Author Archives: Jilina Damin

Nerf guns for breakfast

About two weeks ago all of the Area Contacts for Life Teen came to Covecrest for their annual retreat. I was excited for the weekend because we were going to be eating really good food, sleep in, and my youth minister was coming, triple bonus. I was on breakfast duty one day during the week and was in the kitchen helping Bridget get ready when a youth minister named Richard from Arizona walked in and started talking with me and one of the other missionaries. We were joking around and talking as

More »

Palm Sunday: Haitian Style!

 All of the missionaries at Covecrest were blessed with the opportunity to go to Haiti. We spent the week about 60 miles southwest of Port Au Prince at an orphanage run by a Catholic organization called Moving with the Spirit. One of the biggest blessings from the trip was being able to spend Palm Sunday in Haiti. Growing up I never really celebrated Palm Sunday or Holy week with my family. Holy week always fell over spring break so every year my family would go to Florida for vacation. In my mind

More »

Your life belongs to God!

It’s funny how much your life can change in a year, a month, a week, or even a day. If you told me a year ago that I’d be a missionary this year I probably would’ve laughed in your face. I knew I wanted to eventually go into missions but I was going to do it on my own time and in my own way. I wanted to go to school and get a college degree first. I wanted to join the military and be a helicopter pilot. I wanted to get a double major in theology and history and minor in philosophy, and I wanted

More »

Being a Christian is NOT safe!

I’m afraid of very few things in this world; but, the one thing that I seem to fear above all else is becoming the person who God is calling me to be. I fear this so much because I have no idea what God will call me to do next. Becoming this person isn’t safe, it’s dangerous, and it scares me. St. Ignatius of Loyola once said “Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly.”

More »

God is Here!

Mass is a big part of missionary life! We try to go to Mass as much as possible. Here in Germany, that’s not always easy. We live in a small village on the German/Dutch border and there’s only one church in each village. These churches might have Mass once a week, if they’re lucky. Oftentimes, they’ll have mass only twice a month. This means that as missionaries who want to go to daily Mass we have to leave our village and travel around Germany and the Netherlands.  Last night, a bunch

More »

“Reach for the Sky!”

Earlier today I went to a shopping plaza in another village with the rest of my missionary brothers and sisters. We had a few things that we all had to get and since I didn’t need anything I thought I’d accompany my missionary sister Pam as she went store to store getting her various needs. The last thing she needed to buy was construction paper for our formation classes so went over to what would be called a dollar store in the US. We couldn’t find construction paper anywhere but I found some

More »

You’re Going to Meet My Mother!

Last week, I was kind of frustrated, so I decided to take a bike ride. I was riding around for a little bit, when I remembered seeing this old chapel that I wanted to check out. This chapel is from the 1800’s and sits in the middle of a wide open field, between three trees, on the outskirts of our village. It’s very small and can fit no more than four people inside of it, scrunched together. Once I got to the chapel, I opened the door, walked in, and noticed something a little odd. This chapel

More »

God talks to me through Disney Movies and Superheroes, say what?

This past Monday, the Life Teen Covecrest and Atlanta communities came together for a day of prayer to discern the Lord’s will for the future of the three Life Teen mission bases.  We spent about eight hours in prayer, stopping only to eat lunch and take pictures for our blogs. We started the day off in St. Stephens’s chapel doing morning prayer, followed by an intercessory rosary for the Covecrest mission base. After each decade we would sit in silence and everyone would share what the Lord

More »

Peanut Butter, Dance Parties, Sardines, Oh My!

Missionary blogs are supposed to be a place where the missionaries can share with everyone what’s going on in their lives and how the Lord is moving in their hearts. Well, a random fun fact about me is that I can only do so much sharing about the seriousness of my heart before my heart gets shared out. So I’ve decided that I’m going to take it down a notch and write a blog every four to five weeks about all the cool, fun things Life Teen Missionaries like to do. So here’s my first blog about

More »