I’m a 1st year missionary from Modesto, CA.
What brought you to Christ in the City?
It’s been on my heart for the last several years to do a year of mission. Once I learned about Christ in the City’s particular mission of loving and serving our friends on the street, I felt very drawn to this particular mission. For the last two years during my spring breaks, I have volunteered with a weeklong mission that holds many similarities to Christ in the City’s model. Similarities such as living in community, commitment to prayer and serving the poor and homeless. During this experience, I worked alongside a woman who for many years has been a driver for a Catholic non-profit that drops off daily lunches for those in need. What really stood out to me was just how open many of the individuals were with her as they visited the food truck. They shared their highs and lows with her, their roses and thorns. And in addition, before we’d reach many of our stops along the route, she would brief me about the people we would likely encounter at that stop. She knew them personally. It wasn’t transactional, it was relational. I loved this experience so much and longed to do the same thing for a more extended period of time that I knew I had to apply to Christ in the City.
What are you looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to so many things! I look forward to the opportunities of growth within myself as well as the opportunities to pour into others. I want to help others to feel a sense of home, especially our friends on the street with a hispanic background. I am also just really looking forward to daily life at CIC and living in Catholic community. And most importantly, I am looking forward to the liveliness of lunch in the parks and all the street walks because of the opportunities to encounter the people who make it all worthwhile, even if it’s few and far between.
A little about me…
Hiya! Feel free to call me Jess! I’ve lived in California all my life thus far and have two older brothers along with a twin brother (yes, a twin). I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in Child Development as I felt so drawn to be able to make a direct difference in the lives of children, especially those who might experience less love and patience such as foster children and special needs children. I love enjoying the little things in life and take to heart the phrase of “stop and smell the roses.” (Seriously, I strive to appreciate the roses at my Newman center back home whenever I walk by them.) I also enjoy daily walks with my family’s beagle-mix, learning new things often, reading and I have always loved doing arts and crafts ever since I was little. I dabble in many things, but I especially enjoy drawing, brush lettering, crocheting and most recently have picked up printmaking.
