Kimi is currently in her third year of serving with Sion Community, and this year she has taken over the role of Events Coordinator for Sion Youth. She recently headed up an exciting venture for the community - our 24/7 prayer novena to intercede for the work of both Sion Community and evangelisation around the world.

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In September as a community we had a 24/7 Novena in our house, leading up to the feast day of our patron, St Michael the Archangel. This means that we had ongoing adoration for nine days, day and night, and members of our community (along with other people) were able to sign up for hour-long slots as and when we wanted, to ensure that there was always a 'watchman' present with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. That was our nine day journey into the heart of the Father God and what he wants for our community. But let’s start at the beginning.

There are two questions in my life that I constantly need to go back to.  ‘Why pray?’ and ‘How to pray?’

Why pray?

There are a lot of answers to that one. We pray because God is present and he is listening and because it is good to be in his presence. We pray because the heartbeat of relationship is conversation and all he wants is an ongoing, living and loving relationship with each of us. We pray because the world is broken and we believe that our words can change it and that we can make a difference. We pray because Jesus said “Pray and don’t give up.”

How to pray?

I don’t know. Of course there are methods and ways and saints that can help us and will help us, but at the end of the day we need to discover it for ourselves. And at different times in our lives different things work. In the letter to the Romans, Paul says that the Holy Spirit comes to our help and teaches us how to pray. That is the how! Every time we pray, we can ask once again: ‘Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray in this time?’

You might be wondering what this has to do with our 24/7 Novena. Everything! Because we set out to intercede for the work that we do and for the world. We set out to hear from God and to speak words that will change our world. And we set out to pray and to not give up.

I can only speak for myself but every time we dare to do this I encounter God in a different way, in a surprising way. And He is so good to us all the time. So good.

Morgan is currently on the Sion Youth Foundation Year, and is a much-loved new member of our team. She first met Sion Youth when they went on mission to her school back in 2013, and is looking forward to embarking on her first mission in just over a week!!
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“We’re not in Kansas anymore...”

It’s true. You don’t have to be crazy to live here, but it helps. Living in community is a far cry from the London living that I am used to, but that might be everything I love about it in a crazily cool, exciting and loveable way – and I’ve only been here a month! It is even more crazy and incredible to think that my journey with the Sion Community began only just over two years ago when my own school had a mission. It still hasn’t sunk in that from that point onwards my faith has grown and developed so much that I’ve never looked back. Never did I think that God’s plan would include becoming part of the community or that I’d be sat here preparing to go out on mission myself. One thing is for sure though: you can take the girl out of East London but you can’t take East London out of the girl! Still, after a month of being immersed into community life, my ‘terrible’ London accent continues to both confuse and amuse. Yet I find myself pushing away the idea of grabbing my ruby slippers and clicking off back home to familiarity and my creature comforts.

This past month has been filled with such genuine and authentic laughter, bonding with my brothers and sisters, and a contentment that I didn’t think I would find until I entered into community living. We’ve had a whirlwind four weeks of Bible study and teaching from a range of speakers who have opened up inspiring parts of the Catholic faith. Our first task was to tackle ‘Spirituality of Communion’ with Sister Mary Paul (originally from Texas but now living as a religious sister in Austria; kind of an expert in this field) which revealed such a rich and textured history of the faith I didn’t even know we had.

Then came Rob Clarke with his challenging discipleship series which helped me to think about the gifts God has given me and how I can apply them to my job on the Youth Team; more importantly it has showed me just how valuable each of my brothers and sisters  and the gifts they bring are. As well as this, Rob is an amazing guy - we had many a football match filled with such joy outside of our teaching time!

The last part of teaching came in the form of ‘Pass It On’ centred on equipping us to be evangelists and preparing us for evangelisation on mission in secondary schools over this next year. All of this packaged together has made me realise just how important God’s plan for me as a youth missionary is, and how privileged I am to be able to spread the joy and truth that is the Gospel message with young people all over the country.

Doesn’t look like I’ll be needing those ruby slippers after all!