THANK YOU

I honestly have the urge to start every newsletter with an appeal to join me in crying out, “THANK YOU, JESUS!”, followed by an extension of gratitude to all those who participate in the Project’s mission, by deed or prayer. 

Our readers are interested in a bit more content than that. So I’ll try to summarize how God has given us reasons to be thankful.

Study Abroad.

Second summer study abroad term: successful beyond expectations. Our previous blog post mentioned how their time together, pilgrimaging through the “City of Saints”, has been blessed beyond belief. Watch Dan’s testimony here and more to come later!

Full Testimony.

We realized that we were too busy telling you about our first ever full semester study abroad group this past Spring 2019, that we never let you hear from them. To make up for it, we’ve published the full testimony of Justin Read, who came abroad after completing his undergraduate degree at Santa Clara University and before starting graduate school at The Augustine Institute. It is worth the read to understand what a full semester abroad can do.

TOB & Families

While on the firsts, we launched our first young adult Theology of the Body Program and our first Young Families Pilgrimage. Overwhelmingly full of grace and once again, exceeded our expectations by far. A book wouldn’t suffice to capture the power of their experiences, but you’ll get to hear from them too. Not to be cliche, but it’s true that “life-changing” and “best time of my life” were used by participants of both programs.

I cannot omit a giant THANK YOU to those vital team members who joined to make those pilgrimages a success: Dr. Houde, featured in our promo video, Fr. Zack Swantek, a TOB expert and incredible chaplain, and our beloved board member, Fr. Spencer Howe, who served our families.

We also try to live our work in the programs with an attitude of learning and in a spirit of pilgrimage. This participation was on another level in the Young Families Pilgrimage, since Joe and I, with our 2 toddlers, form part of the target group! We cannot believe how beautiful and uplifting that time was for our family. We felt that God gave us the grace to relive the experience of John Paul II’s “Środowisko”, with the profound sense of community and authentic friendship. That was a primary goal, but it’s one that was only achieved by grace.

If you missed out on these, don’t feel bad. We are definitely repeating these two new programs next summer!

-Corinne MacDonald, Co-Founder & President