Many people have been curious as to what has been happening in our life since we left Peru. This blog attempts to convey where we are at, what we have been doing and more importantly what the Lord has been doing these past 5 weeks. I would also like to convey what we are working toward as a goal.
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| Karen and I in the FMC chapel |
This time has been a season that the Lord has provided for our family to heal from past wounds, to draw closer together and become more united as a family and especially for Karen and I to draw closer together as a couple. Our church teaches that each family unit is a domestic church or to say it another way, the smallest "church" unit, much smaller than a parish or a diocese (or prelature) and much, much smaller than the global Catholic Church. The devil does not like family. Just as he worked to divide Adam and Eve, he tried to divide The Holy Family by trying to get Joseph to divorce Mary and he is hard at work dividing up families everywhere....all the time. He REALLY is working overtime to do this when it comes to missionary families that are knee deep in the trenches of daily spiritual warfare all for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus to the world.
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| Jack and I reading |
I was blessed this Lent to read a book that a benefactor sent to me called "Man in the Mirror" (no, it is not a Michael Jackson biography). This book opened my eyes to the traps that I had fallen into where the devil was working to divide me from my family. The good news is that Jesus saved me from that! A wise parish priest from my pass used to tell me that the truth is that "Jesus has saved me, Jesus is saving me and Jesus will save me" and I can tell you that this is sooooo true. He is saving me from the tricks of the devil and is showing me my true identity and how blessed I am to have Karen as a wife and the beautiful children he has blessed me with in this call to missions. Jesus is teaching me about the beautiful way in which He loves me and loves Karen and our kids and how we are all called to love and to share that love with others. In addition, Jesus is actively saving me everyday and I know from the bottom of my heart with a whole ton of faith that He will save me again in the future when I am too weak to carry on, when I stumble and fall and mess up His beautiful plan for my life. So, with all of this said, I will try to convey with words and pictures how this is all playing out in our life recently and hopefully it will help you in some way with your family or marriage or relationship or .....??? I hope it does.
We have been spending time with Jesus in the FMC chapel. We have spent a lot of time in prayer, individually, together and as a family. This has been a constant for the last few years but we have ramped it up recently during this beautiful time we have together. Jesus knows each of us individually better than we know ourselves or each other and He really wants to help us to know ourselves and each other much better than we already do. I hope that was clearer than it looks written down....
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| Some of the books we have been working our way through |
We also have been blessed to have time to read during this time. We have been given many good books to read which have helped out a lot. Books like, "The Temperament God Gave You" by Art Bennett. For those who are married, imagine going to work everyday with your spouse....maybe some of you do. Now, for those with children, imagine going to work everyday with your spouse and your children. That begins to open a window into the world of life in missions. In the corporate world I was in before missions, as a manager, it was vitally important to know the type of employees that you had working for you. It is the same in missions and knowing the temperament of each family member and how those temperaments interact with other temperaments has worked wonders in helping our family understand each other better and how we can work together better moving forward. Praise you Jesus for this book!
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| Katelyn LOVES to read!!! |
Another great book is "Created for Connection" (C4C) by Dr. Sue Johnson. This book coupled with "The 5 Love Languages" (5LL) by Gary Chapman have helped me to better understand Karen and our relationship. C4C helped me to understand the conversational patterns we would fall into and gives many practical ways to break old patterns and to begin to create better ones. This book is based on Dr. Johnson's many years of work in Emotionally Focused Therapy with married couples. This is a rather new (~30 years old) development in the rather complex dynamics of a married couples interactions with one another. 5LL is great (many online parodies of what these 5 love languages are) for helping each person to become aware of their own love language and that of their spouse. We realized we can, at times, think that we are showing all kinds of love to our spouse but if it is in a language they do not speak....it is all Greek to them! Super helpful and I highly recommend these books to any couple.
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| 1st day of school!!! |
We decided to put the kids in the local Abbeville public schools which has been really wonderful for our family. The kids get to take the bus to and from school and to take part in the "normal" events that non-missionary kids take part in that trouble so many people's minds with the feelings that they are "missing out" on these experiences. Once again, the Lord provides. He is so, so, so good! The public schools here have uniforms which is a new concept for us and since this is the first time our kids have been in public school there are many new experiences for all of us to share together. Jack and Michael are "Gators" and the girls are "Wildcats" Here is a photo from their 1st day of school!
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Family Bowling outing with another missionary family
the night before they left to serve in Malawi |
One thing that FMC stresses and that was one of the first things to get pushed aside during our time in missions was the need for "Family Fun Days". In addition, we have many benefactors that provided funding for special things to bless our kids and so we have been using this time we have to simply have fun together as a family. Our youngest son Michael has always kept this in his sight while during the last few years, if we had not had a family fun day in a while, he would state, "We haven't done anything fun altogether, as a family". Sometimes, we need to listen to our children as they know best and seem to have a better barometer of the family fun-o-meter. Thank the Lord we are having fun altogether, as a family!!!
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| Our family up in our "tree house" |
We have also been blessed to scrounge together scrap pieces of wood and other materials from around the FMC campus to build a tree house together behind the house we are living in. This was a super fun Saturday activity and was something I personally always wanted to do for my kids but never made the time to do it before now.
People have been inquiring as to how we get around and where we are staying. The Lord has provided for this as well!! Thank the Lord that another missionary family that just left for Malawi has offered to let us use their full-size van while we are here. Here is a picture of me in the van.
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| The van we are using to get around in |
We are staying in a delightful cottage on a pond at the location where FMC hosts a summer camp called "Faith Camp" each year. Recently, FMC was able to purchase this property from the organization that they previously rented it from and "Thanks be to God" because if not, we would not have a place to stay! Why, because this year's "intake" of new missionaries going through formation is the largest ever (even larger than ours in 2015 which was the previous record holder). There are 5 families (1 with 4 children, 3 with 5 children, 1 with 6 children and 1 with 7 children) along with 13 single females and 4 single males.
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| Karen on the porch of where we are staying |
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| Anna planting flowers to beautify where we are staying |
Regarding ministry while we are here in Louisiana. We have been available to help out with "Intake 2018" which is the process of formation that we went through back in 2015. We attend morning praise & worship and Christian prayer with all of them a few days each week. We have also been available as "the missionary family that is back from the field to ask questions to" for all of them. This has been a blessing for our family and hopefully for the families in Intake.
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| Our family with Fr. Francoise |
We have also been reaching out to the local Hispanic community at St. Theresa's Catholic Church in Abbeville. There is an amazing priest assigned there named Fr. Francoise who has such a missionary heart. He served as a missionary priest in Argentina and is doing great work with the community at St. Theresa's. We are helping out by offering family nights for the Hispanic community there and also helping out with the choir.
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| Katelyn sings in the Hispanic choir during the Spanish mass at St. Theresa |
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| Jack and I playing musical chairs at St. Theresa's "Family Reunion" |
The last component is the help that Karen and I have been receiving from so many sources here in Louisiana. We have been so blessed to be here with the community at FMC that is so loving and welcoming to our family. Karen and I have been going once / week to a Catholic marriage counselor in New Orleans that is very gifted and uses Emotionally Focused Therapy along with St. John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" based principles to guide us. He was born in Nicaragua and is fluent in Spanish which is a bonus blessing for us. The sessions are going very well and are helping our marriage tremendously. We are also seeing individual counselors as well as receiving spiritual direction. We can both see how the Lord has brought us all of these wonderful people to help us process, heal and to move forward together. Praise the Lord for all the good that is happening in our lives! Thank you Jesus!!
Here are some misc. photos of our time together:
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| Anna and Katelyn writing down "what blesses them" |
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| Katelyn and I doing a puzzle |
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| Anna and Michael making chocolate chip cookies |
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| Katelyn doing homework on the computer w/ Michael waiting in line |
Our goal is that after our family has been through a season of healing (we do not know how long this will be but the Lord knows and we are confident He will let us know) after which we plan to begin discerning our next mission post. We are in need of continued financial support during this time of healing as the cost of living in the U.S. is much higher than what we have been used to in the jungle of Peru. In addition, the cost of the counselors (even with their reduced missionary rates) and the travel costs to and from have been adding up quickly. Thank you to all of you that have been supporting us on this missionary journey. Please pray for our family's healing and for our house to sell and we will continue to pray for all of you! Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever. Amen, Alleluia, Glory!!!
We'd love to hear from you via email:
carmodyfamilyonmissions@gmail.com
If the Holy Spirit in nudging you to support us financially so that we can continue serving those that the Lord calls us to serve, please visit either:
or
call Family Missions Company at (337) 893 - 6111.
