Last Wednesday, March 12, in a conference room of the Mt. Angel Abbey Guesthouse, I was blown away. We had just finished three days of mission with a group of 11 students and campus missionaries from WSU-Pullman. Just three days. They arrived Saturday evening, we had dinner, prayed, shared hopes, expectations, and fears, played a game, said night prayer. Sunday we prayed lectio, had some formation, lunch, and for just 2.25 hours went out to the streets, debriefed, prayed, Mass . . . and the same Monday and Tuesday. But the testimonies amazed me. What God can do in just three brief days of mission!

One student shared this: “Going into this, I didn’t feel like this was for me. But on this mission, I learned that I need to really pray and spend time with God. When I go back, I want to actually change and actually follow Him.” On the first night, he had shared that he hoped to be able to make a difference for just one person—and God answered that desire of his heart, connecting Anthony to Steve-O each of the days of mission, so deeply that Anthony prayed over him and invited him to Mass with us. (Steve-O didn’t come, but the fact that he was open to it is really big.)

*Amanda and Bella visit a friend on the streets.*

Another shared that he had come into this mission thinking he had nothing to learn from us. His negative attitude at first was palpable, visible in his postures and comments and facial expressions. But the mission changed him. He said, “I came in really proud, thinking I had nothing to learn, and God has humbled me, and I realize I don’t know anything.” Levi wants to come back next year and to learn to surround himself with people who challenge him to follow Jesus.

One of the young women shared that the formation times had given her tools to really live her faith life, another that she had learned to pray on the mission, not just say prayers, but really connect her heart to the Lord.

A young man who came in with serious desire to follow the Lord already, shared that the Mercy Missionaries “are the face of Jesus” to those on the streets, and that what he learned on this mission is that his whole life has to be “for Christ, with Christ, and like Christ.” He said, “My life is going to have to change. And it will.”

One of the campus missionaries (from St. Paul Outreach), here for the second time, who will be entering seminary for the diocese of Patton, New Jersey, this fall, shared this: “The biggest thing I’m taking away is that having a loving heart is the key to everything. It’s not always easy to love them, but they’re just sons and daughters of the Father no matter what. . . What I want to take with me to the rest of my life is to be able to say ‘yes’ to loving more fully even though it’s hard.” How important for a future priest!

For sure they had an impact on the people they visited on the streets—and their ongoing prayers for Steve-O, for Bizzy, for DJ, for White Fox, for Air, and for all the rest will certainly bear fruit. But the firstfruits of this mission were in the students and SPO missionaries, whose lives were transformed.

What the Lord can do in just a few days! The Mercy Missionaries and I were left amazed by the testimonies and renewed in our commitment to proclaim Christ on the streets, in our words and in our actions, to be, as Aiden put it, “the face of Christ” to our friends on the streets.

~Sister Teresa

The Firstfruits of the Mission