SPIRITUS Team 2010 - Impact

My heart was really drawn to SPIRITUS and I knew these 9 months would be a chance for me to say "thank you" to the diocese of Green Bay, my home diocese from which I received the gift of Baptism and the gift of my Catholic faith.  These past 9 months have brought about many unexpected blessings--from new friendships to a new confidence about my gifts-- and it has also introduced me to some challenging reflections.  I can't get over how much of a battle it is to minister to youth--how indifferent and ignorant so many are--and how there is always someone who needs me to fight for them and to pray.  I can't get over how much prayer changes everything.  When we pray for people, their lives change.  Through SPIRITUS I have begun to learn what it means to serve, to give, to rest, and ultimately what it means to be human.  The time spent on the team has helped me to see that we can encounter again and again our own tiredness, weakness, fragility, and incapacity, and yet find that God's strength enters this scene of our brokenness and brings about a strength and power that is not from us.  It is this strength which has enabled us to carry out, in obedience, our ministry.
-- Emily Pogue

Often when people do ministry, others applaud them for giving up their lives.  I did not give up anything to be here that would compare to what I gained.  SPIRITUS is a gift, not a sacrifice.  I have been immensely blessed.  SPIRITUS is a beautiful opportunity to see God at work in and through me, and in and through my team.  Whatever good we may accomplish is accomplished by God with our cooperation, and He blesses us by allowing us to work with Him.  SPIRITUS helped me learn more about myself, when I thought I knew it all!  It showed me how much I need God, how much I can still grow, and what I am truly called to, which is love.  I am called to love others with the same love God shows me, every day.  When I return to Minnesota, I won't be wearing my SPIRITUS black and khaki, but with the help of our Father's grace, I will still be living my call to love.
-- Marissa Evans

SPIRITUS has been a tremendous gift to me that will continue to unwrap for years to come.  In the last nine months, I have discovered its intimate union with our Lord’s heart.  It is a beautiful patchwork made up of many different people, each with very different backgrounds and very different personalities, but sewn together with the very same mission, to bring souls to Christ.  The Lord uses each of us, as imperfect as we are, to bring the message of His perfect love to the youth.  Drawing from His sacred heart, we are given the grace to serve in the evangelization mission of the Church.  Students encounter God in and through SPIRITUS and I am eternally grateful for having had the opportunity to serve!
-- Erin Schuessler

After quitting my sales/management position to join SPIRITUS, I felt a huge spiritual gap between selling furniture and saving souls, but I realized God wanted to give me as much grace as possible in order to make that transition.  SPIRITUS allowed me to become open to God’s grace and to embrace the call of Evangelization which can be summed up in a couple of ways: First, the discipline of a daily routine, centered around prayer and the sacraments, have re-paid numerous dividends in my spiritual life; second, being able to work with different kids all the time opened my mind to different ways of communicating and reaching out to multiple crowds.  Overall, my experience with SPIRITUS has boosted my own spiritual life along with increasing a desire for other people to know God.   This is why I will be back again to serve with SPIRITUS next year.
-- Mark Rose

Learning How to Love
Among the many blessings, challenges and graces of the past nine months, this is for me one of the most profound. SPIRITUS has given me the opportunity to love and experience love in so many beautiful ways. Through serving youth, through sacrifice, through the generosity of others, through simply being in God's Presence and letting Him love me... And it has been such a privilege for me to experience being a witness of God's simply by our presence and our willingness to give, and persevere through, nine months of service. Some of the most uplifting moments for me have been the unexpected encounters with people at the library, the Subway, the plasma center! ...  people in the community who are inspired and filled with hope through the love of God in us. I still have much to learn about love, and lots of growing to do. It is true that the closer we grow to God, the more we realize how much we really need Him! Praise God for humility! And that He loves us, weaknesses and all! Praise God for SPIRITUS, and this year of service and growth. Praise God that I am still learning how to love!
-- Katie Kolega

I came to SPIRITUS knowing only one thing: Divine Providence seemed to lead me to the program and that I had to follow.  This became apparent to me when I arrived in Green Bay on August 14th, 2010 and sat with Eden Foord at St. Brendan's Pub for lunch.  I suddenly had this realization that I was supposed to be here and despite many things, this realization never left me.  The impact of this program upon my life has been quite significant.  For now, I wish to state that increased self-confidence, improved public speaking abilities and the development of interpersonal social skills have been significant milestones for me.  For the students we saw, SPIRITUS has had many different effects one of which was to save the life of a retreatant.  This person now is dedicating their life to Christ and His Church.  I saw a demonstration of this that brought tears to my eyes and I thanked God for this conversion.  As the 2010-2011 SPIRITUS team members go their separate ways, we remain united in Christ and by the bonds that were formed during our time together.  Our experience will last a lifetime and I am grateful for this opportunity.
-- Kevin J. Symonds

My SPIRITUS “odyssey” so to say has been a delightful and exhilarating episode. For one reason, I like new challenges and so moving to Wisconsin from Baltimore was definitely going to orchestrate before me challenges ranging from meeting new people to adaptation to the frigid bone-chilling winter temperatures of the Midwest. However, I trusted in divine providence; I courageously gave myself to Him. It’s been such an experience I wouldn’t have envisaged when I was accepted to be on the team initially. At the point of my acceptance on the team, all that lingered and filtered through my mind was nothing close to the reality of my actual experience thus far. For me, Mount Tabor environment is conducive for a healthy human flourishing. The warm reception and acceptance that is readily available to me from the Director down the pecking order of the hierarchy at Mount Tabor, including all my SPIRITUS team members have fostered and kindled within me the presence of Christian love that we are all called to tend. I feel a sense of acceptance and appreciation of who I am and what I can offer.
-- Paul Nomsule