Q&A about mission formation

Our family has been down in Abbeville with Family Missions Company for two weeks!  It's hard to believe that the time has flown...we have all learned so much about ourselves, about Jesus and about missionary life.

I thought I would share with you some answers to questions you might all have.

Where do you live?
We currently live in Louisiana, in a small town called Abbeville...population a little over 12,000 people.  We're about 15 minutes or so from the main downtown.  In fact, in unofficial "Catholic terms" we're at a mission parish...we are about 5 minutes from St. James Chapel, and as the name suggests, we are too far out of the city to actually have a church, but rather have a chapel where a priest comes a few days a week to celebrate the sacraments!

We live in a house...a beautifully updated house.  In Louisiana, houses don't have basements, so they moved this house from another location.  It was originally abandoned, with a sign that said "free." As long as you were willing to move it, you could have it!  What a blessing!!  In June, they brought the house onto the property.  The back wall of the house was rotting, so they removed the call, added a bathroom, slapped on some fresh paint and updated the kitchen and voila, with a LOT of hard work, we were welcomed to this beautiful little home.

It's about 750 square feet, a small kitchen, one bathroom with shower, one small room for us, and another room (with bunk beds!) for Raeleigh.  The house was originally built in the 1930's so it's got character, but we were blessed with new windows, ceiling fans and AC!!  If you know Ben (and Louisiana humidity), you know how much Jesus loves Ben with that gift!  Our house is always FREEZING according to me and Raeleigh says she's "coldie" :)  But it's home and we're so happy to be here!

The property we live is a part of Family Missions Company - many acres with horses, chickens, and tons of trees!  There are four other houses along our 'row' - one missionary family in each, with two families in the two story house.  The other missionaries, singles and families, live in borrowed RVs, rented trailers, and in bunk beds in the Big House (our community house).


How many missionaries are there?
In Intake 2014 (our formation class) we are 5 families, 6 men and 6 women...a total of 39 missionaries and 3 in utero!  One of the other missionaries is pregnant with twin girls!! :)  The youngest missionary is 5 months old!  We love this group of beautiful souls...men, women & children alike.  There are two missionaries from India and Canada and those of  us from the US are from all over: Oregon, Virginia, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado (there are 5 from Colorado including us!), Wisconsin, California, & more.  Some missionaries are younger, just completed a year or two of college, and others are older, with kids in the workforce and college.  We are quite the eclectic group!  It's a joy to journey with them and learn from them.  We are the largest intake class yet, but I'm sure the Lord will provide MORE next year, as his call is so important!

Post by Family Missions Company.

What do you do all day?  What do your weeks look like?
We relax and sit in the chapel & pray....haha!!!  HARDLY!! :)
We pray, definitely, but we're all busy studying, working, learning, preparing teaching, cooking, eating, taking care of our kids, and living in community.

Mornings start with breakfast & community prayer...usually Liturgy of the Hours, but sometimes we'll do scripture reading & sharing or the rosary.  Prayer is always filled with singing, praising, and sharing!

Post by Family Missions Company.

One thing that is in FMC's charism is to end our meal time grace with "Amen. Alleluia. Glory" (fist shooting in the air, getting louder with each word).  It only took Raeleigh about a week to pick it up.  One morning as we were praying, just the three of us, we finished 'Bless Us O Lord' and Raeleigh finished our 'Amen' off with 'Alleluia. (two hands in the air) Glory!'  It's beautiful to see our kids praising the Lord.  I learn so much about being a child myself!

Our morning session is either a teaching workshop where we prepare talks to give or a teaching about being a missionary.  Last week we all gave our conversion testimony.  They were awesome to hear how God has transformed our lives by his love & grace!!  The kids are in Kids Ministry; they do homeschooling work (or in Raeleigh's case learn the alphabet), play on the playground, have a snack, and laugh & sing.

Then there's lunch prep, and lunch.  After lunch we have a study, either reading Acts of the Apostles or Mission of the Redeemer.

Then off to chores, personal prayer time, time with the kids, and reading/studying for a talk we're giving.  We each have personal chores and then we have community chores - things like meal prep is divided throughout the day per team.  Ben's in charge of fixing fences some days, and helping out with electrical or carpentry the other days.

Dinner prep starts in the early afternoon, then dinner & a community activity: praise & worship, women's/men's bible study, game night, mission formation with a great community in Louisiana.  We attend daily Mass two times a week as well.  We celebrate Lord's Day Supper each Saturday night, which is by far becoming one of my favorite meals & events of the week.  There is so much excitement for the preparation and the celebration of Sunday which we celebrate on Saturday night.  We have a much bigger community present for dinner, we roll out the table cloths, and light candles, sing more songs, and have a fabulous dinner!

With a busy schedule, Raeleigh is lucky if she gets to bed before 8pm, and lights out for us should be 10:45pm, but it feels like there is always 'one more thing to do' at night, especially as we are encouraged to be missionaries with orderly homes.

We eat about 85% of our meals in community.  Some nights, and on Sundays, we have time just for our family.

We are limited to 2 hours of internet and phone each week to maintain our focus on the mission and the community.  It's too easy to get swept up in what's happening back home or in someone else's life and forget what God has called each of us to here.  It's a beautiful reprieve, but it's hard to catch up with everyone that we would like to.  It helps that cell phone service and internet don't have great coverage, at a certain point, I've gotten fed up just trying.


Overall, it's a great life...great formation, great people, and a great Jesus!  He's present in a small chapel in the big house, so we are blessed to be able to walk over to visit him whenever we can as we continue to know him, love him and serve him!

Lord make us ministers of the gospel whose lives GLOW with fervor (Evangelii Gaudium #10).