Called by Name

Greetings, SPIRITUS blog readers!

I’m so overjoyed to be here on SPIRITUS! It’s the first time I’ve ever lived far away from my home city of Philadelphia. A couple years ago, I never would have imagined God calling me so far away to serve Him. The chain of events that led me to Wisconsin was something only the good Lord could have planned. When we had our opening retreat at Camp Tekakwitha two weeks ago, my teammates and I all shared our stories of how we ended up joining SPIRITUS, and it was remarkable to hear how many of us never would have thought to apply if it hadn’t been for some improbable occurrence. Many of us are here thanks to the tireless efforts of our awesome recruiter Andrea, but it’s clear that the most influential person in bringing us all here was the Divine Person of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit chose each of us very purposefully for this ministry. We’ve already started to see some of the awesome things God can do through us when we take the unique set of spiritual gifts each of us has and use them as a team. Some of us are great at leading group prayers, others use their musical gifts to help us have powerful praise and worship sessions, and still others have a gift for helping the team stay on task when we have work to do. As we continue to prepare for our first retreat with the youth this weekend, we’re figuring out who has the strengths we need for every part of our retreats, and so far we haven’t run into anything that none of us can do well. It doesn’t seem like our complimentary spiritual gifts are a coincidence; it seems like God called each of us here by name because He knew we would form exactly the kind of team He wanted.

We’re all so blessed to be here, and we’re not taking it for granted. We pray every day for the youth we serve, the benefactors of SPIRITUS, and our own spiritual growth. The graces we receive from being here are immeasurable, and we’re looking forward to getting more joy from sharing those graces with others than we get from receiving them. Please keep the whole team in your prayers throughout this year, and we will do the same for you.

After only two and a half weeks here, I can already say I love Wisconsin and SPIRITUS! God bless!