August 2020

My husband, Cody, and I met in college at SMU in Dallas and were married after graduation.  We quickly settled in Dallas and began our lives together. We had the most amazing community of friends; some from school, some from our Church, and some we met as young adults in the city. However, we didn’t have any family close to us and for two people who were incredibly close to our families an ache to live close to them again was always present. When we were first married we shared a mutual desire to move to New Orleans since it was perfectly central to both of our families in Abbeville, LA and Bay Saint Louis, MS. Dallas was where we needed to be for now, though, so we put those plans on hold until we felt that the time was “right”.

When we found out we were pregnant on Christmas three years later that desire came to the surface again. We decided then to start praying intentionally about when the Lord wanted us to move and asked Him to create a path for us. A month before Andre’s due date Cody began a new job which allowed him to work remotely. Then Andre was born and the next three months were a blur. Throughout this time we both began to feel strongly that the Lord was calling us to leave Dallas. At the end of my maternity leave we decided that I would start looking for jobs in New Orleans. After making that decision we felt immense peace and affirmation from God that we were following His will for our family. I began to pray intentionally for a job in New Orleans.

I’ve always been taught to dream big in prayer while truly asking the Lord’s will to be done. I asked the Lord to help us find a parish where we could raise our family, a parish with a heart for discipleship and people who desire a relationship with the Lord. After talking with some friends in the area, Saint Catherine of Siena was a name that kept coming up again and again. One morning during a meeting with my discipleship group I finally shared with them about our desires to move and hopes for the future. These women then prayed for me and over me asking the Lord to provide a clear path and provision for our family. That afternoon I reached out to Abby Reller and she told me that Saint Catherine’s was looking for a new Director of Youth Ministry. I had a phone call with Father Tim later that week and loved everything he said about the Parish here. I felt that same sense of peace and joy from the Lord and hoped that this was His plan for us all along.

We set up an interview for April and my prayer shifted to hoping that this was the plan.
A week later the city of Dallas and most of the country was shut down because of an increase in cases of COVID-19. Cody’s job became unstable and we began to hear of many churches in Dallas with hiring freezes, furloughs, and layoffs. Everything became uncertain and all of our hopes of moving began to look more and more like they weren’t going to happen. Our prayers then shifted from desires for a clear path to asking the Lord to just make a way for us. We were powerless to change what was going on in the world and all we could do was abandon everything to Him. If this was His will, like we thought it was, then He would provide a way.

A month later my interview with Saint Catherine’s (much to my surprise) wasn’t cancelled and instead just moved to zoom. The interview was incredible and I loved meeting the staff members here and accepted the job immediately. My parents then offered for us to move into their home in Bay Saint Louis initially to help with the immense uncertainty of moving in the middle of a pandemic. We knew that this meant leaving our community in Dallas without saying goodbye, living an hour away from the place we wanted to be, and only being certain of the future of one of our jobs. Even though this plan was way messier than our original one and we still didn’t know what the future held, we trusted that this was the will of the Lord.

We still have no idea what the future holds and trusting in the Lord during this time has not been easy. However, every new person we meet at Saint Catherine’s, every unexpected moment we are getting to spend with my family in Bay St. Louis, and every time we go to prayer we feel the love of the Lord here with us. We are certain that this is His plan for us and that good will come of this. We are so grateful to be a part of the community at Saint Catherine’s and are hopeful in the future God has planned for us.