We've Moved!

Hey! Thanks for stopping by! Our Life As First World Missionaries has officially moved to a new URL! You can find us at:
www.kruegermission.com

Our Baby is 1!!

Yesterday was Flannery's first birthday! We celebrated with the traditional presents, and cake! I wanted to dedicate this post our wonderful daughter. I wish she could understand how grateful I am to have her in my life and how impressed I have been with her flexibility throughout her first year of life as a Missionary Baby. She has done so much for this mission and has allowed me to do so much with this mission as well. I've carted her all over the place! She has slept, nursed, and accompanied me in some interesting places for an infant- but she's been a great sport the whole time. Maybe one day she can look back at this post and know how thankful I am to have her around. She has changed my  life so drastically, and taught me more about myself than anyone else I know. Thank you for your patience baby girl as I figure this whole 'Mom' thing out! I love you!
Here's a look back at Flannery's first year:

Flannery's first photo after she was all clean and fed!

 In the hospital

Baptism day with her godparents, Kelsey and Taber

Enjoying the sun in Florida at New Staff Training

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa last July, her first four wheeler ride!

6 months old

Her first ponytail!

Having fun with mommy while dad was at the Student Leadership Summit in Dallas

Caught red-handed! She's got a sweet tooth!

Out to lunch for Mommy's 24th birthday!

Her first cupcake! It was a hit!

Showing off her birthday dress!

I used to be holy, and then I became a mom: The mission field of Motherhood

Moms, we're on mission. Not just my fellow FOCUS wives either. All you mamas! Yes, we may be in the United States, or even just in the laundry room for 60% of our lives but we are on mission! While we’re at home with our little ones and we’re confined to the changing table we can still fulfill the Great Commission. The big part of fulfilling the Great Commission is the Universal call to Holiness. Over the last few months I’ve had this lie running through my head:

“I used to be holy, and then I became a mom.”

Meaning I’ve fallen into the trap of comparing my old lifestyle as a radically available, single, college student to my new extremely demanding and constant life as a wife and mother. I used to get up early in the morning so I could make it to the chapel to pray a holy hour in an incense-filled chapel in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I’d pray the Liturgy of the Hours, attend daily Mass without fail and sit around with my friends having deep theological conversations and sharing how the Lord is working in our prayer lives.

But that’s not where I’m at anymore. And I’m finally coming to realize that I probably never will be again because the Lord so generously gave me those wonderful four years to prepare my heart, soul, and sheer will for a life of self-sacrificing mission as a mom. I would compare them to the three years that the disciples followed Jesus in his ministry while he was on earth. And now I’ve been sent out. My life will never be the same as it was then. I’ve been given the tools already and now I must put them to work.

 Some people spend a whole month eating scaly fish soup in Africa, sleeping in hammocks on a riverboat in the Amazon, dangerously close to getting diseases, parasites, and food poisoning; never getting a warm shower or a shower at all- living uncomfortably all the time. And that's so awesome, intense, radical, and holy- and I'm always a little jealous I haven't been able to experience that type of suffering myself on a trip like that. But then I look around and I realize I CAN relate and I do find ways to offer up suffering and hardship. Sometimes I don't get to eat because we just didn't get home for lunch, I don't always get to shower everyday (most moms relate), somehow a little girl finds her way into our bed at night and I wake up sore feeling like I slept on the floor anyway. And yeah, my husband is incredibly busy- but its all for the kingdom!

One day a few weeks ago I was so overwhelmed by my apparent decline in holiness, that I told all of this to Zach. I was so upset with myself and ashamed to be called a missionary. All I kept thinking about was how much I used to pray and was able to be caught up in the Lord all day long. As I was on the verge of tears my wonderful husband looked at me and said: Meghan, you’re living out the mission more than all of us from college. We used to dream of suffering for the Lord and you have given up everything and are living the most self-sacrificial life of all of us.

And that was exactly what I needed to hear. I am right where the Lord needs me, I just need to keep my eyes on Him and offer all these hard moments up for my husband, my family, the mission of FOCUS, and the conversion of the world because one of the most powerful ways we can pray is uniting our suffering with that of our Lord. Jesus calls us to leave everything behind, to take up our cross and follow Him. Why did I think I could get away without picking up a cross?

Holiness isn't about how many hours you can have uninterrupted prayer, or whether or not you make it to daily Mass each day of the week, but rather holiness is doing God's will as best we possibly can and constantly striving for greatness. Maybe for some of us God's will is to pray for hours a day, or read and write all sorts of spiritual literature, but for some of us there may be a few years here and there in our lives when holiness will look a lot simpler. 

So to all the moms out there who struggle to find your path to holiness amidst the diapers, laundry, dishes, and sickness we are constantly surrounded by, remember that we are on mission; a mission to bring our spouses and children closer to the heart of Jesus. And no mission is without hardships. It won’t be like this forever, but for now we can be grateful for the chance to suffer for the good of others and for The Kingdom. So, for now let the laundry, the dishes, and the diapers aid in your sanctification and always be listening for when the Lord is calling you to do more.

SEEK: The Experience

One of the coolest experiences we get to have as missionaries is going to the annual national conference.  Whether it be a Student Leadership Summit or the larger SEEK conferences, it's a great experience.  It's a variation from the normal grind of campus work.  We get to sit back and look out on a sea of grace and watch God work in a more concentrated way on the hearts of these students.  It's hard to see sometimes when you work day-to-day with them, but when you're with them for a conference week you get to see the equivalent to a shot in arm in their walk with Christ.

FOCUS decided to document the journey of five students at our SEEK 2013 conference in Orlando and air it as a three-part miniseries on EWTN.  They just recently put the videos up on Youtube.  Meghan and I watched them back to back to back the other night and started reminiscing on the experience of conference.  We wanted to post them here so you all could get a glimpse at what it looked like a couple years ago as well as see some of the incredible types of students we get to work with.  ENJOY!

For some reason, I couldn't find Episode 2, so you'll have to look for it yourself on Youtube

Here's an interview about the series with the cameraman/producer Nick Falls and director Jeremy Rivera (2 missionaries working at the DSC on EWTN)

Meghan, What do you do?

I get this question a lot as well. And basically put, I'm a stay-at-home mom who radically lives out the New Evangelization. Yeah, it's possible! Technically, I'm an 'Affiliate Missionary' and we're a Missionary Family (once your husband is full-time, everyone is along for the ride). I lead bible studies and have a few girls who are in discipleship with me, but I don't think my life would look much different if we weren't in FOCUS. I would still strive to live a life of incarnational evangelization, spiritual multiplication and discipleship.

I'm sure people look at the daily schedule Zach posts and sees that he's not home until 10:00 pm some nights and leaves way before Flannery and I are even awake and wonder how we can survive as a married couple and a family on that kind of schedule. It gets hard sometimes- those days when I'm home with Flannery and I can't get dumb children's songs out of my head because its all I've listened to do make me a little crazy. However, I believe in the Great Commission and the New Evangelization and I would do anything to fulfill it! Yes, as a college student I had great dreams of bare handing the world and inspiring young women by leading bible studies on the college campus and spending countless hours with them growing in virtue together. But as a mother- its just not possible to do those kinds of things. It is possible for Zach though. He works really hard everyday to live out this mission.

The truth of the matter is this: Some go by giving, some give by going. Some wives and mothers fulfill the New Evangelization best by holding down the fort, staying out of our husbands hair, and sacrificing a little bit of hardship. 

And with a little one at home, every month seems like a different hardship is on the forefront. Flannery used to just lay around and sleep a lot so that made being on campus a lot easier when I could just push her in her stroller to the student center to go bare handing while she napped. Now that she's way more mobile and loves putting foreign objects in her mouth our baby proofed house is the best environment for her. It gets hard for me to look back at the year and see how my involvement seems to have declined a lot. But, that doesn't mean Zach's has to and I have found that its my role (even more so than active campus participation) to do whatever I can to support Zach's ministry and make him successful. So, if that means he needs to be out late at night with his guys then my best place is staying at home and being out of his way! I never would have thought that for me the best way to live the Great Commission of "Go therefore and make disciples" would be to stay at home with Flannery so that Zach can be as effective as possible with the gifts the Lord has given him. But it is, at least for now. I just ask that you all continue to pray for Zach and I that we can continue to find balance in our lives and courage to live out evangelization when God's providence allows it!

God Bless!

What Do You Do On a Daily Basis Pt III- The Long-Awaited Finale

Soooooooooooooo blogging isn't or forte, but it's Lent so we're going to do what I'm sure countless other Catholics with blogs are doing right now and recommit to it.

Starting with the finish to what my week looks like.

Thursday
9:00am Holy hour
12:00pm Mass
6:30pm Bible study with the fraternity guys
9:00pm-roughly 10:30pm Intercessory night (we switched it from 10-12 to 9-10/10:30 so we could get more students to regularly come- pray that works out)

I like to leave my Thursdays more open to either spend some time with the fam and have some open time to get lunch/coffee/just hang out/ do follow ups after bible study with some guys.  I usually end up having some conference calls in there somewhere.

Friday
8:00am Mass
9:00am Holy hour
10:30am We started up a weekly "Seeker Study" to teach about the Church to those outside of it who had questions about why we do certain things-- definitely a necessity in the South where there are some crazy versions of why we live out our faith certain ways or hold certain beliefs
12:30pm-1:30pm Men's group that Father Jason is putting on every week going through the book "Be a Man" by Fr. Larry Richards together
2:00pm-5:00pm Team MPD where the team gets together to pray for/contact/work on odds and ends having to do with our mission partner development (fundraising)

Saturday is a free day most of the time

Sunday
Time off during the day-- we gotta honor the holy day
6:00pm Student mass at St. Leo's
7:00pm Student dinner at the parish hall
8:00pm Then we head over to the Newman Center to hang out and watch "The Walking Dead" with some students

Then we do it all over again!


Its no wonder we sleep in when we get to have a break in the homeland!!

The top five things we've done since I posted last!

1. Toured the Kentucky 'Holy Land' with Bishop Medley the beginning of December
- We visited the Sisters of Mercy in Nazareth, the Monastery in Gethsemane, the first Cathedral of the United States and of course the Maker's Mark Bourbon Distillery.
2. Traveled back to South Dakota for the Holidays and a Mission Partner Appreciation Reception
It was great to see all our family and friends for Christmas as well as catch up with a lot of our mission partners. A few highlights:
- Zach got a beer brewing kit for Christmas and we started our first batch of brown ale on New Year's Eve. We'll bottle it next week!
- Flannery is going to carry on the tradition! She got a Cabbage Patch doll from Grandma!
3. Zach spent 5 days in Dallas with 11 of our students at the Student Leadership Summit put on by FOCUS.
4. We've started reading the book The Power of Habit and Zach has implemented an awesome habit creating tool inspired by our good friend Hunter. It's been coined 'The Life Wheel' and really exemplifies the Art of Living.
5. We read the book The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly and have started our own dream journals!
                   

-Meghan