She’s Arrived!!

Theresa Marie Martin was born at 11:55pm on February 6th, weighing 8lbs 12oz and measuring 20 1/4 inches long.  She is such a happy baby and a total JOY to us! 

One Week Old

One Month Old

2 Months Old

3 Months Old

3 Months Old

Mission to Mexico

This January 1-9, we led a mission trip of Life Teen Summer Missionaries/College Students on a mission to General Cepeda, Mexico with Family Missions Company. We were so blessed to be reunited with friends from FMC and our Mexican brothers and sisters. The highlight of the mission for us, though, was probably getting to journey with the missionaries who had come with us, seeing the Lord move in their hearts and open their eyes to the beauty of mission life and also the possibility of a long term call to it. We were able to walk with them as they realized that this life is not only blessed and beautiful, but doable. All the Lord needs is our YES! Erik and I were renewed in our desire to share this life with others and continue praying for the master of the harvest to send out laborers into the vineyard.
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38

This Year’s Life Teen Mission Group To General Cepeda, Mexico

One Of The Work Projects This Year Was Building A One Room Adobe Home For A Family With 3 Small Children Who Were Living In A Tiny Little Room That Barely Fit One Bed, A Crib And Their Few Belongings

One Of The Daughters Of The Family We Built The House For

Fr. Paul Celebrating Mass In General Cepeda

Visiting With Some Old Friends – Erik Met Carmen And Her Sisters 3 Years Ago And When She Saw Him Standing At Her Door This Year She Jumped Into His Arms And Squeezed Him Tight!

Missionaries Inviting To The Chapel For Prayer

Sharing Testimonies In The Ranchos

Eight Months Pregnant In Mexico

This Fall at Covecrest

We have had quite an eventful fall here at Covecrest! Here are just a few of the highlights of what has been happening.

Our Covecrest Community Has Grown

We have started a Life Teen group at our local parish, St. Helena’s – we have about 30-40 teens who come regularly!

Game Night at Youth Group

Bridget sharing her testimony at the St. Helena’s and St. Mark’s Life Teen Retreat

Erik had the opportunity to lead a Retreat for John Paul II School from Greenville, NC

We were blessed to make a trip to Louisiana for a special dinner to honor Frank and Genie Summers, the founders of Family Missions Company – while there we got to spend some time catching up with our missionary family and enjoy the fun of being pregnant with missionary sisters!

Ghana Mission June 2011

This June we led a group of 6 college students to Ghana, Africa for 3 weeks, including my sister, Stephanie. The majority of our time there was spent in the South working with Paul and Bernice Otoo, a local couple who have dedicated their lives to full time missionary evangelism. They, and their three beautiful children, opened their home to our group and a group of Ghanian college students for the three week mission outreach in their community and a nearby village. We were able to build two mud huts for people in need and hosted Life Teen Life Nights at the local parish as well as many daily home visits to people in the neighborhood. It was a beautiful experience and the Spirit was moving.

One of the highlights of the trip for Erik and I was a 2 days trip up to the north of Ghana to check out the water wells that were being built in 18 villages. Last year Life Teen had a Global Life Night called “Thirst for Change” asking teens to bring in their spare change to help raise money for water wells in northern Ghana. The response was so great that instead of the original 4 wells that they hoped to drill, they had enough for 18, providing water for over 5,000 people. Erik and I were so blessed to go as representatives of Life Teen to speak with the people of the villages who would benefit from the gift of these teens. We were received with so much enthusiasm and gratitude…as well as lots of dancing and drums! Upon arriving they us asked to share a message of solidarity with the villagers who had gathered to give thanks and share with us the impact these wells would have on their communities. This opened the door for us to share about our heavenly Father who created us and makes us all brothers and sisters in His Son, Jesus Christ. It was a beautiful opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus with these people who are thirsting for so much more than just clean water.

Here’s a video of some of the ways the God used us in Ghana.

The Big Day

On April 30th of this year, we entered into the beautiful Sacrament of Marriage! God has been so faithful to us, and it was overwhelmingly evident to us the weekend of our wedding as our missionary communities gathered together with family, college and life long friends to celebrate with us. Here are a few shots from the big day!

Family Mission in Georgia

In December I moved to Tiger, Georgia to Camp Covecrest where I am currently working as the cook for weekly retreats. It has been a smooth transition into the life of prayer, community and ministry, and I am so blessed to be here. One of the biggest blessings for me so far was the Family Mission weekend in December.

A few years ago, the missionaries and families at Covecrest took a week long mission trip to General Cepeda, Mexico with Family Missions Company. Upon returning from the mission trip, the Covecrest community talked and prayed about ways they could live out mission more fully here in the local community. They started getting involved by visiting local nursing homes, doing meals on wheels routes and praying with the people that they delivered food to, visiting with the workers at Walmart and building relationships with them, etc. Last year they decided to have a Family Mission weekend, inviting families from the Atlanta area up to the camp for the weekend to reach out to the people in need right outside our door. This December I was blessed to be able to participate in the second annual Family Mission here in Georgia.

The week before Christmas, about 20 families joined us for a weekend of outreach, service and prayer. In the weeks proceeding the mission, Erik sought out families and elderly in need of small house repairs, physical needs, and especially those who where lonely and in need of love and attention. The weekend of the mission, families were split up into groups and sent out to various work projects such as repairing a driveway, splitting firewood for people with wood burning stoves, building a railing on a ramp, etc. Some groups went to nursing homes to visit with residents who didn’t often get visitors or had no family, while others when into people’s homes to spend time visiting, cleaning and praying with the humble and beautiful poor.

My group was sent to a Hispanic community in a small trailer park. We knocked on doors and visited with the families. The first house that opened the door for us welcomed us in, and we ended up staying for over an hour. Carmen is a young woman who speaks very little English, lives in a clean but humble little trailer with her husband, 12 year old son, and an older man from their same hometown who works in the States and send money back to his family in Mexico. As we talked with Carmen, we found out that she was Catholic but wasn’t often able to go to Mass because she didn’t have a car and the Church was too far to walk. When the mother of the family that had come with me gave Carmen a rosary bracelet to pray as she walked 30 minutes to and from her job, Carmen shyly said she didn’t even know how to pray the rosary. We asked if she wanted us to teach her and she excitedly said yes! As I started sharing with her and walking through each of the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, I realized this might be the first time she was hearing all of these stories of Jesus’ life. Her face lit up as I explained each Mystery, and in her excitement, I was challenged to receive these stories anew in my own life.

As we continued to visit with Carmen, one of the teenage boys with us complimented her on a wooden carving of Our Lady of Guadalupe on her wall. She excitedly smiled, jumped out of her chair, pulled it off the wall, giving it to the family saying she wanted them to keep it. Her husband had made it, and despite the family’s protests, she insisted that they take it. Totally humbled by Carmen’s humility and generosity, we left for the day and promised to come back the next day.

The following day we returned to the Hispanic community to share some soup and bread, bringing gift bags with some of the needs of the families we had visited the day before. We started unloading the food, and people began bringing tables and benches to us to set up in the middle of the community. We were so blessed to see all of the families we had visited the day before gather to break bread with us. The greatest part of the afternoon was when Fr. Jose, our parish priest, arrived and was able to meet all of the families, inviting them personally to come to the Spanish Mass on Sunday and sign their children up for Catechism. The families were excited, but shared that transportation was a challenge. One of the ongoing ministries that has come from our Family Mission Weekend is offering a shuttle service for these Hispanic families to the Spanish Mass every Sunday afternoon.

The Family Mission was such a huge blessing for everyone involved, and made it even more real that there are people all around us in need of love and waiting for the Good News of Jesus.

We’re Engaged!!

On October 22, 2010, Erik Martin asked me to be his bride and mission partner for life…and I said YES!!! God has been so FAITHFUL to us, and we are so excited about the life God is calling us to together.

“Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol Him, all peoples!
Strong is His love for us,
His faithfulness is never ending.
Praise the Lord!”
Psalm 117