Last spring I had the privilege to direct a week-long spring break mission trip for college students to serve with Source of All Hope. I was working in the alumni department of another missionary organization at the time and the mission trip was not a typical part of my role but I was excited to be able to serve in that capacity again. Only two weeks prior to the mission trip had I come to the end of a long discernment out of my previous missionary work with only a few guiding lights. One of those being a deep desire to work directly one-on-one with people again. 

My week with Source was deeply and joyfully moving. While spending time with our friends on the street, as we say at Source, there was a freedom to be fully present to the person in front of me including our friends and even those I had come on the mission trip with. 

I found myself often thinking about the troubles being shared and how so many of them were things we all experience. From troubles with friends or family, the need and often struggle to ask for help from those around us, and the call to be generous with even the little we may sometimes have. This is what has attracted me to work with those in poverty: their humanity. They do not hide it, cannot hide it. Everything is laid bare, the good and the bad. In a world where we can do so much to escape our humanity, I’ve found God to be in reality, and that the poor are often the most present to the reality of their human need. 

Over this next year I pray to find Christ in the poor, and that this work may allow my own heart to be a place where others may find Christ in me. The mission statement of Source still moves my heart every time I share it,  “to give Christ a home in the places he is most neglected -the Eucharist, the Poor, and our own souls”. Little did I know back in March that a one week mission trip would turn into a year adventure, but what St. JPII said it is true, “Do not be afraid! Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure.”