What is Lay Consecrated Life?

Just checking in to update you on how the journey to Trinidad is going! A little over 6 months ago, I began fundraising to help with my student loans so that I could join Living Water Community as a consecrated woman. Thanks to generous sponsors, I have raised $37,665 towards my goal of paying off/covering as much of my $90,000 in student loan debt. This assistance will allow me to move to Trinidad to freely discern life as a lay consecrated missionary giving my life back to God.

So if you have been part of this process through prayer or financial assistance, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you! I keep you in my prayers daily.

So, all of that being said, what exactly does it mean to be a lay consecrated living in community with Living Water? It can sound a little confusing if you aren't familiar with the lingo, so here is a quick breakdown:

Living Water Community: A community formally recognized as a lay association of Christ Faithful
 that serves those in need throughout the Caribbean. The communities mission is "is to be in the world today a presence of God's unconditional love, mercy forgiveness healing and peace."*

Consecrated Woman - A lay person who is consecrated to serve Jesus and the Catholic Church community by living the evangelical counsels (poverty, celibate chastity and obedience).**
Household Member - "means sharing life with others in the Community where everything is shared in common and lived as family, and “called to live a way of life that will lead them to holiness of charity through the observance of the evangelical counsels..."**

Hopefully this breakdown gives a little insight into what, God willing, I will be doing with my life!

*Taken from the Living Water Community Statutes
** Taken from the Living Water Community website

A Call to Love; A Call to Living Water

I have been accepted to join formation with Living Water Community to become a lay consecrated missionary in Trinidad!

Whew! For those of you who have heard me talk non-stop about this community for the last two years, this may not be a surprise but the process is officially on the move. I am so excited to get started on this new journey, but I have some standing commitments in the states that I need to work through first. For those of you who haven’t heard about Living Water, let me share a little of my story with you:

When I boarded the plane to Trinidad in May of 2013, I would have told you that my summer ministry immersion with Living Water Community was going to be a great experience, but most importantly that it was preparation for all that was coming next. It was a blip on my radar in between graduating college with my Bachelor Degree in Religious Studies and my year of service with FrancisCorp in Costa Rica. Though I had been discerning religious life, the life of a lay consecrated missionary was never what I had in mind. But our God is a God of surprises.

Household members of Living Water Community ~ Chapter 2015 

From very early on in my trip, living and working with community felt natural, felt like “home”. It was over the next two months that God slowly whispered into my heart. At first, my response to that tugging was I’ve barely known this community for a month, this must just be a ‘mission trip high’ to God, you cannot possibly be calling me to this community! WE HAD A PLAN! Despite my hesitancy, I began falling in love with the spirit, prayer and people of Living Water Community.

In retrospect, I can tell you the moment when I started to truly pray about the possibility of joining household. I was working in the food bank, packing food hampers to give to our clients and singing praise music with the woman in charge. They had just been telling me that I needed to come back and help for Christmas and it hit me – my trip was going to end. My only thought was I can’t imagine this not being my every day. God had brought me to this community and had opened my heart to His call without me even knowing it! There was no turning back after that moment and over the last two years, His call to live and serve in Living Water Community has been confirmed over and over.

Not only do I believe that this community has changed and will continue to change me, I believe that God gave me gifts and talents that I can offer them. During my time with community, I have been able to use my experience and background in education and religious studies by helping with youth and children prayer meetings, as well as helping with Vacation Bible School. My background in Spanish has allowed me to work with refugees from Spanish speaking countries that come to Living Water. Each of the ministries that I have been a part of during my short visits have shown me ways that I could be of service to the community.

So, what comes next? While I was in Trinidad in May of 2015, I met with the foundress and current Director of Community – Rhonda Maingot – and expressed my desire to enter formation to become a consecrated member living in household.  I have been accepted to begin formation in September 2016!

This is where I need your help! Becoming a missionary and moving to another country presents its challenges! There are 3 ways that I could use your help- Pray, Give, Share

 Pray  – While I am so excited to begin this new journey, I know that it will not be easy. It has never been easy to leave my family and friends while traveling and add in learning to live in community and assimilating to a new culture, I can use all the prayers I can get. I also have a lot of work to do so that I am able to join community in September, so I ask that you please keep me in your prayers as I embark on this journey.

            Give - I am extremely grateful for the Catholic education I received at the University of Dayton and would never have landed where I am without my time at UD, but it has left me with student loans. To begin my formation and join community, I must be free of any financial obligation or debt, including student loans. I will be committing to communal poverty, I will not receive a salary and will rely on the community to meet my basic needs which means that I will not have the means to continue paying off debt once in community. My current debt is $96,000 in both private and federal student loans. It seems like an impossible amount, but I truly believe that God has placed it on my heart to join this community and will provide in big ways.

That being said I need your help! If you would prayerful considering

There are 3 ways that you can donate:

Online for non-family members you can go to Joy to the World Foundation to donate. This foundation is able to give you a donation receipt so you can claim your charitable donation on your taxes. This money is sent to my account with the foundation and then at the close of my account will directly be paid to my loans.

            Online for family – due to the nature of the fund above, family members are unable to receive a charitable tax deduction. If you would like to give, you can go to this gofundme.com/h686pnkk. This fund is linked directly to a separate bank account specifically for this fundraiser. It will then be disbursed to my loans on a monthly basis.

            By snail mail – if you would like to help out, but would rather meet with me personally or send your donation through snail mail, it can be sent to the following address:

                                                               

Joy to the World – Tax deductible/non-family

Joy to the World Foundation

c/o Cassandra Schemmel Benevolence Fund

5550 Tech Center Drive Suite 305

Colorado Springs CO 80919

       Share my story – If you know someone who might be interested in my story, please feel free to share it with them! I believe that this is the perfect time for sharing with young people that there are many ways to serve God, you just have to tune in to the still small voice. If you know someone who might be interested in supporting my fundraiser or a business that would like to become a sponsor, please let me know and feel free to share this blog with them!

I want to thank all of you, because without the support and prayer that you have gifted me with thus far, I would never be where I am. It is through the constant encouragement of family and friends that the little girl who used to play Mass with her siblings and stuffed animals is now moving forward to become a consecrated women serving God’s people.

Fearless

“Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's the mastery of fear. It's about getting up one more time than we fall down.” Arianna Huffington

As I sat in Trinidad, ringing in the New Year in my favorite fashion (hint: we celebrate it every Sunday), the priest gave a homily about this newborn year that we held in front of us. He urged us to look at this “newborn” and to give it a name that expressed all we hoped for its life. Preoccupied as I was with leaving Trinidad, with questions of when, how and why I would go back, I named my year Fearless.

I decided that I wanted to live my life without fear…even if it was for just a year. My understanding of what that meant was fairly shallow, mainly focused on the fear and sadness I felt leaving a place that has become like home. I wanted to name the year Return – to focus on getting back to Trinidad. I wanted to name my year Home – to take with me the parts that made Trinidad home to me.  But as I prayed, the Spirit opened a different word to me – Fearless

To live without being afraid of the movements of the Spirit.

To not be afraid of where God might call me in my future.

To be courageous despite not knowing the plan.

To face the fears and anxieties that hold me back, acknowledge them and then overcome them.

Basically, I wanted to take life by the horns and live it well. Moving and flowing with the river of the Spirit that I felt running through me. At one point, that meant recognizing a fear that Trinidad might not be where I’m called. At another, that meant recognizing my fear of failure and trying something new at work. It meant listening to Christ. But even at that, my idea of a Year of Fearlessness was limited.

Today at work, I encountered a different type of fear. There are these two boys at work, we’ll call them Mark and Evan. Well, these boys have stolen my heart. Every day when I walk into Casa Cuna, Evan yells my name and runs to me. “Catsi, Catsi!”, buries his head into my legs in a tight embrace and I bend down for a kiss. His brother, Mark, does the same when I run into the room. Despite him yelling or kicking when he’s mad, this boy is love. He’ll snuggle in my lap, climb on my back to give me a kiss and is the first to say goodbye at the end of the day. These kids are my daily conversion to love more and harder and are my sunshine all at the same time.

They’re leaving us.

We don’t know a lot of information, just that they are leaving soon. It’s happened before that kids leave with little notice, or that we come to work one day and they’re gone. But hearing that my two little angelitos, who I’ve watched grow up so much, were going away. Where are they going? How are they going to grow up? Will they see their mom again? What will happen to them? I was afraid for their mom, who had already had two children die. What will she do without them? Where is she going? How is she going to handle this? As my ministry has turned me outwards, the opportunities to let fear take over have grown infinitely – in the plight of people who I don’t even know.  This is how God transformed my Year of Fearlessness, by turning it away from me and towards something greater. Away from me and towards my brother and sister, for whom He has commanded me to become their keeper.

So what is my courage here? How do I overcome the fear? I overcome through prayer and through faith. Faith that the same Jesus Christ who gives me courage to overcome my internal fears, gives me confidence that all will be okay. The same Christ who died on the cross for my sake, died for the sake of these three beautiful people. I have faith that as we pray for Mark, Evan and their mom, God the Father will watch over and guide them. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have questions or fears, not even close. I’ve cried three times while writing this. It means that as I think about it, I name the fear and remind myself that God is bigger. When fear beings to overwhelm me, I run into the arms of Jesus and pray.

The only way I can truly live fearlessly, is by allowing the One who conquered fear and death to be in charge. So join me in prayer and take heart with God we will nothing stops us.