First Hello

I find this all so exciting! We are coming to the beginning of a new school year and I know the Lord is preparing all of our hearts to begin this great adventure! Having discovered blogging I'm so excited to have this medium to share what the Lord does. You all are such a blessing in my life and I hope you are able to enjoy this tool as much as I think I will. Please post and share your thoughts with me, if there are questions that you have or particular things that you would like to hear about let me know.
We won't be gathering as a team until next week but I came back to the great city of Lincoln early to witness the wedding of one of my teammates. What a privileged it was to see her joined with her fiance in holy matrimony knowing the dedicated selfless love they share for one another. May God be praised for another wonderful union.
In light of the fact that school has yet to begin I am taking some time to prepare my heart and mind for the year. Our household (six of the seven women missionaries on the team) decided last year to dedicate our house to St. Edith Stein. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her, she was born in Germany in 1891, Jewish convert to Catholicism, she entered Carmel in 1933 , and was killed during the holocaust at Auschwitz. I'd like to share with you an excerpt from a book on her life,

"There is a state of resting in God, an absolute break from all intellectual activity, when one forms no plans, makes no decisions and for the first time really ceases to act, when one simply hands over the future to God's will and 'surrenders himself to fate'. I myself have experienced this state to some extent. It came in the wake of an experience which had overtaxed my strength, drained my spiritual resources and robbed me of the ability to act. Compared to that inertia arising from a lack of vital energy, 'resting in God' is something entirely new and distinct. One is a kind of 'stillness of death', whereas the other is marked by a sense of tremendous security...which, to the degree I give myself to it, fills me with life..." (Edith Stein: Modern Saint and Maryter, pg. 12)

She is a profound witness to us in her willingness to accept the cross with Christ and to live with Him joyfully despite suffering. As she says, " 'love of the cross' was not love of torture, love of a piece of wood, but love of the Person who was on the cross. Suffering was the very place, therefore, where she could always find him, come closest to him, and help him to save the world."(Edith Stein: Modern Saint and Maryter, pg. 33) Please pray that the Lord provides us as "Team UNL" the grace to have a dispostion akin to that of St. Edith Stein, that we may also be his instraments to help him save the world.

Know I love you all very much and I can't wait to "talk" again real soon :)!