What brought you to Christ in the City?

I first heard about Christ in the City when I was in college. I was immediately drawn to the work that they do serving our friends on the streets. During my freshman year of college I volunteered with a Catholic organization that serves the spiritual needs of the monetarily poor in the Bronx. I was blown away by my experience with them. While I served with them in their food truck apostolate, I was given the role to go up and introduce myself to those we were ministering to as they were waiting in line for food. Many of them started opening up about their experience in being homeless and the different struggles they have faced. Yet, amidst their struggles they still had gratitude, many of them finished our conversations thanking God for what they did have. After these conversations, I asked them if we could pray together. Many of them said yes, and we prayed together asking Christ to come to us and fill our situations and our lives with His love. I encountered Christ in a tangible way in these experiences. I found Christ in those I just met. Those encounters really set my heart on fire to go and serve. As I continued in my studies I knew after I graduated that I wanted to go and serve His people, although I was not sure yet how He would call me to serve His people. Fast forward four years and God has placed Christ in the City on my heart. In prayer I have felt a call from God to go and serve our brothers and sisters on the streets. To go and serve those facing severe loneliness and despair and strive to be a vessel bringing His love and joy to them.

What are you looking forward to?

I am thrilled to be serving with Christ in the City! What I am most looking forward to is the work I will do and the relationships I will form with our brothers and sisters on the streets. I believe when you say yes to God He can use your yes in incredible ways. I cannot wait to see how He will bless all those relationships I will form both on the streets and those I will be serving with.

A bit about me

I grew up on Long Island and I am the youngest of five kids. My relationship with the Lord was deepened in high school and I knew since then that I wanted to live my life for Him. That encounter led me to attend Franciscan University where I studied theology and catechetics in order to then go and serve the Church. God definitely has a sense of humor with me. I told him in prayer I would go anywhere he wanted me to go and serve. I felt Him call me to go and serve the Church in Iraq, scared yet excited, I said yes. Thus, this past year I was teaching religion to 110 kindergarten students at a Catholic School in Erbil Iraq. It was an amazing experience where I encountered Christ in my students, my fellow teachers, and in all the friends I made. A line I love meditating on from Pope Saint John Paul II is, “Life with Christ is truly an adventure.” That has definitely been true in my own life. I have been blessed with many unexpected yet wonderful experiences. I am excited to see how God blesses this time with Christ in the City.