Annie B. - on mission in Brooklyn, NY

I have been blessed with so much in my life, and I am so thankful. I was born to two GREAT par­ents, who have inspired and laid the foun­da­tions for my faith in the Catholic Church. I have three older sib­lings, one sister and two brothers, and two (soon to be three!) nephews. So much of who I am and my integrity has been molded by them. God has also blessed me with won­derful friends who have always sup­ported me in all of my endeavors, and helped to remind me of what is truly impor­tant in life.

I have spent all of my life on the front range of the Rocky Mountains, and the moun­tains have been like my back­yard. It was actu­ally on one of my weekend trips into the moun­tains, during a retreat, that I really began to deepen my rela­tion­ship with Christ. Up until then, it had always been like that of a teacher and a stu­dent. Sure, it was friendly, but God wasn’t sup­posed to know cer­tain things and there was a rule book about what he could teach and tell me. On the retreat that rela­tion­ship changed, the rule book was thrown out and my faith became more like a story of someone falling in love. I had a new com­pas­sion to learn all I could about the Catholic faith and really live it out.

I went on my first mis­sion trip to Kansas City to rebuild and ren­o­vate tran­si­tional housing for a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion that helped home­less get back on their feet. There I learned about the cor­poral works of mercy (feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the home­less, visit the sick, visit those in prison, and bury the dead), which inspired me to really change the way I thought about the world around me. The next year I planned and lead a mis­sion trip to Las Vegas Nevada, to work with the HIV affected and the home­less.

I am looking for­ward (and excited!) to learn, live, and really allow God to show me more about Heart’s Homes three pil­lars (prayer, com­mu­nity, and com­pas­sion). After my mis­sion with Heart’s Home in their Brooklyn Center, I plan to finish my degree in Biology at Colorado State University, and go on to either a physi­cian’s assis­tant or nursing pro­gram so I can con­tinue serving others around me.