My Future Plans...

As a freshman at George Washington U., I woke up early in the morning to work on Capitol Hill and sat in while national policy was being debated. A year after graduation, I found myself staying up until early in the morning while staff members at the bar where at I worked discussed whether it's best to use gin or vodka in martinis. (Vodka won, with a twist.)

I've always struggled to figure out what to do career wise. This uncertainty has given me an eclectic resume (congressional intern, cocktail waitress, reporter, interactive analyst) and allowed me to write colorful cover letters for job applications. Invariably, I have found myself at interviews trying to smile and come up with clever answers, all the while looking around a cramped office thinking "Do I really want to sit here day after day?"

I've had dreams of avoiding these trappings by becoming a famous actress or big shot politician. However, the people I truly admire are those who are out there quietly serving the needy and God, people we rarely here about. The altruistic part of me had sometimes contemplated a similar path, but I brushed the desire aside thinking it would be to hard to leave the people and material comforts in my life behind. At the same time, I've had a desire to be like the people who drop everything to travel the world and immerse themselves in new cultures. I've never been brave enough (or perhaps I'm too American) to do this.

However, during my last round of job interviews I felt a calling that has put me on a path whereby I'll have a chance to live like those I look up to. For the next two years, I'll be living in Mexico City, Mexico as a lay missionary with the Incarnate Word Missionaries, a group sponsored by Catholic nuns. Right now, I am at a three-week orientation attending classes covering a range of topics including the history of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word, cross- cultural issues, missiology and Catholic social teaching. I am in staying at the Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) along with eight other women who will be going to various parts of the world. I feel blessed by this opportunity and will keep you all updated on my journey. Upon sharing my plans with others, there have been lost of questions, so I'll take this time to answer the most common one regarding my future plans; though I am in awe of and have an incredible amount of respect for those who have taken religious vows, I do not intend on becoming a nun.