Long overdue!

Greetings! An update is long overdue, thank you for being patient with us as we begin to explore this world of blogging and our new journey as a family of Comboni Lay Missionaries. I’m happy to share we celebrated a Commissioning Mass on Dec. 16! This means we have completed our formation training and will now pack up, tie up loose ends and head out to share the love God and be present for those in need.

Our formation process was full of wonderful learning opportunities, meeting new friends, celebrating Mass and a trip to the east coast in time for Hurricane Sandy to hit! Yes, we were attending collaborative training in NY, DC and visiting Jacob’s sister’s family in NJ and arrived in NY four days before the hurricane hit. Everyone did quite well, and enjoyed using flashlights and dressing in layers due to no heat for several days! All in all, it was fabulous mission training!

During formation Jacob and I attended various workshops, lectures and spiritual direction meetings. Through this process, we met many wonderful people who supported us, helped us and loved us! A very dear friend, Mary Ellen, watched the girls on Wednesday evenings to allow us to attend the Vatican II seminars at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. We offer a special thank you to Mary Ellen and her granddaughter who gave Lily a huge bag of summer clothing (exactly what we were in need of!). On Monday evenings we celebrated Mass in the Comboni Chapel, afterwards we enjoyed dinner with the Fathers and Paul, our wonderful program director. 

Lilyanna joined the Super Kids (2^nd grade) at St. Louise de Marillac during the fall. Mrs. Krajniak was a blessing for our journey. She welcomed Lily and incorporated Lily’s upcoming changes of becoming a missionary in their daily class life. Lily developed some incredible friendships, she was invited to some birthday parties and able to have a few play dates with her dear friend Katie. We’ll be staying in touch with Lily’s class and her new friends in the years to come!

Josephine attended a 2-year preschool at Kensington, which is about a mile from our apartment, and the Comboni House! Her teachers adored Josie, they enjoyed her fun personality and wonderful communication skills. Jojo too made several friends and enjoyed her time in a loving, learning, playful environment.

Several family and friends celebrated our commissioning as Comboni Lay Missionaries on Dec. 16. Many traveled some distance, we truly appreciate all of the support, love and prayers we received from all who attended!

We moved the remainder of our belongings to storage (thank you Uncle John for moving us and for the storage unit!) and are visiting with family and friends over the holidays.

Our dear Lord has offered so many blessings to our family. Each step of the process of changing our lives to become lay missionaries has been manageable. Don’t get me wrong; we’ve had some tough times though we’ve had much joy, love, happiness and thoughtfulness surrounding our family. We thank God for all of these blessings and for all the wonderful family and friends both new and old whom he has given us. We are thankful that during our formation process we were able to dedicate significant time to our personal faith journey's and strengthen our relationship with Christ. For this, we are truly grateful and feel incredibly blessed. 

We ask you to please continue praying for our family. The first six months or so we will more than likely be the most difficult. Please pray especially for a smooth transition for the girls! It was reiterated over the past 6 months that the girls transition smooth as long as we pray together and spend quality time as a family! The girls most recently love making up little skits to perform! We also enjoy listening to music and dancing! We too will continue to keep you in our prayers and thoughts! We love hearing from you, so please, email or comment when time allows! (kleven4@gmail.com) Love and peace to all! Tonya (and Jacob, Lilyanna & Josephine)

Birthday Week!

As Tonya and I celebrate our birthdays this week, it offers us a great time to reflect where we are, what we have done over the past year and what the Lord has in store for us in the next year.

The first four weeks of formation for our family have been both humbling and heart warming. The daily adventures of classes and seminars have enlightned us as to what God has given us in scripture and humbled us as we got lost for the third, fourth or even fifth time in a week. (we are getting around much better now:)

We have been blessed to meet the many different people in the Comboni family.  Every one has been so gracious and welcoming. The Comboni Sisters are the sweetest group of women. The Comboni Fathers from around the globe offered knowledge and wisdom of the Gospels, mission, and of the founder of the order that will be invaluable to us as we enter this missionary life. The laity that are still actively involved with the Comboni Missionaries, have opened their hearts, minds and homes to us. Our director Paul Wheeler has proven to be one of the most patient and understanding men we have ever met. In all, the Comboni community is certainly living out the scriptures through their daily life's.

We know that the road in front of us will have many challenges, but we are confident that our Lord will bring us even greater rewards.

1 Peter 3:13-14 
Now who is going to harm you if you are enthusiastic for what is good? But even if you should suffer because of righteousness, blessed are you. Do not be afraid or terrified with fear of them

Moving to IL for Formation

We arrived in LaGrange Park, IL on Thursday as we will begin our formation training on Monday. Earlier this week I closed the chapter on my professional life at Park Bank. I truly appreciate the opportunities and challenges my career offered over the 10.5 years I was with the bank and I will miss all of the dear friendships I developed over the years. Also this week we said good-bye to our families and friends for the beginning of our life as missionaries. Our spirits remain high, and overall we are transitioning very well both individually and as a family.

Lilyanna visited the school she'll be attending twice already and will begin classes on Monday. Lily will be going to a Catholic elementary that literally shares the block with the Comboni House (which is where Jake & I will be a lot of the time during the day). Unfortunately they are out of the uniform size she needs, but we'll figure it out. She's been so brave and inspiring to watch! Her excitement and curiosity are contagious!

Josephine will begin preschool on Monday and is too curious for her adventure. I'm sure Josie will have an adjustment period as she's going to wonder where her friends Drake & Marshall are! I'm confident her new teachers will be great, though it'll be difficult to fill the shoes of our wonderful friend and care provider, Patrice! Jacob has adjusted well to leaving his professional life, though he commented today that it feels like we're on a long vacation!

On Monday Jacob & I will begin our formation training. We're looking forward to seeing what is ahead of us for the next 14 weeks! We'll be traveling to the east coast in late October, early November and look forward to a visit some family - Dawn, Rob & Marlee:)

Each weekday we are invited to join at the Comboni House for a community lunch. Today there were about 12 of us gathered for lunch. The conversations that take place over lunch are great! All of the people around the table have served as missionaries or worked overseas at some point in their life, many are still traveling now! We have met some incredible people who have great stories to share, and we've only been here for less than 2 days!

Tonight we enjoyed a wonderful evening with our Program Director's family, Paul, Amy & Kevin. The kids had a great time playing with Kevin's toys and going to the park! We are so thankful to have a warm, friendly welcome to our new home (temporary home that is:)! Paul has been incredible, very attentive to all of our needs and ensuring we are comfortable and transitioning smoothly. We are very blessed as Paul recognizes the needs of our girls and has worked hard to ensure we have them transitioned smoothly before we begin our training. We don't have any pressure or stress regarding getting the girls situated, its wonderful! This has really helped both Lily & Josie as they feed off our emotions, and its been pretty awesome as we've had a very bright - happy week!!! Love and peace to all! I need to get some sleep! Respectfully yours, Tonya

Listening

Our family is excited to share our journey of working to position our lives to serve God by helping those in need. We'll try to briefly offer a bit of background first. Once we're caught up, we'll share our journey along the way! (please note, we have no experience in blogging, we'll do our best!)

How did we decide to become Missionaries? This is not a short answer! Many prayers, years and people have influenced our journey! We'll summarize as best we can! 

Shortly before graduating from college, Jacob and I began looking into Peace Corps. During the application process we learned we needed to move up our wedding by a year in order to be placed overseas together. Both Jake and I can be stubborn at times and yes, this was one of those times. We knew we were getting married but we weren't changing the timing due to a technicality. About the same time, Park Bank offered me a wonderful opportunity which I have enjoyed for the past 10.5 years! Seven years ago, God blessed us with our first daughter, Lilyanna. 

We began getting involved in play groups and o. ther activities. Balancing being a mom, wife and professional became a career in itself! Over the years we volunteered in a various ways and always wanted to find more time to offer our services to others. Two years ago we were blessed with another beautiful gift from God, Josephine (Josie). My wonderful husband made it possible for me to work full time, volunteer as the Mops Coordinator, soccer coach and co-lead a daisy troop and be a mommy. Our family enjoys being involved and helping others. A few years ago I attended Christian Experience Weekend, this experience was amazing in so many ways and on so many different levels. Jacob also attended the Christian Experience Weekend for men and he too had an amazing experience! 

This past year, Jacob participated in RCIA and received the sacrament of Baptism as well as Confirmation and joining of the Catholic Church! I am so proud and happy for Jake! His  faith journey is eye opening and beautiful to be part of! (for the record, I never asked Jacob to go through RCIA:) I ask for things like chocolate ice-cream:)

Jacob and I began researching short term mission trips and really quickly realized that was not our
calling. Jacob asked me why we don't just go and help others full-time. My response was simple, my bag is packed sweetie. That night, Jacob began applying on our families behalf to various Catholic 
Lay Mission Prorgrams. To my surprise, someone wanted to talk to us so now I had to fill out some information about myself. In May we were invited to LaGrange Park, IL where we would meet the 
Comboni Lay Mission family (well, a few of them anyway!). This weekend is referred to as Discernment Weekend. By the time we were only a few hours into it, Jacob and I knew Paul & JoAnne would be amazing to work with and the Comboni Fathers are wonderful and have a lot of knowledge to share. It was in mid-July which we received our formal invitation from the Comboni 
Lay Missionaries to begin formation training with them this fall! It has been through our prayers and the support and prayers we receive from family and friends in which we were able to follow our calling, to serve and share with others the love we have for Jesus. 

In late July we moved in with my parents (Veek's) as we have a wonderful family taking care of our house for us while we are overseas. Living with five adults and two children has been an adventure! We have all greatly enjoyed the mornings of laughter and spending extra time together each evening! In a few short weeks we will move to LaGrange, IL where we will spend the next 14 weeks in formation training with the Comboni Lay Missionaries.
Basically we began downsizing and getting rid of our belongings in early 2012. Over the past few months we've focused on details such as our home, vehicles, homeschool programs, child care for jojo during formation...and the list goes on. Thank you for being cool with us as this blog is long overdue! We ask for your prayers and support as we continue to prepare for our journey as a family of missionaries:) stay tuned! Jake and I will both work to update this blog. 

Love and peace, God bless!
Tonya