good amount of times to go get fro-yo and it's probably where I spent a good portion of my stipend. There was always somebody to go with and it made us all feel better after some long days!




the above two pictures are us at seal beach, was one of my favorite touristy places in San Diego. I sometimes wish that I could have a pet seal. No matter how many times I went there (a lot), I could stare at them forever.


something else we did throughout the 2nd half of the year was take more beach trips at night. I loved just laying there looking at the ocean and the stars.


I celebrated my 23rd birthday! I had an awesome day at school. I think through a few kids and a couple teachers knowing everybody ended up finding out. My 6th graders decorated the computer room, the 1st graders mad me a crown that I had to wear during the day, kindergartners got me a piece of cake with flowers and cards made by them, and everybody said happy birthday to me all day long. After work we went out to dinner at my favorite place...the cheesecake factory! It was the first birthday not being at home, but I really enjoyed it!




these two pictures are from the Wild Animal Park! We had the tickets for so long and we finally went at the end of May. It was fun because we took a safari and saw lots of different animals they have there! It was fun to get out of the house and go there.


With our community budget we bought tickets to see the San Diego Padres. It was fun to see a game and I had my first ball park hot dog!


the six of us in front of cinderella's castle


On June 1st we all took a day off of work and headed to DisneyLand! Annie, Mike and I had already been once with 8th grade and Emily had already gone with the seniors at SAINTS, but it was good to go with the community+mike roderick! In the morning we went to California Adventure (awesome park!) and then in the afternoon/evening we went to Disney. So much fun to have a day off for Disney!


we headed to a big fundraiser/thank you for the orphanage. We were able to get all dressed up and see a lot of the big people who help the orfa out with their donations. They had a house on Point Loma over looking the water and the city. Beautiful!


we had the San Diego AV's annual "end of the year party." It's a big thing the AV's do every year and we had been hearing about this party from co workers for 10 months. We really enjoyed our party and having all of our co workers over to celebrate a great year. Stephen and Allie from last year were in town visiting as well as Dan, Jesse and Jeanette who live there so we took the annual picture of all AV's past and present that were there in front of 1621 (our house).


One big thing we did this year was giant pinata's for birthdays. After my birthday, the last one, we were finally able to take the picture of all of us with them. We bought Mike one for his bday and then the tradition just continued and we were able to get them custom made! Mike's is a cervaza bottle, chris had a prego can because he hate canned sauce and he can smash the prego, ali has a polar bear(what she calls herself) wearing a pink villanova V shirt. Emily's is alphaba from wicked, annies is a starbucks cup and mine is a St. Pat's student so i could kick it when I got home from work instead of yell on a bad day. We all loved them so much and it as a sad to say adios to them!


of course we concluded our year in san diego with...cleaning. It seemed like it was going to be horrible, especially since we decided not to clean our house for the last two weeks. It turned out not to be too bad, we had all of our favorite foods in san diego for lunches and dinner and Allison and I may have had too much fun while doing it!

Despida dos. Hogar Infantil La Gloria y los niños.

I am one of the luckiest people in the world to be able to have the opportunity to experience the orphanage and I still can't believe that the first time I went there wasn't until November. The first thing I always feel when I walk into the orphanage is chaos; chaos because everyone is alwasy screaming your name and coming at you looking for love. In the beginning giving up a Saturday to head down there was one of the most difficult things, but once I arrived I felt extremely comfortable. I felt like it was something I should be doing, but I didn't exactly know what to do. Once the second half of the year rolled around there wasn't another thought in my ehad other than spending my Saturday off at the orphanage. The Teachers at school were always so amazed that my roommates and I spent our weekends there, but for us it wasn't amazing, it was just a part of us. It became a place that we all fell in loev with. Yes the long border lines do not seem fun at all, but the six of us have made them fun by seeing how much of the amazing Mexican food we could get while we waited for hours.

The kids there are the most beautiful children I have ever met, both inside and out. They have so much love to give and really make anybody feel comfortable the moment they're there. One of the hardest parts of not being in San Diego is definitely going to be not seeing them. I struggled at first because I didn't speak Spanish and didn't think i was communicating well what I wanted. I tried to learn Spanish but I didn't have as much energy or patience for that as I thought I would, although i have picked up a lot in the past few months. I saw on my last day there that I could communicate with the kids just fine because it was the love that I showed them that really mattered. The work that Dan and Jesse, the directors, do there is incredible and I only hope that beyond my volunteer year I can continue to serve in a small way that they do. I am also pround of Chris and Annie for all of the things that they did there, especially the classes and programs that they created to help the kids grow.

I really feel like there is way to much going on in my head to even be able to describe the orphanage in it's fullest. I am so happy that I had the chance to spend so much time there and I already miss the kids so much. Luckily for us though, Chris is spending the summer working there still and he continuously gives us updates on all the kids. I loved the orhphange and the ninos so much and I can't wait till I go back to visit San Diego next year and I get to see how much the kids have grown.

Like my other posts, I will just post pictures beacuse from there you're more able to see everything there and I'm able to describe better everything there! Unfortunately I only have pictures from when Allison was there, which is still a lot!


This is my first trip there, reading a book with the toddler Fausto. He is absolutely adoreable. One of my favorites and loves it everytime anybody walks in, especially Annie!


I talked about it before, but winning something big for the orphanage, charity of the year, was something really enjoyable that we were able to do. We loved being able to represent an amazing place.


the weekend after thanksgiving we were able to take the kids horseback riding! The kids loved it. This is one of my favorite pictures, me with Bere.


on the day of their Our Lady of Guadalupe festival (a big religious day in mexico), they later had santa come visit. Naturally, the six of us took a picture with him!


Annie and I went down one Sunday to help Dan run a dart booth at a festival at the kids school, we also chapperoned a dance for the 5th graders later in the evening. I was in charge of putting the balloons back after kids hit them. Our booth was obviously the most popular/crazy so I learned a sentence in spanish that day...Daniel es globo loco!


Allison was calling out animal names and us and the kids were being those animals after she said it...it was quite fun actually!


One Saturday Dan and Jesse had to go to a big fundraiser so the AV's were left in charge! There was a group there and they made masks with kids which turned into glitter and paint craziness! This is us with our best helper, Alan. He's the craziest kids but he loved cleaning!


relaxing with Yareli grande and Lupita grande one day on the couch, watching movies. A typical day at the orphanage!


sometimes we took random trips down the streets of Tijuana to get a raspado or to go to the convience store (don't tell my mom!) we love our mexican food though!


I liked the baby room a lot. Just playing with the kids and watching a variety of different disney movies. This is me and Vikki!


as you can see, there are always kids jumping all over you when you're there!


we had a little fun jumping and taking pictures!


something we always did was help in the kitchen before lunch. Sometimes it was actually helping make lunch while other times is was helping put it together at the end and bring it out for the kids. On the last day I actually pulled apart pork! Gross, yes, but apparently it tasted good!


Ali's idea was to make a pyramid on the last day with the kids. It actually worked out pretty well...


...until it fell at least! We had so much fun though!


katherine became one of my good friends there, actually, probably everybody's. She is 11, and totally awesome. She speaks english very well so I was able to communicate with her throughout the year and really form a relationship with her.


our final picture...the six of us with Dan and Jesse plus the 5th graders (Bryan, Katherine, Jacqui and Yareli grande) and Yareli chica decided to get in too! I love this picture a lot.

My last day at the orphanage was by far my favorite day over all. I spent a lot of great time with the kids and got to know them so much better. It was a sad goodbye but I know that I will never forget those kids and I will be back to visit hopefully sooner then later.

laps. lunges. lava-monster. love.

I was going to put this in my next entry, but it was getting way too long, so I figured I should make this a new post in itself. I really don't even know how to put everything in this post into words. All of the children at St. Patrick's changed my life in many ways.

I find St. Pat's to be a difficult place to describe. There were days were I dreaded going and hated being there and other days where I really enjoyed all of what I was doing. To say that this year was the most difficult year of my life is a complete understatement. Coming into the school I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning, hell, I had no idea what I was doing in the end either. I was given tasks that were challenges such as disciplining students, taking the time to plan lessons, and even just learn about sports a little bit.

Each day was difficult. I was given obstacles that I didnt think I had the ability to overcome. How do you deal with a student who won't stop hitting other kids, or a kindergartener who talks back, or a 5th grader that only wants to fight with you, or a junior high student who only cares about what he or she can do to get on your nerves. But through everything, I found the strength to keep going. I learned how to talk to a student, how to get them to calm down and how to form relationships other then aruging. Maybe I even learned a little bit about how to get the students to stop running around with cones on their heads so they didn't have to do laps. (even if that meant taking away PE!)

Even though I had difficulty I truly believe that without being tested I wouldn't have been able to grow. I'm happy with the relationships I formed with both teachers and the students. The teachers were some of the nicest people I have ever met and their generosity still amazes me. They helped Anne and I with so much, made us laugh constantly, and even just put a smile on my face when I was having a hard time. I really couldn't have made it through without them and I'm very sad thinking about how they won't be with me all the time next year.

Most importantly though, the students really did change me for the better. The great part about working at a small school is that I was really able to get to know each and every child. I learned that there was really something special about each and every one of them. I was able to form relationships with most of them and I already miss them dearly. Like the teachers, it's very difficult to think about the fact that I won't be seeing them regularly. Pictured here is me with the 6th grade girls. These girls especially, made me smile each and every day and I can't remember a time where I was ever upset with them. Most of all, I will miss those girls and how happy they made me each day. Whether it was talking to me at recess or showing how much fun they were having in class, they really welcomed me into their lives and I was able to get to know them very well. I really will miss them. That's not to say though that they other kids weren't as great. I enjoyed getting to know the junior high kids well, the 8th graders on retreat, the 7th graders outside and the other 6th graders as well. And the younger kids, through everything, could always make me laugh at everything they would say.

Here are other pictures of the kids at school that I love, unfortunately I can't fit pictures of them all...

me and annie with 6th graders Andrea and Claudia

The kindergarten boys!

Annie and I with 1st grader Annette

I am so happy that I had Annie at St. Pat's with me. She was really the one who made everything better when I was having a bad day. I loved that we were able to teach all of our classes together on Tuesday's and Thursday's and really use each others strengths to push each other foward. I loved laughing with her, watching an occasional glee episode, having our starbucks runs every Thursday, having someone to chat with during classes, and sending notes to each other via students when we couldn't be together! I'm so happy that the two of us had the opportunity to work together and share in these memories together.

The last week of school we taught our last classes, got things ready for next years volunteer, cleaned the computer room and PE closet and said goodbye. The last day of school was a lot more difficult than I thought iw was going to be. In the morning, Annie and I went for our last starbucks run, we were on our usual recess duty (mostly just playing with the kids this day) and then went to the final award ceremony. The last hour or so of the day was spent going to each class. We said goodbye and I was okay at first, only slightly tearing up. But then I got to 5th grade and a couple of my favorite girls starting crying as they were hugging me and asking me not to leave and I started getting a lot more sad. Then I moved onto 6th grade and starting balling and then stayed the same for 7th. I don't think I realized until the last day just how much the school really meant to me.

So, needless to say, I believe the hardwork really did pay off. I'm proud of all I accomplished at the school and I really do miss that place so much.

KAIROS nineteen

Well...since I have been back from Kairos for over 3 weeks now I decided the post about it should probably be up soon. Which means it is time to get writing! Kairos XIX will definitely be one of those memories from my volunteer year that I will remember for a while. Seeing as my job frustrates me beyond belief, it was nice to be able to get away from St. Pat's and PE for a week and to be able to get some time to relax.

Funny how I've been on many different retreats, yet every one of them always seems to be different. This one was different for so many reasons, but all of them very great. First of all, I was on the other side of things. Yes, I have been on retreats as a leader before, but this time I was an adult leader. I was an adult leader for the 8th grade retreat as well, but this time was different because the boys actually really cared about being there. It was different because it was ALL BOYS. a week with many 17 year old boys. But surprisingly, they all opened up and easier then I had seen people open up in the past. It was different because it was longer and much more focused on the spiritual side of things then any of my past retreats.

I can definitely say though, that out of the many retreats that I have been on, this has really been the best...which says a lot because they've all been amazing. I think it was great for me because I went into it thinking about how much I couldn't wait to have a week off of work and how I'd be there to help Emily (she is now the director of campus ministry because her boss just had a baby and she ran the entire retreat by herself!) but turns out that even as an adult leader it was just what I needed at the time. Just goes to show that God had me there for a reason.

Kairos means Lord's Time. Our week from Monday through Friday was dedicated to finding God in our life. On Monday immediately after school Emily and I headed 5,000 feet up to Palomar Mountain with the 6 student leaders. We unloaded, set some things up and began to relax. I have to say that the leadership team on this retreat was amazing. I never thought I would be able to learn a lot from high school senior boys, but I really did. They were an amazing group of six boys that I was really glad I was able to get the chance to meet and get to know pretty well. To have that openness and honesty at 17 is truly something.

After waking up on Tuesday morning we began to do some more set up things. Did a boundry breaker with the student leaders and then me, Emily and Sarah (another adult leader, one of the boys teachers) headed for a hike down to the river. It was absolutely beautiful there.

The retreatants then began to arrive and we went right into things with the theme of the evening "Who Am I?" I wish I could post the video Emily took of the student leaders doing their introduction skit because it was very very funny. Wednesdays theme was "Who is Jesus in my life?" Thursdays was "Jesus' message for me" and Fridays was "Living out the message of Christ." On past retreats we were asked to focus on ourselves, family, friends ang God. Here on Kairos though, the first night was geared toward ourselves, family and friends but the rest of the three days were focused on how Jesus is in our life. The boys were told when they got there to "Let go and let God." We learned and saw how God wants us to be there for ourselves just as much as we are there for others and that even God needed somebody to help pick Him up at times. We need to just love one another.

(Side note: Wednesday morning we woke up and there was snow on the ground and it continued to snow for the next three days! For a lot of the boys it was the first time they had seen snow so it was unbelievable to them. Fr. Bob found sleds for them and they even went running through the snow in their shorts. It was a little chilly and if I had know I would have brought more socks! It really helped make the experience for them though)

Throughout the week you spend a lot of time with a small group that remains the same. I could easily go into all that occured on the reatreat but words would never truly describe all that I or the boys experienced. There were a few experiences we had on our last night that I was even able to get a lot out of and I believe the boys in my group felt the same. One boy during an open forum that we had said it best "I've grown more in my brotherhood in these four days then I have in the past four years." I think that says something about how life changing this experience is for these boys and how they really get something out of it. I am so happy that I had the opportunity to be a part of this great experience in their life and to now become a greater part of SAINTS. I only hope that I may have helped them in even the smallest way!

Time...

Time is flying by beyond fast. A lot faster then I had imagined it would. I love my birthday and I am excited thinking about its arrival in two weeks from today, but I'm also thinking about the fact that my birthday means one month of time left in San Diego. After this week we have 6 weeks of school left. The last day of school is on June 18th. It's also the date we are to say all of our goodbyes to everyone we are close with around here by. June 19th, 20th and 21st will be spent doing intense cleaning of our house from sun up to sun down. June 22nd we fly to Philly for end of the year retreat and on the 26th we fly home. June 27th I am a free women...with nothing to do.

Yes, it is currently May 4th and I still have absolutely no idea what I am doing with my life come June 27th. I'm starting to think about applying for jobs. It's so difficult to do though with working full time. I really don't have the time or the energy to look for jobs as much as I should. I really want to live in Philadelphia. I don't know why exactly but it's something I have been thinking about for a while. Not only do they have some good non profits (the field of management I want to get into) but I just really enjoy the area. I've realized this year that I enjoy living away from home a lot. Philly is the perfect area in which I am a distance from home and on my own in a sense, but close enough that I can drive there in 8 hours if I wanted to. I'm also kind of thinking about school...haven't really figured out what yet, but the option is there. I'm thinking about getting my masters in theology, business or education. As much as teaching PE drives me crazy, I think it's mainly because of the fact that it's PE and I would really enjoy it if I could have control of the class and not be playing sports so much. Theology because I think it would be good in the non profit field. And business because well...thats why my bachelors is in! Who knows though. We will see where this next month and a half takes me!

Although this year is beginning to come to a close and it's hard not to focus on what I'm going to do next year, I'm trying to concentrate on the now and really enjoying the rest of the year before it all flys by. We have tons of community events planned...seems like we're booked until we leave! There isn't too much throughout the beginning of May. As the end roles around though on the 23rd we're headed to the wild animal park, on the 24th I'm headed to Disney Land with Mike, Anne and the 8th grade class. The 26th we're going to a padres game and June 2nd we're headed to Disney Land as a community with the tickets the priests gave us for Christmas! I think there is more as well but it's all I can think about at the moment.

As much as I am still trying to just get through the days of work, I do enjoy it all sometimes. It's by far one of the hardest things I've done in my life but definitely worth it. Sometimes the kids drive me crazy and other times I can joke around and have fun with them. Today a first grader came to hug me and told me I was the best PE teacher ever, but then I have 7th grade and have them telling me I pretty much suck. So it don't know what to think. I still have trouble controling 7th and 8th grade, but i'm seeing it now as they're never going to listen to me. 7th grade did tell me today while they weren't having PE that it's not just me, it's the volunteers in general that they don't ever listen to...so that does make me feel a bit better!

I'm proud of the fact that I have actually posted something as I was feeling it. Kairos was awesome...my post on that will hopefully be coming very soon!

This Is Our Time

I've been avoiding this post forever. I started to write it about two weeks ago but ended up getting so angry as I was writing that I just had to stop. This post recaps the 8th grade retreat, which was now what seems like a while ago. The past couple weeks of school I was so angry at the 8th graders that I couldn't write about how great they were without getting even more mad. So, I am writing it now from home, 3,000 miles away. But all of that will be in another post soon to come.

I would say one of the biggest things I did this year and one of the things that I really am the most proud of thus far, is 8th Grade Retreat. Every year the 8th graders have an overnight retreat at Kamp Kuper (about 45min-1hr away from San Diego) which is planned by the Augustinian Volunteer at the school. I mainly planned the entire retreat on my own. Anne helped as well and thankfully Mike came along to help with the boys.

I was extremly nervous going into the two days ahead. Not only because I was in charge of 27, 13 year olds who are pretty crazy, but also because these kids have been looking foward to this retreat for most of their elementary grades. All they were talking about from the moment we got back from Christmas break was how excited they were for this retreat.

The retreat was like your typical retreat, except a little shorter and a little less intense seeing as they are only 13 years old. The retreat ran from Wednesday morning until Thursday afternoon. Wednesday they arrived, we started with the ice breakers. Then went into the Friends talk from Mike and Family talk from Anne with small groups following both of them.


Me with my small group

They then had confession and mass. All of that was followed by a photo scavenger hunt with their small group...i think that is what got them really excited about everything we did, finally "bonding" with their groups (my group won in the end btw!)


My group doing on of the pictures on the scavanger hunt...a conga line! They were smart and thought smallest to tallest...gabe, justin, esteban, sebastian, reyna, lillian, marisa, sal and will.

At night we did some retreat like activities. The "reach out and tap someone" game (yes, for you merrimackers reading this I had to change 'touch' to 'tap' because they can't handle anything slightly inappropriate) which took a bit to get into but ended up working really well. The 8th grade teacher and I were discussing how the game will probably work better with more mature classes in the future. We then did the dream circle chain (yes, I took it from MORE!). I had them doing dream stuff in computer class so they were prepared. They had to write their realistic dream on one side of a strip of paper and their unrealistic dream on the other side. We then connected them all together and the chain is now hanging in their classroom which is nice. Following all of that they recieved letters from their family and friends which was always great, and since they had never been on a retreat before they weren't expecting it.

Night time was not nearly as crazy as I thought it was going to be. Anne, Mike and myself were responsible for staying up until they all went to bed. Anne and I went to bed at 5 and woke up at 7. Mike went to bed at 6 in the boys cabin. I was slightly worried they were going to go crazy because all they were talking about for weeks was the pranks they were going to play. But, they didn't end up playing any and the girls just ended up trying to stay as late as they can. They listened to music, danced, played games and talked about boys and kissing for the night. It was cute to hear all of them...brought us back ten years.

Thursday I gave the God talk. I felt like it actually went pretty well and they got soemthing out of it which was nice. They exchanged gifts and did affirmations afterwards and then we gave them the chance to ask us questions they wanted to about high school, college, ect and finally headed home!


Mike, Anne, Pat Motz (the 8th grade teacher) and I with all the 8th graders

I think the two days were a great realization for me. They are a lot older then I see them and at the same time a lot younger then I see them. I saw everything that they are going through at such a young age...family difficulties, caring a lot and struggling with grades, and even actually having a strong faith in God at such a young age. They are a lot younger then I see them because they cared a lot more about free time and were constantly talking throughout the two days which made me see how they wanted to go for the fun, not always just the retreat stuff.

From what I hear though, they seem to have loved the retreat...I don't know if it was because they got to miss three days of school or because they actually really enjoyed what we did, but at least they still had fun. They are still typical 13 year olds. Some of the other teachers asked if they did any growing up at all over the two days. I say yes. They may still be mean to everyone, including me, but at least they are mean kids who actually semi like me now!

Lenten Reflection

Each year, a variety of Augustinian Volunteers, alumni, friars and friends write lenten reflections that can relate a lot to what we are doing this year. Today was my day to write so I figured I would also post it here! I know that mine is pretty much the end one, but to check out all of them go to http://osavol.org/Lent_10/Reflections.html

Wednesday, March 31
http://www.usccb.org/nab/033110.shtml
Is 50:4-9a; Ps 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 and 33-34; Mt 26:14-25

As Augustinian Volunteers, we are faced with a variety of challenges throughout our year. Although a difficult workday or tension with a community member is definitely a challenge, I believe our greatest challenge is learning to let faith lead our lives. It’s hard to think of a difficult day or a challenging moment as something that is leading us to where we are meant to be, but in order to truly let faith lead us we need to first have trust. Trust in ourselves, that we are working hard and that we can see the positive side of everything in which we are doing. Trust in God, that he will not give us any challenges we cannot handle or that we’re not ready for.

Most importantly, for this year at least, Trust in Community. Isaiah says in today’s reading “The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. He is near who upholds my right; if anyone wishes to oppose me, let us appear together.” It’s not only trusting in our individual community, but the community that surrounds us. The Augustinians, our co-workers, alumni and roommates all give us strength and make us realize that there is always somebody supporting us.

Sometimes it is difficult to focus on what is going on in the moment, but if we look at each instance we can take strength from God in each situation. We can form relationships, make a difference at work sites, support and be supported in community, and truly realize that through it all faith leads each one of our lives.

Katie Kupski
Current AV, San Diego