Off to Youth 2000

I'm headed out tomorrow to chaperone a group of teens from my Parish to the Chicago Youth 2000. I've chaperoned 3 years now, but this year I do not know all of the kids I am bringing, so pray for me, please. I love Youth 2000. It is such a great experience for teens and young adults (I'm just outside of this age range). My dear find Br. Maximilian Mary,CFR, is coming in to MC, being the hometown boy. All the kids I am bringing have met him, which makes it really fun, he can joke with them, and tease me, it turns out, I act "motherly" now and am not as much fun as I was at 16, when we met. Go figure. The downside is I have to leave my kids with a friend, they are years from being old enough to go. My middle kid will get to go on Sunday to see Br. MM, who is his godfather. If Youth 2000 is in your area, check it out. I know several vocations and even more miracles that have come from it. Plus, it is a good way to see the beautiful diversity of people in the Catholic faith.

The Simple Joy of Service

Today my daughter and I , along with her pre-teen girls club, visited Feed My Starving Children. Together, we made 28 boxes of food to be sent to missions in developing countries. That food is enough to feed 16 children for 1 year. I cannot say enough good things about our experience. We spent a mere 2 hours at the facility, and we are feeding 16 kids for 1 year.

FMSC is an organization that makes high vitamin, high protein meals to be sent to missionaries in Haiti, Sudan, Bolivia and to the Mississippi Delta of the US. 18,000 children under die each day from starvation world wide. FMSC provides 15 million meals a year. They are firmly based on Christian principles, and by partnering with missionaries, they ensure the children not only get food but medical care, education and spiritual food.

We are very fortunate to live very very close to their new facility. We will be visiting them again, regularly I hope. Why? Not just because we are helping people, but we had a blast. 23 kids made meals, they packaged rice, soy and veggies to feed other kids, and they had so much fun. The kids got competitive, and were trying to fill more boxes at one table than another. Most of the kids want to go back, most didn't want to leave. According to FMSC, most of the food is packaged by children. You can see from the photo our group was mostly pre-teen girls, with a few older male siblings. That is so incredibly awesome to me. I'm so glad we were able to take part in this. If FMSC is in your area, consider volunteering, if they are not, pray about a donation, 95% of the money donated goes directly for food.

Our Journey to Rivendell

I'm sure I first saw this on another homeschool blog, but my kids and I are preparing to join the Eowyn Challenge. It is a really neat website to encourage families to walk more. We walk a lot, but I'm up to a challenge this year. We will be reading the Hobbit aloud this spring as a family, and this seemed a nice fit. If it goes well, we will do more, as we read the LOTR books aloud. If anyone would like to join us, we'd love, even if we just walk together virtually.

I've Returned

From where you ask? In the magic world of a very warm blanket. Its been darn stinking cold here in Chicago! Life has been very busy, and very cold. I've become one of those mothers who spends a great deal of her day carting a children around to lessons, Ballet, band, Science club, cooking class, calligraphy, and boys club. Most days of late it has been snowing, so the trips take three times as long, and when I return to my nice warm house, I usually just want to curl up with my presshooler and try to get warm. Unfortunatly, 3 year old toes are usually sub-zero and make me colder. Anyway, I'm back. I promise not to disappear for so long again.