Sunday Snippets

Happy Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday!!

Here is a post from my own blog and then two blogs I wrote for Varsity Catholic's national website, enjoy!!

From my blog:
Holy Week Bible Study Story

From the Varsity Catholic blog:

Big East Swimmer now CFR

Embrace the Easter Season

Varsity Catholic Mission Trip to the Dominican Republic

Tomorrow I will leave for a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. In some ways it feels like it's been a long time coming and in other ways it feels like it really snuck up on me!

I signed up for the trip back in October and have been anticipating the trip to come ever since. I am going with FOCUS and more specifically the division of FOCUS that I work for, Varsity Catholic. Here is how the trip is described from the FOCUS Missions website:

The Varsity Catholic Mission Camp Experience

When the sport of Baseball was introduced to Dominicans in the mid 1860’s the game was embraced with a passion for which the Dominican culture is known. The passion for baseball still burns in the hearts of all Dominicans and as a result, there are actually more Dominican players in the minor and major American leagues than there are of all other players of Caribbean nationally combined.

Merging the Dominican’s passion for baseball with a passion for Christ and His Church, FOCUS Missions together with Varsity Catholic is hosting a Catholic Baseball Mission Camp in a rural Dominican town called Banica (which is situated on Dominican Republic’s Haitian border). In this impoverished community, we will run a baseball camp for local children with the aim of channeling their passion for the sport to a passion for the Catholic Faith. Our time in the Dominican Republic will climax with a New Year’s Day baseball tournament with local teams.

With the great success of our Baseball Mission Camp last year, we are excited to add a component for the women this year with the sport of volleyball. In most developing countries, involvement in athletics among the girls is infrequent and less supported. Our hope in adding a Volleyball Mission Camp this year is to provide a tremendous opportunity for the young women of Banica to reap the benefits of sport and to see the witness of faith in the athletes we bring.

This trip will allow collegiate (professional) athletes a chance to serve the poor in a radical way through mutual love of a sport. As we work to demonstrate the benefit of bringing Faith to these two games, all trip participants will get a great opportunity to coach local youth, experience daily prayer, enter into the celebration of the Mass, and take in some beauty of the tropical Dominican Republic.

And here is a video from the trip last year.

I'm glad the trip is right after Christmas day and after the season of Advent. As I was expectantly awaiting the birth of our Lord, I also have been waiting for an encounter with the Lord, which I'm sure will happen for all of us going on the trip this next week. 

It's very interesting yet beautiful how the season of Advent and the Christmas season plays out each year. On the calendar it is always the same, at least the duration, we always think we know what to expect; the liturgy, the presents, the parties, the Birth of Jesus Christ! Yet every year there is something different. This year very literally in the liturgy! Haha, but maybe it's how we prepare during the season of Advent or how we receive Jesus once He is born. I guess what I'm saying is I'm very excited to go and meet Jesus in the places and in the faces of the people that I will be serving with and in those that I will have the opportunity to serve.

Please pray for myself and the 25 other young adults from across the country as we celebrate the Christmas season by serving through sport in Banica, Dominican Republic.

God bless you and Merry Christmas.

Another Week on the job

Another great week at Seton Hall, God is so good!

On Monday night we had the 1st Student Athlete Mass of the semester. And there was record attendance! Almost 40 athletes were there, last year I think the highest attendance was around 25. And it was great because there were so many athletes that had never attended anything that Varsity Catholic had put on before. A great night of sharing the Eucharist with the student athletes.

On Tuesday, I had the chance to watch the #1 men's soccer team in the country play against an unranked Seton Hall team. Seton Hall really played their hearts out and played Maryland to a double over time 0-0 tie. It was such an exciting game, I enjoyed sticking around to talk to some of the players after the game to congratulate them on competing so hard.

On Thursday, I had my first Bible study of the semester. 12 men showed up, I invited probably close to 30, so not a bad turnout. For 4 guys it was their first Bible study at Seton Hall, so great to see new men desiring God in their lives. The other 8 were guys that were there were involved last year and it was great to. But we had a great discussion on John 3, talking about why Nicodemus questioned the teachings of Jesus and why we settle as men and humans to live in the darkness instead of stepping into and sharing the light, Jesus Christ.

This weekend I had the opportunity to share my work with a parish in Nutley, NJ. This is one of the ways that FOCUS missionaries develop their financial support teams, buy speaking at parishes and not asking for donations but asking to meet with individuals, couples, or families to intimately share the work of FOCUS with them and then invite them to play a crucial role in our mission by becoming a monthly mission partner. There was pretty good response and I am looking forward to meeting with those that were interested.

Please pray for the men on the baseball team that are committed to Bible study, for men in other sports to be open to Bible study, and that I will be able to increase my monthly support to stay on staff with FOCUS well into the future.

God bless you.

Praying with Pirates

What a great week for Melissa, my Varsity Catholic teammate and I at Seton Hall. The fun really started on Friday with the women's volleyball game which they won in 3 games. From there I went to the men's golf meet at Rutgers University. I got to see all 5 of the Pirates players out on the course, after day 1 they were tied for 1st and they finished in 3rd place, 3 of the men placing in the top 10! It was very impressive to watch them, I like to golf, but wow those guys hit the ball well and far!

I rushed back to the Seton Hall campus for a meeting at 4 that Melissa and I had with the softball team. NJ traffic had other plans. I didn't get back to campus until about 4:30, so Melissa waited outside of the team meeting room. We waited there for about 20 minutes as we didn't think it was appropriate to interrupt coach during his rules meeting. Just before 5pm the women's soccer team started showing up, they had a game at 7. They were a little loud so one of the softball coaches peeked out and asked them to quiet down and at this time Melissa and I were invited in to speak and share what we offer as FOCUS Varsity Catholic missionaries. We have been blessed to have shared ourselves with half of the teams here.

As we left the meeting one of the soccer players asked us if we could "pump" them up before the game. Melissa and I laughed and kind of hesitated and I said, "we could pray with you." The soccer player thought that was a great idea. Melissa and I were really surprised since last year no one on the soccer team was involved in our Bible studies or other events that we held, we really didn't even know more than a girl or two on the soccer team. We went in and prayed with them for a few minutes, many of the players thanked us as we left and we wished them good luck.

After that we went to the 2nd volleyball game of the day as the women took on Boston College. Melissa played volleyball at Pittsburgh so she is a volunteer assistant coach for the volleyball team and gets to sit with them on the bench. This match went to a 5th game and during a timeout in the 5th game Melissa got in the middle of the huddle and fired them up with a pep talk that really pumped the girls up. The girls went on to win the 5th game and the match.

Immediately after the volleyball game I rushed outside to catch the end of the soccer game. I got outside just as the Seton Hall women scored a goal to untie the score at 2-1. A few minutes later Georgetown scored a great goal on a cross pass to tie it up at 2-2 and the game went into overtime. Almost 6 minutes in to overtime the Seton Hall women scored a goal from just outside of the box, the girls rushed the field, it was really exciting.

I went home and got to bed because in the morning Melissa and I were scheduled to speak to the men's and women's cross country team before their meet in Delaware. We spoke to the team on the bus at 8:45am and prayed with them before we left. After that we grabbed breakfast and went to the park where the teams would be running.

We walked from the finish line back into the race about a quarter mile. We found a spot where they would run through just after they started. From there the track looped around but we cut across to where they would run through again as they neared the finish line. We had a lot of fun cheering on the men and women as they competed and I think that the team and coach really appreciated our support. We had a great time.

Just another tough weekend on the job!

Varsity Catholic in the news!!

Please read about the good news that FOCUS and Varsity Catholic are doing in the community!

http://www.ncregister.com/register_exclusives/mass-pray-soccer/

God Bless!

Almost a week in

I can't believe that I have been in New Jersey for only a week, it's strange for me to say that it has felt like it has been a lot longer than that! And I mean that in a good way.

I arrived last Saturday around 4:30pm eastern. The drive was nice, except going through Chicago, I could not find it within me to enjoy the 96 degree heat in bumper to bumper traffic with no air conditioning. But after that it was pretty smooth, I stopped at Notre Dame with me teammate Anthony, we walked around campus but could not get in the chapel because there was a wedding. From there we drove to Pittsburgh and spent the night with a fellow FOCUS missionary. It was neat driving into Pittsburgh at night, for whatever reason the football stadium lights were on and it lit up a good portion of the city, my favorite was the light up Heinz Ketchup bottle being poured out on the side of a building. Anthony and I left Pittsburgh at about 10am. I really enjoyed the drive through Pennsylvania going through tunnels beneath some mountain ranges, very beautiful.

Once we were in New Jersey we had less than an hour to South Orange, my immediate thought was surprised at how green it was. For whatever reason I was envisioning more of a city type of place, but after all New Jersey is the Garden State.

We arrived at our home in South Orange, New Jersey, Ora Manor, campus housing about a mile off campus. It's a two bedroom apartment with a bathroom, kitchen, and a living room. I spent most of Saturday unpacking and getting settled in to my new room. Sunday my 5 teammates and I went to mass at a church just a few blocks away. After that we did some shopping for things we did not have in the apartment and for food.

On Monday myself and the two other new staff members got a campus tour. Campus is very nice, everything is close and it is a beautiful campus. We were introduced to the RAs and the rest of the housing staff. We have a beautiful chapel on campus which I will be sharing a picture of in a future post.

Tuesday was interesting, we went to New York City, my first time in the big city. We took a train to New York (the train station is about 4 blocks from our apartment) from there we jumped on the subway and ended up at Central Park. We walked around there for a bit and then went to the Frick Art Museum. Then we wandered down past the Trump Towers and the Rockefeller Center. We saw CBS and NBC Studios and Radio City Music Hall. We went to mass at St. Patrick's which is located right in the heart of the city, only about a block from the places I just mentioned. Then we met up with some fellow missionaries that live in the city and we grabbed a slice of pizza at Fat Sal's. From there we stopped by young adult bible study of sorts where we discussed Catholic Christian dating and relationships.

Wednesday morning my Varsity Catholic teammate, Melissa Stadelman and I started to meet with coaches. There are 14 varsity sports at Seton Hall, and on Wednesday we met with 2, the men's and women's golf coaches. They were both excited to welcome us and happy to give us access to their teams.

And that's life in the big city for now! Some of the students involved with FOCUS arrive Monday afternoon, all students move in next Thursday, and school starts on the 31st.

Please keep my teammates Teddy, Anthony, Rosabel, Katie, Melissa, and I in your prayers at the beginning of this school year. That we will trust in the Lord, that He will give us the words to speak, and that we would be fearless in sharing the gospel with the students at Seton Hall University.