Our Confirmation

Our FULL Church

I know this is a little late in being posted, but I thought I should write about it anyway, as this was an important part of our lives.

On April 20th, in Camiguin Island, Meredith, Abram, and I received the Sacrament of Confirmation. We had been notified one month before that they  were going to have Confirmations in Fr. Joe's parish in Camiguin. We eagerly asked permission to join the Confirmation, and my mom started to prepare us with what books we had on the subject. At first, I felt a little rushed; like we wouldn't be fully ready to receive the Sacrament because of the little time we had had to prepare for it. But my mom reminded us that because we've lived this missionary life for the past 2 years, our everyday lives have been almost sufficient enough preparation for this new Sacrament, and she felt that we were really just as prepared as any others preparing for their Confirmation.

As missionaries, we have a personal prayer time everyday, and really talk with the Lord about our ups and downs, trials, hardships, what we are thankful for, and what we need to work on in our lives. We have seen miracles happen, sometimes when we had least expected them, but asked for them anyway. And finally, we know Who the Holy Spirit is, and that He really does work, in a tangible way, in our lives and in the lives of others.

For our additional preparation, we did study the Fruits and Gifts of the Holy Spirit, what our responsibilities as adult Catholics are, etc.. The three of us also made good Confessions before we started on our trip. And after all this, I felt completely prepared for our coming Confirmation.


We left on the 17th for CDO. Abram had earlier asked Sidney, our missionary friend, to be his Confirmation sponsor. Abram wanted Sid to come but we never told him that Sidney was actually coming. Abram was so surprised when he met Sid at the airport!

Saturday, we received the Sacrament of Confirmation. There were 1000, (No, I'm not kidding!) others being Confirmed and even more people were present, probably around 3000 or over, because of all the families and sponsors. As there were so many people, the Archbishop needed a lot of help administering the Sacrament. Four priests and a few lay ministers helped the Bishop, and it all went very smoothly. We three were lucky enough to be able to be Confirmed by Archbishop Ledesma.

I chose St. Maria Goretti for my Confirmation Saint

Abram chose St. John Bosco           .

Meredith chose Saint Therese of Lisieux

I am so thankful that we were able to receive the Sacrament! I'm also excited to see what new things the Holy Spirit will do in our lives and what new opportunities to serve Him He will put in our way.
~ Maddie

          

            The Celebration Afterwards

    

Together With the Archbishop

P.S. Sorry! I'm not very good with arranging the pics in the best way imaginable on here...


               

So Many Blessings

It’s such a blessing to be back in the Philippines! We arrived here in October and stayed a couple of weeks in Malaybalay. Then, we were able to visit Camiguin Island and many of our friends there. It was awesome to be able to serve at the Mass again, to visit our favorite places, to see the friends we love so much, and to just be there. We had been away for almost a year. We are going back there after Christmas to visit for a few days and to celebrate the parish’s Christmas party with the community.

Ferry Ride to Camiguin

 From the Romeros

           

Together Again

Reunited With Fr. Joe

                   











When we got back to Malaybalay, we only had a week to get the new house ready for our family and the Eckstine family to live in together. We were so happy when they arrived!

Morning Prayer

                                           
Mrs. Lora was going to help my mom with the birth of the baby. They arrived here in perfect timing! After two weeks, they moved into the house that the Romero’s had been staying in before they went back to the States. The day of their move, Mom went into labor. All of the Eckstine and Alvarez kids besides Abi (their oldest) and I stayed at their new house while Mom was in labor. Only Dad, Abi, Mrs. Lora, Mom, and I were left at our house.
My mom had been in labor for awhile. I was downstairs in the kitchen when Abi came down and said, “It should be soon!” and she started getting some things ready. Literally a minute later I heard Mom’s voice from upstairs, “It’s a girl!” I dropped everything and ran.
Mom had had the baby on the floor. She was sitting up, holding the baby in her arms and laughing.

Mom and Josephine

I thought I’d never have another sister again!!! It has been over 12 years since our family has had a baby girl! At the beginning of Mom’s pregnancy, we all guessed that the baby was a girl. But towards the end, when she wasn’t born on the Feast of the Presentation of Mary like Mom wanted her to be, I thought it must be a boy and that he would be born on December 3 because we were going to name her Xavier if she was a boy and the 3rd is the feast of St. Francis Xavier. God had a surprise for us! Her name is Josephine Eva-Marie Alvarez. We prayed a long time for a baby girl and God answered our prayers! She is a big blessing and I was also blessed to be present for her birth.

The Community at Big Woods

I have been looking around at all the missionaries here at Big Woods lately, especially when we're in big groups and all gathered together, and I think how awesome it is that I get to live with these people.


The Gathering After the First Communions and Confirmations Last Sunday

That God has chosen us to live our everyday lives in community together, and He has called each of us to the same place, but in a different way. Some of them actually heard His voice, others felt called to full time missions after they went on a mission trip with FMC, and others have been called through the Come and See, but we've all been called to live here. And when we're sent out into missions, we still take someone from the community with us as our mission partner, most of the time.


The Missionaries From Our Intake
2010

  So, lately I've just been incredibly blessed by each person here at Big Woods, and I'm glad my family was called here, too.


Blessings! ~Maddie



Prayers--None Too Small

Lately, I've been noticing how much more our family prays now compared to life before missions. Or maybe it's not that we pray any more or less, it's that now we have even more faith that God will answer our prayers. I've always known that God answers prayers, but I don't know how much I actually took enough time to think about how much I believed it. We prayed the rosary and went to Mass and if something came up, we would pray for the intention in family prayers. We still do those things. But since missions, we've also been praying for things when they come up instead of waiting for later.
Before missions, too, if I told my mom I was upset or missing something, she would tell me to pray about it. I would, but I didn't really have a very strong trust that God would answer my prayer. Lately, God has been answering our prayers. And sometimes they're things that you wouldn't expect God to be particularly concerned about. I mean, of course He cares about all our needs but when you pray for something small, you don't realize how little it is compared to other problems until He answers it and you think "Wait. Why did He care so much as to let the TV work?" The answer is because He loves us.

When our brothers are about to watch a movie and the DVD player doesn't work, we pray over it.

When I have one of my knitting needles but the other one has been lost for a week, I pray about it and find it right when I need it.

One time, I lost some of my writings that I didn't really need and could have lived without. But they were special to me because I had worked a long time writing them and didn't want to lose all my work. I looked all over in the house and checked places more than once. I finally went back to my room and couldn't understand where they could have gone. I had been praying while trying to find them but when I sat down in my room, I decided to really pray and trust that God would let me find what I was looking for. Two seconds after I had ended the Memorare, I sat on the floor and just for the sake of it, glanced under my bed. I sat staring at my papers that had fallen behind my bed and started laughing. I had already looked under my bed at least two times before then and hadn't seen a trace of them. But there they were. I don't know if the papers weren't there before, and God actually put them there, or if they were there the whole time and God didn't want me to see them until He saw how much I trusted Him first. Either way, it was a good way for me to experience that God cared enough for a little thing like that just cause I'm His child and He loves me.

Another time, we (Meredith; myself; a fellow missionary, Teresa; and two of our friends) were at a retreat and (I know, I was a little distracted) I was craving ice cream during Mass. Teresa had brought us to the retreat. So I prayed, "Lord, please let Teresa want to get us ice cream when we're driving back home." After I prayed it, I thought, "Well, what if God doesn't let us get ice cream?" But I put that thought away and said, "No. I KNOW God is going to let us have it."
By the end of the retreat, I had forgotten all about my earlier prayer. We were talking in the car on the way back to Big Woods, when Teresa suddenly says, "Hey, girls, do ya'll want ice cream?" And I started laughing and told her, "Oh my gosh, Teresa, I just prayed in Mass that you would get us some because I was really craving it!" And we all started laughing and she said, "Well, I'm glad God used me to answer your prayer!"


There's a saying that fits this subject:

Our God is a REAL God
Who does REAL things
For REAL people
In the REAL world.

In the Bible, it never says, "God answers your prayers, but only the ones that are really important. He doesn't waste His time doing things for absent minded people who forget where they put their car keys."
It says just the opposite:
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." (Mt.7:7-8)
And:
"Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Mt. 6:8)
And:
"Look at the birds of the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?...If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?...seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides."  (Mt. 6:26, 30, 33)
And:
"Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and annoint [him] with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will raise him up...The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful. Elijah was a human being like us; yet he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain upon the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the earth produced fruit." (James 5:14-15, 16-18)

And so many more verses (but I think I've made the point.(: )



I just want to challenge you, when you pray, to really trust and know that God WILL answer your prayer. Not like, "Please, Lord, Oh I HOPE that you will answer me!"
But like, "Please, Lord, I KNOW you will answer me because you love me and you said that whatever we ask, you will give it to us just because we do ask!"
I just finished reading the book Holy Daring about St. Therese. She had so much faith that God would answer her just because she was His child. I was challenged a lot by her faith and that's what made me start to try to pray with a great confidence that God would answer my prayers.  I'm not perfect at it yet, though. I'm still working on it and I still have a long way to go before I catch up to the  great faith of saints like St. Therese. But you have to start somewhere. :)

~Maddie