Update

So much has changed over the past few months and we wanted to update you on what we are doing.

We spent the months of February and March in Louisiana at the Mission Base. Dave was making some money working on various projects there while I stayed home and took care of the girls. We were waiting and waiting for some movement on Japan. We had decided that Dave would take a course to teach English as a way for us to get into the country. Through many conversations with the course teacher, we discovered it was very difficult to find a way for our whole family to obtain Visas.  

We waited, and prayed. Still, nothing  happened. We began to pray and ask the Lord what he wanted. Our director had just returned from a trip to Haiti and as he spoke of it, we both became excited.

We prayed about it and feel like during this time, we are being called to Haiti. On May 9th, we will head to Haiti. For a couple weeks we will spend time with the other FMC missionaries in the area, and then we will spend the rest of our time at the Haiti 180 orphanage. If you want to know more, you can visit www.haiti180.com.  Please pray that we will have a blessed time on our trip there and that God will make His will known for us.

We are back in Nebraska for Easter and have been blessed to spend the rest of our time in the states with our families.

Thank you all for your love, prayers, and support.

The Quinns

What's up with the Quinns?

Hello All!

We wanted to write and give a long overdue update as to what is going on with the mission.

As many of you already know, Andrea and I feel we are being called to serve in Japan.  With Family Missions Company, the location of your first year in missions is determined by the leadership of FMC.  The second and all subsequent years are determined by ourselves under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Early last year, while we were on a team retreat in Mexico City, we were having lunch with a local priest.  When we were discussing what FMC and it's missionaries do, he told us not to forget about Japan!  He went on to tell us how their suicide rate is one of the highest in the world and how they are in desperate need of the gospel.  Upon hearing this priest speak of Japan and his 8 years of service there, Andrea thought God might be calling us there.  We tabled the idea, wanting to dedicate ourselves to the General Cepeda post for the rest of the year, until August when traditionally missionaries seek the Lord once again to find direction.  We went on a family retreat and felt that God was indeed calling us to bring people to Him in Japan.

The path to Japan is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is that FMC has never been to Japan and we have no known contacts there.  Andrea and I spent a few weeks in January trying to bolster some much needed financial support in order to afford the higher cost of living in Japan and are now in Louisiana researching possibilities of serving there.

The latest idea we have is to teach English.  Turns out the country uses native English speakers all the time to teach the English language.  Through some of our research I can get certified to teach in a 1 - 3 months and hopefully find employment there under a workers visa.  This option offers several advantages.  First we will be able to learn about the culture through visiting with the students we teach.  We will be able to evangelize to the students through normal conversation and being interested in each others lives.  We will be able to stay in Japan for an extended period of time (under a workers visa) and have ample opportunity to make connections with the Church's pastors and bishops.

All of this takes some time.  In the mean time I am working here at Big Woods finishing some of the ongoing projects and repairing some things in need of a carpenter's touch.  Andrea and I would like to be headed back into the field, Lord permitting, inside of 3 months.  If nothing shakes loose and opens up for us in Japan, we have some other location options available to us.  Please pray for us as we push forward and ask the Lord to give us clarity and guidance!

We love you all and continue to pray for all our family, friends and benefactors!
God Bless,
-The Quinns

Merry Christmas and Thank You!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!  We pray that God blesses all you this Christmas season and the coming year!

It has been the most incredible year for our family!  God has blessed us in more ways than we can count or remember.  We are continually humbled by all the prayer and financial support we have received from all of you.  During our time in Mexico we were able to do many things, and I have tried to summarize them into a list to share with all of you.

We helped prepare children in our two ejidos for the sacraments they were eligible to receive.  Some of them have been waiting for Confirmation and Communion for years!
16 - First Communion / First Confession
8 - Confirmation
1 - Baptism

We encouraged and helped prepare 2 couples to receive the sacrament of marriage.  In Mexico, a big problem is people getting married civilly and never getting married in the Church.  Through witness and encouragement (and financial support) we were able to see these two couples receive the grace of the sacrament!

We bought many bibles for people who requested them so they could start reading and building a relationship with Jesus.

We were able to provide financial assistance for a 3 year old girl to go to kindergarten.

For the work projects our team was able to perform $30,104 worth of work.  This includes the money we put forth, as well as the other family stationed with us and the short term mission trips that came down.

• Rewire 7 homes
• Install 10 new roofs
• Repair 2 roofs
• Install 3 concrete floors
• Install 1 new sewer line
• Construct 3 complete rooms
• Repair fire damage on the house of an elderly couple
• Construct 1 new bathroom
• Construct 1 new chapel 
• Repair 1 chapel which had a wall falling and install new window and door
• Place a tile floor in a chapel and install new electrical
• Provided full-time employment to three local men for almost the entire year
• Misc. small projects

We served people who came to the door by providing them with medications they needed or other financial assistance.  The total amount of this came to: $2,486

The Quinn Family was able to give a total amount of: $9,704

 Beyond the monetary aid we gave, it is so hard to describe the value of God sending us to the people of the Ejidos to minister to their spiritual need.  The two ejidos we ministered to all year were so very appreciative of our teaching them "many good things" about the faith, visiting them, and getting to know them.  Through our time together we were able to make so many valuable and long lasting friendships.  It was very hard to leave the people and see the tears run down their faces.  Please keep these communities in your prayers as well that they may continue in their walk with the Lord and that we may all be together in eternity!

We want to say THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts for all the ways in which you have supported us this year!

Click here to watch a thank you video put together by Family Missions Company with pictures from around the world in our mission locations.

Generosity: What it's really all about

Being a missionary can be hard. Some days it seems nearly impossible to continually be called to give all of yourself. Not only are we called to give of ourselves, but also our things. Sometimes I feel that as Americans we have this selfishness ingrained in us. We have this “mine” mentality. I have tried to spend this year undoing that mentality. And I have failed miserably over and over again. But the other day, I witnessed something that inspired and challenged me in a whole new way; something that has changed my outlook on generosity, forever.

I was giving my friend Francisca a ride home. She had just been grocery shopping (which needless to say is a treat for her.) Her husband has never held a steady job so they rarely if ever have money. Their family usually lives week to week from “dispensas”(a bag of groceries we give to the people here with just basic food items). But this week, she had sold some earrings and earned $100 pesos(about $8USD) and was able to go grocery shopping! She was very excited and came home with one bag full of food. As we were driving home, Lucy, who is perpetually hungry, kept trying to dig in the bag and steal some food. We laughed about it and I even joked that Lucy was trying to rob her. As we got out of the van, Francisca started to dig around in her grocery sack. I of course thought “Oh no, she’s checking to see if Lucy got into something” and went on to think about how I was going to apologize to this woman for my daughter stealing her food. She continued to dig, I began to sweat and feel terrible, and then she pulled out a banana. She handed it to Lucy. I was blown away.
Here this woman is who rarely has enough food to feed her family, and she just hands a banana to my daughter (who obviously isn’t going hungry) out of her precious bag of groceries. She could have easily thought “l am not going to give these people anything. They could go buy food anytime they wanted and I hardly have enough.” But no, she didn’t think anything of it. Here, one of the poorest of the poor gave away her own food to my baby.

“And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.” Mark 12:41-44

In the past, I read this bible verse and knew that I have always given out of my excess, and at that, barely given. But Francisca showed me what Generosity truly is. It is opening your heart to every single person in every single situation. It is giving when it hurts and not thinking anything of it.  I am so grateful for these moments where God slaps me in the face and gives me a wakeup call. Today He is calling every one of us to give whether it is of our time, our finances, or our prayers. He is calling us to give ESPECIALLY when it hurts and we feel we have no more to give; to give out of our poverty, not our surplus. My prayer is that each of us will open our hearts to give everything for He who gave it all for us.

 

Authentic LOVE

Last Thursday, after 83 years of life, my Grandpa passed away. Thanks be to God, we were able to come back from Mexico for the funeral. Seeing my Grandma was heartbreaking.  I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to lose your husband, let alone a man who you have been married to for 63 years.  As she spoke to my sister the other night, she shared with tears streaming down her face, “I loved him. I really loved him.”

I am 100% certain that they were in fact, the love of each other’s lives. I remember growing up, always seeing them together and thinking “Wow, they really are in love”. My Grandpa would look at my Grandma like a young man looking at his bride on their wedding day.  They would always laugh and smile together. There was a “oneness” between them. You could see that they thought as one, lived as one, loved as one.

Seeing her sadness caused me to reflect on what marital love really is. What does a couple really vow to one another in marriage?  When they married, they vowed “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

I know that they had hard times. Having 4 kids aged 4,3,2, and 1 and later the addition of 3 more children, was beautiful and blessed. But I can also imagine sometimes that it was extremely difficult and maybe felt “for worse.” With only Grandpa working and many mouths to feed, I can guarantee that wasn't a time of “richer.” Over the years, both of them spent many times in a state of “sickness”; Grandma with breast cancer, and Grandpa with many heart surgeries, times in ICU, and his stroke. 

To me, my Grandma is a heroine. She is an example of what love really is. Because during what was most likely the most difficult times in their lives, she didn't give up. She continued to sacrifice and love her husband.  You see, for the past few years my Grandpa had been in the nursing home suffering from dementia following a stroke. Every day she went and sat with my Grandpa from breakfast to bed time. They laughed, talked, read the paper, watched TV. She didn't just put him in the nursing home and “move on”. She spent almost every moment of every day at his side. I know some days it was very difficult for her. The beauty of their relationship is that through all of these difficulties, they persevered. They continued to love. They continued to push forward and support one another; even when it seemed impossible. Even up until the last moment as Grandma held his hand and declared one last time, “I love you Bernard” he smiled, and breathed his last;  “until death do us  part”

Their love is a love that inspires me. In a time when the world tells us to take the easy way out, or do what feels right, a time where people believe that commitments and vows are null and void; it is in times like these that we should look to a love like theirs to understand and aspire to what loving another really means. It is a life full of many sacrifices and difficulties to authentically love another; but is most definitely possible and truly one of the most beautiful things a person can do. I love the quote from the movie Frozen, “Love is putting someone else’s needs before yours.”  Let us remember this and pray that we can learn to love in the same authentic way as my awesome grandparents!

-Andrea

We love you Grandpa!

Chapel Update #2

The chapel is coming along fantastic!  We have painted the ceiling, primed the walls, installed the lights and windows, and finished all the stucco.  We have gone as far as the money will take us for now, but with a little help from some donors we can put in floor tile, tile the altar, install some sidewalk outside, and paint the walls.

This is the tabernacle door that Gallo (one of the Mexican missionaries) and I made.

It was an honor as well to have the bishop at the Casa de Misiones for breakfast today.  He is in town for a couple days to help celebrate the feast of St. Francis (the patron of our parish).  He visited the chapel as well and blessed it.  It had to be a preliminary blessing because it isn't finished, but he still seemed pleased with what we had done.

Bonus Photo:  Another fun project I had this week was trying to repair this statue that was donated by the Schmidt family (new missionaries this year).  This statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus will be taken to Cuchilla del Indio where their chapel has the same patron.  The hand was damaged in transport.  Plaster of paris is a common building product here, so I used some to re-fashion the hand.

Seeing Christ in the face of tragedy

As many of you may already know, last Monday our dear friends, The Kiehl's, lost their 18 month old little boy, Ezekiel. All week, we have been heartbroken. We can not believe what happened. We have prayed for our friends and begged the Lord to send them comfort and peace.

Praise the Lord we are able to travel back to Mississippi to support our friends and attend Ezekiel's funeral. Tonight, the Kiehl's invited us over to Teresa's parents house for supper. On the drive over, I was so nervous. I kept imagining the sorrow and sadness we were going to walk into. I kept trying to think of what I should and should not say. I kept telling myself not to lose it the moment we saw them.

But to my surprise, I saw something I never expected. We didn't walk into a home full of sadness and sorrow. We walked into a home full of laughter, joy, and hope. Yes, Teresa cried, as we all did, when she walked us over to Ezekiel's urn on the mantel; and as she told us how hard today has been preparing for the funeral. But then her and Jonathan smiled. They shared that they literally could feel the prayers of everyone "lifting them up and holding them".

Jonathan shared about the beautiful things he witnessed. About how he ran with Ezekiel in his arms, barefoot, to the hospital and there a woman offered him her sandals. He talked about how a man who had been full of nothing but anger and some animosity toward them had sobbed and begged for forgiveness and offered his condolences. About the 100's of Mexican people who attended Ezekiel's prayer service and how beautiful that was. He shared that while they initially feared this could ruin their marriage, that it in fact has brought them closer together than ever.

Teresa shared that Christ is strengthening them and how now more than ever before she wants EVERY SINGLE PERSON she encounters to journey with her to heaven. About how all the things she used to think were important, in fact are not and she realizes now the things that are.

Today I learned what true hope is. I saw it in the faces of my two friends. Thank You Lord for the beautiful witness of the Kiehl family! I pray that someday I can be filled with the same hope and faith of this incredible family.              

St. Ezekiel, Pray for Us!