God’s not done with me yet!

As the aeroplane began its descent into the sand pit that was to be my home for the next 7 and a half years, I had a sinking feeling in my heart. As much as I wanted to explore the world as a flight attendant, I didn’t want to be so far away from my family and friends in an unknown land. My first day in my new home in Qatar was very lonely and a tad bit scary. As a 20-year-old, fresh out of university, I had not fully learnt how to be a responsible adult. Almost overnight my life had changed. I had moved away from family in times preceding the invention of Whatsapp and high-speed internet (if you can remember those frustrating dial-up days). Calling to talk to them was hard and really expensive. The one thing that did not change was my regular partaking of the Eucharist. The church and the Eucharist were the things that were a constant in my life and something I could hold on to. Even though the closest church was about 40 minutes each way, I made it a point to go for Mass at least once a week. However, without the backing of the community, my personal prayer time and my spiritual life, in general, began to stagnate. My spiritual life began looking somewhat like my surroundings: dry and without much life. Continue reading →

I was raised in a closely knit family, where we were what the world considered a good Catholic family. We attended Sunday mass together and prayed the rosary daily. My parents joined the CFCI Community when I was very young. Even at that age, I could definitely sense the change in our family. Eventually, my sister joined the community, too, and I saw a major transformation in her as well. I could hardly wait to see what the community had in store for me. The moment I completed my intake camp and joined the Youth I was blessed with such zeal and love for both Christ and the community, and I knew then that there was no turning back because Christ had captured my heart. Continue reading →