/Tag:Advent

Advent

18Dec

Shepherds Among Us

By Sister Vicki Bergkamp, ASC

The shepherds of the Christmas story have always fascinated me.  I lived on a farm and liked to be outside, so I knew that one had to care for the animals. The care they needed was not just during working hours. You had to think and plan ahead to make sure they were okay 24 hours a day. Being out alone in the fields fascinated me also, although I was always able to think about that lying in a nice warm bed!

The shepherds could not know what was going on that holy night,

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20Dec

Living by Signs

L to R: Therese Wetta, Renee Kirmer, and JoAnn Mark, Circa 1980s

By Sister JoAnn Mark, ASC

Three years ago at this time, I made a decision to leave my life in Wichita for a challenge in New York where I knew no one. I had been on the board of a struggling nonprofit that was about to collapse unless someone did the hard work of pumping it with new life.

On Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015, I packed up the car and left all that was familiar —

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20Dec

Following the Spirit’s Lead

By Sister Frances Pytlik, ASC

Advent allows us to connect with our hopes and desires, our longing and yearning for God. But with Advent coming only once every 12 months, I try to be alert to that process year-round.

As I look back over the last years, I am aware of the Spirit’s nagging, prodding and pushing, and my slow and deliberate response to these proddings.

As I responded to calls for ministries and moved from one mission place to another, the decisions and the timing seemed appropriate.

At the beginning of my ninth year in western Kansas,

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14Dec

Traveling Outside My Comfort Zone

By Sister Ann Fearday, ASC

For believers, Advent is a sacred journey of hoping, waiting and preparing, and in my case, more deeply understanding self. Months after I completed a 32-day, 424-mile pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), I still am savoring the experience and coming to understand my whole life as a sacred journey.

  

Looking for God

I looked for God along the way of the Camino to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain,

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12Dec

The Road to My Wildest Dreams

By Sister Barb Smith, ASC

Journeys always stir something deep within me. There is something exciting about taking off into the unknown.

Where will this road take me? Who will I encounter?

The Adventure beings

Maybe it is the adventure, the willingness to be challenged, taking a leap of faith or the excitement of discovering something new, but it seems that my whole life has been about being on a journey.

One of these journeys touched my life in a significant way in 1982 when I responded to a call to minister among the Navajo on a reservation in New Mexico.

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