What a whirlwind of change this past year has been. Another year in missions has come and gone and a new season is here, a season of change, a season of new things. It was a bitter-sweat farewell as we said goodbye to Cordoba at the end of February, something I know that may come as a surprise to you all. At the beginning of each new semester we went on team retreat where we discerned the will of the Spirit for the †mission, and in August we heard the Lord calling us out. Not because the mission was ended, or because we failed, but more so because He wanted to do something greater and as I look back on these past two years of missions in Cordoba and all the ways I saw the Spirit move and change hearts, I am filled with a sense of awe and wonder at His greatness and love for His children. How can He use a people so small and weak to bring about His kingdom here on earth?
We were so blessed to spend this past Christmas and New Years in Spain, and what a great and joyful holiday season it was. On Christmas Eve we had an amazing dinner with Padre Gama and his family in his hometown of Montilla and we ended the night with a special midnight Mass at the Youth House with many of our closest friends, followed by a beautiful time of Eucharistic Adoration. What better way to prepare our selves for His birth than coming to Him, worshiping and adoring Him just as the shepherds did in Bethlehem. Then on Christmas day we went with Kate and Marcos (some of our dearest friends) to Cadiz (in the Costa del Sol) to spend a few days with Kate’s family. What a wonderful and incredibly blessed weekend it was, being welcomed into their home and being able to participate in their family traditions as if we were their own children. It was a joy-filled weekend filled with fellowship continuous laughter and delicious food. By new Years we were back in Cordoba where we welcomed in the new year much with one of our closest friends Paz from Villanueva. She came over for the night and we participated in a very old Spanish tradition in the main square in town where you shove 12 grapes in your mouth for the last 12 stroke before the clock strikes midnight and afterward we attended a few hours of all night adoration that was being held in the youth house. Reflecting back now I am reminded of just how great, glorious, and good our Father is, and how unimaginable His love is for us, that He would care so much about us and the littlest desires of our hearts; like being around loving family for the holidays, participating in weird traditions, and just allowing us to enjoy the holiday’s so far from our on families.
At the end of January we traveled to Rome on pilgrimage and to support Marcos as one of his statues was installed in the Vatican. Last year Marcos had the great honor of being commissioned by the Vatican to design a statue of St. Rafaela Maria, a Spanish saint born in the town of Pedro Abad about 30 minutes outside of Cordoba, who was canonized on January 23, 1977, by Pope Paul VI. Marcos is an incredibly talented artist and sculptor (one of the best in our world today) and his deep, new found love for God can been seen in the beautiful statues and images that he hand carves, using his gifts for God’s greater glory, hoping that others might see God’s beauty through his work saying, “art is beauty, and all beauty is intrinsically related to religion; to me, beauty is equal to Truth, and before a beautiful image we can always dialogue with the Truth, which is none other than GOD.” Marcos was the first Spanish artist to have a statue installed in St. Peter’s Basilica. Our stay in Rome was so unbelievably blessed even though I was sick in bed the last few days of our trip, I was still able to see and pray at almost all the major sites, just to name a few, St. Peters, St. Mary Majors, St. Paul Outside the Wall, St. John Lateran, St. Lawrence Outside the Wall, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, the Vatican Gardens, Scavi tour, and we even took g a day trip to Assis with a priest friend of ours(Padre Pablo from Cordoba who is working in Rome). We attended mass with the Missionaries of Charity on several occasions, visited the convent where St. Rafaela lived and also where her body still remains uncorrupt, and many other places. At the end of the week we had the grand privilege of attending the unveiling of the statue. It was an incredibly blessed event where we came within less than 5 feet of our Holy Father Pope Benedict the XVI. A very very special thanks to all of you who were so generous and made it possible for me to be there, it was a blessing not only for me, but also for Kate and Marcos.
While in Rome we met up with 6 amazing missionaries who joined us in Spain for the last month and a half of our time in Cordoba, and what an amazingly blessed time it was, filled with constant laughter and joy. With the addition of the new missionaries came new ministry opportunities, new perspectives, ideas, and look to the Spain mission. Their testimonies and witnesses allowed Spain to have new insights into God’s love and plan of salvation for each of us. Our ministries included giving witness in the seminary, grade schools, colleges, local towns, churches, nursing homes, and Adoremus. We put on a men’s and women’s retreat about human sexuality and then a night of praise and worship, which we called a festival of praise in Villanueva. It was so good to be a part of such an amazing community full of a renewed zeal and passion and to get to know each of the new missionaries in a unique way and being called on by their refreshing fervor. If you would like to have a more in-depth look into all that the Lord did during that last month check out our blogs on the FMC website.
At the end of the month and a half we felt the Lord calling us to leave Spain and the mission there. I was a bitter sweet good bye filled with much sadness at the though of leaving a place we had come to call our home for the past two years, but also a time of joy knowing that the Lord had not only our own interests in mind, but the missions best interests as well. Our last days were so unbelievably wonderful, visiting with friends, saying goodbyes, and being abundantly blessed to hear from friends and people we barely knew share with us beautiful stories of our God’s empowering love. They spoke about all that He had done in the secret and silence of their hearts by our witness, example, words, joy, and the way we had loved. We were overjoyed and surprised by the fruits from the often seemingly barren mission that the Lord allowed us to see. One of the largest blessings though was the word of encouragement and the heartfelt goodbye by Bishop Juan Jose who had welcomed us to Cordoba. He shared his deep desire for missionaries in Family Missions to continue to have a presence in Cordoba and assured us that we were welcome to return at any time to work in the mission.
On our way home from Spain we passed through Dublin, Ireland to spend a few days with the extended family of Maria and to witness and minister in their Catholic community to the beauty of missions. Maria’s family witnessed to us about the incredible call to a lifestyle of radical hospitality, hosting the ten of us in addition to their own family of seven. Upon arriving to the states I almost immediately left for Mexico with three other missionaries for FMC’s mission in General Cepeda where we led a short-term group of students from the Franciscan University of Steubenville. The week was incredible and joy filled. I was blown away by the student’s constant love and unending laughter. Their willingness to do anything and their humility to stand up and speak from their shaky knowledge of Spanish blessed me so much. Most of all their openness to give witness in all situations and reveal so much of themselves by their testimonies of God’s love in their lives encouraged me to be a more radical missionary. We returned to the states two weeks later after the short-term group planning to come over Easter canceled. FMC suggested to Jonathan, my boyfriend and fellow FMC missionary that we might like to take the time to visit his family in Ohio during the Easter break. We were not only able to spend quality time visiting his family but also to catch up with many of the students from Steubenville who had come to Mexico and encourage them to pursue and discern a possible missionary vocation in their own lives. After our time in Ohio we helped to staff both a “Come and See” and confirmation retreat at Big Woods mission. After that week we spent some time with my family in Texas, visiting and sharing about the mission, which now brings me to what is happening next. These past three and a half years in missions have been life changing and incredibly blessed. I continue to feel the call to a lifelong vocation as a missionary but I feel that at this time the Lord is doing something new and is calling me to be stateside for a while and in community at Big Woods in Louisiana. My hope is to return to the missions in the coming year but for at least a few months I hope to be working stateside, and building relationships with the other stateside missionaries. Although I will be living stateside I also hope to go on as many short term mission trips as possible, so please remember to keep me in you daily prayers and also monetary support if you feel the Lord calling you to.
Kristen Leigha 
