Joy and Growing Pains

We have started “formation.” None of us had been quite sure what that word meant before and we are still finding out. Our typical day Monday through Friday will consist of:

- 7:00 am Mass

- Breakfast with the volunteers

- An hour for chores – mostly sweeping the cobblestone driveway so we are outside and moving around a little bit.

- At 9:30 we have our first session with Sister Pat and study the gospel of the day in depth and apply it to our lives now and the coming mission. This is very enjoyable because they haven’t been cut-and-dry scriptures and it’s great to go deep into them. We also get to hear lots of stories about Sister Pat and other volunteers at the different mission sites.

- Lunch and then personal time for us to work on our homework and language lessons

- Then, often we will have an afternoon session with Sister Pat or Sister Lisa on different topics related to the mission.

- Nights are fairly relaxed with cooking, cleaning, and hanging out with each other. On Fridays we will be able to help out at Caritas, a soup kitchen in the area, which will be awesome! We did it just yesterday and it was a great experience.

Alex and I were on the food line and I got to ask people if they wanted uno mela, orango, o pera (apple, orange, or pear). The people we served were very friendly and they were easy on us because they could tell we weren't really italian : ) Brendan was by the front helping check people in and he met a lot of people from Africa and learned how to say a few words in different African languages. So we're all looking forward to this coming Friday so we can switch jobs and meet some new people.

We worked out a schedule for cooking during the week, cleaning schedules for every Wednesday and Saturday, and a schedule for daily prayer on our own.

As for finances, we’re each putting 20 Euros into a common pot for groceries and we’ll all add more when we run out. Brendan is in charge of the account and keeps a detailed record of the money (they found out that Brendan was majoring in finance for awhile before he chose logistics). We’ve done great so far though. Yesterday we planned out meals for the week and got groceries. Everything cost only 50 Euros for the whole week for five of us! But this will be our test week to see if that is enough food.

A new type of grocery shopping! Here’s Chris and Brendan in full gear heading to the supermarket. We looked like tourists to be sure, but we were able to get a week’s worth of food the mile back to the VOICA house.

The reason that growing pains is part of the title is that we talked with Sister Pat today about growing and changing and that when we are stretched by change it will hurt a little. It is the same when children get pains when they have a growth spurt.

Brendan has been doing awesome, but I’ve been experiencing some growing pains just within the last day. When we were deciding about meals and how we want to do the cooking, I went in expecting that things would stay as we had been doing them for the past week – medium-sized breakfast and lunch, easy and whenever, and a bigger sit down dinner. This is how my family does it and I love it! Sitting down for dinner with everyone and talking for a long time is something I would always look forward to during the day.

But in Poland and England, lunch is their big meal of the day. I wasn’t sure about this or how it would affect the running I’ve been doing (because around lunch time has been the easiest time to run with this new schedule). So I was disappointed about this and became quiet. It was a little ridiculous; I hadn’t realized how ingrained these little things have become in me even though they don’t matter at all.

These and many other little things have started this growing and stretching process. I honestly thought that living in community would be no problem. I’ve been training for this my whole life! I lived about home until college and then I lived in the dorms at Iowa State. I loved the atmosphere of being around so many people and always having something to do.

What I didn’t realize until now was that I wasn’t completely living in community… I’ve always had a safe space for myself - my own bed, my own things, my own money. I didn’t have to truly trust all the people around me to treat me as they would want to be treated. If someone spent money too freely or they wanted to have a different eating or sleeping schedule it didn’t affect me too much, because I could do as I pleased.

But here we share everything – the cooking, the cleaning, and all of life’s little details. My way is no longer necessarily the best way. I’ve been sheltered in that I don’t care about most little things, and on the bigger things I’ve usually been able to convince people to do it a certain way, so this time of opening up is harder than I thought it would be. But I’m learning a lot and am so thankful for this time of formation in Rome. I feel like my rough edges that I didn’t even know I had are being exposed by this experience and giving me an opportunity to sand them down.

It is always difficult to try to give up our sense of control to God, and it will be hard to have to completely trust four other people with my welfare for two and a half months. This mission is probably one of the most effective ways that God could have found to get me to truly give up the sense of the control that I (and I think most people) love to have. But the pay off will be great - it will help put me in the right mindset to really be effective at the mission, because I will be better able to be truly flexible and in complete dependence on God.

Now I understand more of why we weren’t able to get more specific information out of Sister Pat before we came. International missions are a volatile thing. She told us yesterday that very detailed, long term planning is something that only highly developed countries are able to have. In the missions that she manages, anything could happen (although she tries hard to keep them functioning smoothly at all times). As God calls, there can be more volunteers coming at any time, or volunteers or other critical people can have emergencies, among other things. She told us that we need to practice flexibility here, because if it is hard here in Rome, it will be incredibly hard there. For a planner like me, it will probably take the whole time of formation to come to grasp with the reality that, in a way that is truer than ever before, I do not have control.

Chapels and Churches and Catacombs…oh my!

On Sunday we had an awesome chance to explore Rome with a previous VOICA volunteer, Dokmar, and her mom. The especially cool thing was that while Dokmar was in Rome, training for a mission to Albania, she had to work to help pay for the trip and she chose to work as a Rome tour guide! So she had a ton of inside knowledge and could get around with ease (which was nice after being lost the day before).

Dokmar took a picture of us starting out. These are all the steady volunteers we have right now, although others are due to show up soon. From left to right you have: Brendan, Rachel, Alex, a 19 year old from England, and Sali and Chris, 27 and 28, from Poland.

The first church we stopped at – the Basilica of Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista (Saint John the Baptist).

Brendan praying by a statue of a cardinal in prayer.

Me staring up at a fifteen foot high statue of Simon Peter. The Basilica had statues of each of the twelve apostles. I wanted my picture by Peter because I think I’m a lot like him – messes up a lot of things, but is always trying and had guts and heart to stand up for Jesus.

My favorite story in the Bible is when the disciples are in a boat on the Lake of Galilee in a storm and Jesus comes walking out to them on the water. They think he’s a ghost, but Peter has the courage/recklessness to walk right out the boat and follow Jesus’ call to come to Him. He is rewarded by doing something that mere mortals can’t – for a few seconds he was able to walk on water until doubt got to him. I heard a song about this story and the chorus said, “If I keep my eyes on Jesus, I can walk on water; if I keep my eyes on Him, I can walk on water!”

On this trip Brendan and I probably won’t walk on water, but we probably will see God’s miracles in a more radical way as a consequence of taking this courageous/reckless step out of the boat to follow His call.

In another church we stopped at, they had a full size copy of the Shroud of Turin. I’d heard about this a few times, but didn’t know what it looked like. You can see Jesus’ imprint in between the two lines with the head on the right. All the red that made this imprint possible is from blood.

It took a few minutes for this to sink in, but what got me more was a nearby crucifix. It showed the many wounds of Jesus using the shroud as a “wound map”, displaying what He would have looked like at the end.

So much pain for love of us…we often struggle with a sense of self worth, but this picture lets me know that we each have innate worth. That even before we were born Someone was thinking about us and loved us enough to die for us. You may hear this sometimes, but I hope it actually sinks in soon, because knowing that you are loved unconditionally makes all the difference.

Gelato break! Our first ice cream in Rome!

Alex by a statue of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In the catacombs under the Basilica of Santi Clemente. The catacombs were pretty cool, but we’re hoping to get a tour of some more exciting ones at some point. They were definitely dark and creepy, but other than that, the ones we went down in didn’t have much historical importance.

The day finished up with walking past the Coliseum again, and some quality Jesus time at Mass and vespers at Saint Peter’s Basilica. Life is so crazy that in just one week you can feel like going to Saint Peter’s Basilica for Sunday Mass is pretty “normal.” Crazy!

Hope all is well back home. We love you guys!

Dreary Day

Last friday we planned to walk with Chris and Sali to visit the U.S. Consulate and to see the more distant part of Rome on our way there. We nearly lost our lives several times walking along the busy street next to the convent, but we did see some special things on the way so it was worth it.

Me, Chris, and Sali in an Indian shop along the way.

Brendan and I at Vittoriano – a giant monument for Italian Victory. Inside was a free museum that we need to explore soon. Outside we got to see an awesome view of the Colleseum and surrounding area.

At the top of the stairs at Vittoriano, this is the Italian version of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that we have here. It is guarded by two young soldiers who did a great job keeping serious faces on for all the pictures.

You can see that it’s starting to get more gloomy outside, but luckily Brendan snapped this picture before the downpour started. From Vittoriano we had a nice view of the Colleseum before we got up close and personal with it.

After lunch we started up toward the U.S. Embassy, but decided to take the Metro (the Rome subway train) because it had started to rain heavily. Getting tickets and trying to decide which line to take to get to the right spot were quite a hassle, but eventually we figured it out.

By this time it was downpouring, as it would for the rest of the day. We went to the US Embassy and found out that it was break time, and we couldn’t get in, so we began our journey back across Rome. After further train and bus rides based on the advice of very friendly and well meaning Italian people, who could never quite give us the correct information, we walked a long way and made it home, saturated in water and very tired.

To truly know a place you must get lost there and then find your way back. It took a long time, but we made it home. We are becoming more and more familiar with Rome by the day!

Anyway, it was a lesson well learned and my guess is we will only need to get lost two or three more times to know our area of the city very well. We’ll keep you updated on our progress : )

Day Trip With The Poles

On Wednesday the Polish couple, Chris and Salomea, arrived. For the past few days we’ve enjoyed getting to know them. The first day they slept (just like we had done when we got to Rome) and the second day we had a pleasant walk around Rome for about four hours.On one of the many stately bridges that crosses the Tiber River.

Here Brendan points to the Pantheon. Now it is a Basilica (big, very nice church). Supposedly at some point it was going to be destroyed, but they made it into a church so that it would be preserved.

This is me showing off my angelic qualities inside the Pantheon/Basilica of Mary and the Martyrs.

Brendan took this picture for James, Phil, and Tom. When he saw these centurian helmets from the street he stopped dead in his tracks, refusing to go further until we had gotten a picture.

We made it back just in time to have our first Tetum lesson with Sister Anna Florinda, who actually taught at one of the schools in East Timor where we’ll be going. She is a sweet woman who has a vibrant smile and laugh. We will have four hours of lessons each week and “homework assignments” so we will practice more. But we are eager pupils so there is no worry.

The Polish married couple, Chris and Sali, are also going to East Timor and we will have all of our lessons together, which will make it more fun and give us a chance to practice with each. This is will be a fun time, but please pray that God allows us to have a special gift for picking up the language quickly.

- The Egan's

Bongiorno Roma!

Good morning Rome! We woke up this morning at 4:30 am, our bodies still struggling to adjust to the new time zone, but it was fun. We arranged our whole room so we could have the most space and unpacked everything.

We then went to Mass at 7am, which was amazing – there were probably 20 Sisters from two different orders, some of us visitors, and 16 priests celebrating Mass. They all celebrate Mass together because they work at the Italian Conference of Bishops and that’s when they can get in Mass for the day.

Mass was completely in Italian, but because it was the Mass we were still knew what was going on. It struck me that the Catholic Church is one of the only churches where you could go to a church service anywhere in the world and get a lot out of it. Even though it’s in the native language of the place, there’s the unity of celebration all over the world and the miracle of the Eucharist. It’s so incredible and deep that sometimes I’m overwhelmed!

And to be surrounded by the sisters and priests whose whole lives are centered on Christ and service… even a day. I feel an unspoken challenge to give up my life for Jesus everyday – what these people do with such joy! I feel like I’m on the edge of going deeper into the heart of Jesus. Please pray that Brendan and I are able to embrace this time and use it to prepare us for East Timor.

Ok, but back to pictures and stories and less commentary…sorry ;)

After Mass we came back to make breakfast and took this picture. This is the entrance to our home for the next three months. It is gorgeous, but simple. It has tiled floors, a stone staircase, those Spanish-type shingles, and a great balcony (which we will definitely use for card playing until it gets too cold). Here are some pictures we took from the balcony.

Brendan on the balcony and, yes, that is St. Peter’s in the background. It's only a 15 minute walk from our house!

I’ve got St. Peter’s in my hands!

Here’s Brendan by the door to our room. The doors were definitely made for people my size. Brendan said he feels like Gandalf in the Shire, and expects to have a few head injuries before we leave. Luckily the rooms have high ceilings, you just have to make it inside to get there – that’ll be the tough part.

Here’s Brendan in St. Peter’s Square in front of the Basilica. It was swarming with people today, even though it’s after the peak tourist season.

We got in line to enter St. Peter’s. Seeing it for the first time was awesome!

The Swiss Guards in their crazy outfits : )

Michaelangelo’s Pieta, made when he was either 19 or early 20s (our tour books have conflicting dates). But either way – wow… He truly was “remembering his Creator in the days of his youth.” It made me think of Mother Teresa asking us today to do something beautiful for God. Michaelangelo was our age when he sculpted the Pieta. What can we do in our own lives that would be beautiful for God?

Me at the holy water font near the entrance to the church.

This is the body of Pope Innocent, he was one of the Pope’s from early to mid 1900s. His body is still intact and not corrupted. In high school I read a book about this called The Incorruptibles. It’s the kind of thing that could turn an atheist into a Christian.

In the book there are a ton of examples from all over the world about people who were so close to God that their bodies did not know decay. Even though they died, their bodies had been so full of the Holy Spirit during their lifetime that somehow their bodies were preserved sometimes hundreds of years longer than they would have been naturally.

Here’s a close up of the stained glass window over the altar. The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. We had seen this picture in the movie Fishers of Men and wanted to get one of our own.

One of the coolest experiences of the day was prayer in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. No cameras or video cameras were allowed; it was strictly a place of prayer.

It was probably one of the most beautiful things that I had ever seen. I’m typically not too impressed by decorations or gold or silver things because they’re more for show, but every decoration that covered the walls and ceiling drew your eyes around until they were fixed on Jesus in the Eucharist in a simple monstrance on the altar.

It’s in places like Saint Peter’s Basilica that it’s easier to remember the Jesus is not just one of us, but He is GOD – huge and all powerful and all knowing. It’s good to remember both.

On a less philosophical note, we got our first street meal in Rome. And Brendan, the cultured one he is, got a… hot dog : ) I wasn’t much better with a Salami Panini sandwich and we split an “Energade” (Italian Gatorade).

We eventually made it back to the volunteer house that afternoon, took a nap, helped clean, took a walk, and went to bed. All in all a fabulous day! Talk to you soon!

Love,

Rachel and Brendan

P.S. As it gets busier our blog entries won’t be this frequent or nearly this long. It was just a very moving and packed first day, so enjoy this while you can : )

The Joy of Traveling

We’ve made it to Rome! The following pictures should give you an idea of our travels up to this point and the adventures we’ve had already.

Here Brendan sits with his Dad, Pat Egan, by the fire in their house. So charming ;) We spent a fun few last days with him in Rochester – finishing up packing and final details, cooking up a storm, and having card nights with him, Gus, and Cathy. We also were able to spend some time with Brendan’s friends Jarrid and John. And the last few hours in Rochester were spent watching the Viking’s game (which got painful at the end….). We finally headed out on Sunday afternoon. Pat was awesome and drove us to the airport in Minneapolis and we were off!



In the Minneapolis airport, Brendan and I discovered these sweet umbrella advertisements for something or another. There was an umbrella on a screen made out of tiny red umbrellas, but when you walked by and were caught in the light the umbrellas moved like they would if you were actually pushing them out of the way. Cheap entertainment is a beautiful thing.

Soon we were boarding our plane for our 8 hour flight to Amsterdam. Neither of us were able to sleep at all, but we did watch movies and listen to music to pass the time. I saw Disney’s Hercules for the first time ever and it was pretty good I must say.

Tired and getting more tired by the minute we arrived in Amsterdam 10 am their time, 3 am our time. Our plane had been delayed so we waited for a few hours before we were ready to go. Finally our Alitalia plane arrived and we got underway.

The short flight went well. Ok, I don’t actual remember anything, as I passed out from exhaustion. As soon as I sat down I was out, and the next thing I know we were landing.

So we were finally in Roma, Italia! After waiting an obscene amount of time for our luggage to come we made it out into the sun, where Sister Pat was waiting for us.

We didn’t last long when we got to the volunteer house. After a quick tour, Brendan was asleep by 5:30pm (as he hadn’t slept a wink in 24 hours). I was able to go to Mass with the Sisters at 6:00 in their chapel. It was all in Italian, but I could pick out many of the words that looked like Spanish words, which helped a lot. All the Sisters were very welcoming, especially Sister Pat and Sister Anna Florinda who is from Timor. I’m hoping that she will be helping us to learn Tetum (the native language of Timor) over the next few months so that we have some exposure to the language before we get there.

But as soon as Mass was over, I stumbled back to the volunteer house and fell asleep. And what a good sleep it was!

And We're Off ! Nearly....

Hello everybody,

The beginning is here. We have just over 24 hours left before we fly out for Rome and what a summer it has been. These past three months God has blessed us with much more then we could have expected. He gave us a great wedding day to bless the start of our marriage, followed by an exciting honeymoon to Australia, great jobs, and a great place to call home.

We began saying our goodbyes on Sunday with a farewell party. Above is a picture of us with the awesome group that came all the way down from Ames to say farewell. We'll miss you guys.

From Sunday up until Wednesday making sure we had all the last minute details taken care of.  Then on Wednesday we had to say our goodbyes to Rachel's family, which was tough and sad for all, we will be missing them a great deal.

A sad departure from Des Moines brought us to a happy arrival in Minnesota where we are spending 4 days with my Dad in Rochester. So far we have been running through our lists and checking them twice. 

Here is my equipment for the trip, before it's packed away (and not including any clothes).

Thats me trying to avoid the alligators in my driveway.....

Officially we fly out of Minneapolis Sunday night at 7pm, make a short stopover in Amsterdam and then end up in Rome, Monday morning 10am (Rome time). 

God Bless, and our next post will have a European flavor to it!