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)