weissmissionaries

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"What's One More?"👶🏼 February 2017. 🎥 🎬 (at Fairhope, Alabama)

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Happiest of birthdays to my lovely bride @k.l.weiss! 🎉 I honor you today for your incredible selflessness as you give your very life to bear our children and bring them into this world. I honor you for your faithful friendship and sacrificial service to our family. You are an amazingly graceful and radiantly beautiful woman. Your radical hospitality constantly blesses so many. You make 30 look so good. Thank you for committing to be my wife and best friend. I love you and am blessed to be able to grow old with you. Happy Birthday! 🎂

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Had a lovely #FathersDay afternoon with these three crazies! 🏖 (at Gulf Shores, Alabama)

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Pentecost Newsletter 2016 🔥

Beloved Friends and Benefactors,

Happy Pentecost! Come Holy Spirit, Come!

It has been an incredibly long time since we last wrote and gave you an update. We apologize for not keeping you better informed. Life has been insanely busy with trips out of the country, a new baby, moving and a new job.

2015 began with a blessed 3 month long mission trip to the Philippines. It was a beautiful and difficult time for our family. Serving the poor in Malaybalay included jail ministry, medical mission trips, home visits, work projects, hospital visits, and Bible studies with our Filipino neighbors. Jonathan was commissioned by FMC to create videos of FMC’s missionary work in that country. This included testimonies from our missionaries and attempts to show more clearly what this missionary field looks like. Many of the stories from our time in the Philippines can be found here on our mission blog.

The Lord challenged and stretched us as His servants as we struggled with mysterious bug bites, infections, and sickness as a family. This was especially difficult for Kristen who was 6 months pregnant while trying to keep the boys healthy (3yrs and 18mo at the time).

During our last few weeks in Malaybalay, we went on family retreat to pray and discern what the Lord was calling us to do in the future. We clearly heard the Lord speak of our doing something new and different as a family, but at the time we were unsure of what that meant. After returning home, we continued to pray and discern what God wanted of our family. We were feeling called out of our role as “House Parents” at the Big Woods community but were unsure of where the Lord was calling us next.

On July 2nd we welcomed our baby daughter, Avila Catherine into our family. She has been a delight and a joy and, of course is spoiled by all. We are all completely in love with her and her little personality.

In August, Jonathan was contacted by a fellow Franciscan University graduate about joining 4PM Media, a company specializing in videography, especially Catholic videos. The company is based in Fairhope, Alabama. We went for a visit and an interview and knew that this was the “something new” God had in store for our family. We had less than 2 weeks to pack all of our things and move to Alabama without even knowing where we would live. God led us to the perfect little home for our family and has continued to provide for our needs. We truly see Jonathan’s new job as a ministry and mission field and we are blessed daily to see him sharing his talents and passion for film and photos to build God’s kingdom in a new way.

To see some of the projects that Jonathan is currently working on, check out both The Wild Goose Series, a 14 part online video series on discovering a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit (www.thewildgooseisloose.com) and The Vigil Project, a beautiful series of seven songs for Lent and Easter which will be released online as an aid to your prayer in these seasons. (See www.thevigilproject.com).

We have had many opportunities to witness to others about our faith in the community here. God is constantly putting people in our path to converse with and speak truth to.

We are filled with so much gratitude for the years of constant support and prayers you have provided for our family as we served the Lord through foreign missions and Family Missions Company. Although we are no longer working as missionaries full time, know that all donations that you have made to us are in a “mission only” fund through FMC that we only have access to for missionary purposes. We have chosen not to process out of FMC so we can continue to go on short term mission trips and support FMC in whatever ways God might lead.

Though we are no longer in need of your donations, there are many missionaries that are in desperate need of mission partners. There is an Asian missionary family in particular that we would love for you to consider supporting, Junar and Dian Mardoquio. They are an amazing family and awesome missionaries that we are so blessed to call our friends.

You can read more about them and watch their call to missions video here: www.mardoquiofamily.familymissionscompany.com

We continue to keep each of you and your intentions in our prayers and thank God for your partnership in spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth! We love you all!

Until the whole world hears,

Jonathan, Kristen, Edmond (4), Philip (2), & Avila (10 months)

251-604-8318 missions.jon@gmail.com

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#HappyMothersDay to my beloved bride @kweissoils! You blow me away each and every day with the depth of love and mercy that you show our children. Thank you for your selfless yes to the three little souls in our care! We love you!

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My pride and boys. Love these little guys with everything. #familyfirst #dadlife

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Can't stand the cuteness. They are too much. I love them mucho! 👶🏼👦🏼👦🏼 #dadlife #vscofilm #VSCO

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Flip, our own Mr. Curiosity! {Testing out the free #VSCOfilm with my trusty Nikon D40} #joyofboys #dadlife #vscokids

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Edmond, our adventurous firstborn is such a stud! It's hard to get natural smiles from him these days so this one is quite a gem. 👦🏼 #joyofboys #dadlife #VSCOfilm #vscokids

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Missions Makes Me More Grateful

By Jonathan

I am not a big one for New Years resolutions but my mom challenged me at Christmas time to begin a daily gratitude journal. Now I consider myself a pretty consistent optimist, the glass is half full kind of guy, but since coming into missions I have realized how very ungrateful I have been. 

I find myself much more grateful here in missions in spite of the fact that many of the comforts and conveniences from the states are gone. I find myself bucket bathing in lukewarm water and instead of feeling bitter because we don't have a working shower, or a hot water tank I find myself filled with thanksgiving for water to bathe in everyday thats easily accessible cause I didn't have to carry it from half a mile away.

I find myself falling asleep thankful for our simple 2 inch foam mattress on the floor instead of the bamboo, cement, and dirt floors so many of the people here sleep on. 

I am grateful for our little one burner gas stove, especially since most of our friends have to collect and use firewood to cook. I don't remember being very thankful at home when we had a six burner stove with a griddle for pancakes and two ovens to bake everyday. 

I am thankful for our cool, cement floor in the heat of the day, that is very easy to clean. Only a few short years ago almost all of the people we work with in Isla had dirt floors. I am constantly filled with gratitude on warm nights for our $5 ceiling fan that helps us stay cool while I rarely miss having central air conditioning. 

I am so grateful for the relationship I am building with the young men, Marco and Danny who work at the water station where I have to go to refill our two, 5 gal water bottles twice a week so we have clean water for drinking and cooking. In the US all I had to do was turn on the faucet and I had unlimited clean water but the labor of getting purified water has become a building block for friendship and allows me some much needed exercise. 

I find I am even thankful for discomforts and inconveniences more than I ever was at home. Things like having to hand wash dishes between every meal since we only have enough dishes for one meal. I enjoy the time at the sink thinking about my day and slowing down for a few minutes. 

I have found here in missions that material things are very unimportant. My happiness is infinitely greater when I focus on being grateful each day for everything that the Lord gives me and my family. I am given a wealth of opportunities to pour myself out for my wife and children here in missions. 

I am more grateful because of missions. Don't get me wrong, I still struggle with being ungrateful and frustrated by silly things. I am still growing into the saint that God wants me to be. But missions continues to transform my heart and allows me to see and recognize God's providence with gratitude each day.

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True Confessions of a Missionary Mom

The following is a vulnerable confession of a missionary mom who has been meditating on, struggling with and asking the Lord for wisdom in our “new” life here in the Philippines for some time now so here it is.

When I first became a missionary in 2006 I was a young 20 year old without any cares or worries, nothing to hold me down or keep me out of missions. I was living in an apartment with minimal possessions and by the grace of God, I had no student debt to worry about. My lease was up and I was able to sell everything pretty easily, even my new car to my parish priest. I quit my job and moved down to south Louisiana where I trained with Family Missions Company and was sent out into missions.

My first year was spent in General Cepeda, where I learned a lot about myself and grew up in many ways while serving the Lord and the people there. The next year I headed to Spain on mission and spent the next two and a half years there, during which time I also did some mission work one summer in India.

People back home would often say to me, “Wow, you are so brave! I could never do that. It must be so hard.” I would just smile and think; “What are you talking about, missions is easy. I love this life and couldn't ever think of not doing it! Sure there are sufferings, but nothing really hard.”

I think the worst thing that happened to me was getting the occasional stomach bug that every missionary is familiar with, or that time I thought I was going to loose one of my eyes when I accidentally scratched it while on retreat in Spain.

Generally, life was great. I got to experience and see things most people never see and only dream about experiencing. Nothing was ever too early or too late, too dirty or too lengthy, too hard to get to, or just too hard, except maybe learning the language.

But that was several years ago and life as a single missionary is long gone. Missions is anything but easy as a mom of little ones and if I am are being totally honest here, I have never cried so much in my life than when in missions. I have felt completely inadequate and totally done with being uncomfortable, away from everything that makes sense to me or that I understand. I often find myself daydreaming about what it used to be like as a single missionary; how easy, exciting, and all around great it was.

Now don’t get me wrong. I LOVE and ADORE my children and the life I have now and wouldn't change it for the world. Being a mom in missions is trying and I am still learning what “being a mom AND a missionary” even means since my priorities have dramatically changed. I have a few more people to worry about and take care of than I used to. It’s not just me any more, so I can’t just jump at the opportunity to hike and climb through the jungle for 3 hours so I can evangelize a small community in the Amazon jungle because, besides the fact that I’m 8 months pregnant, there’s no way my 18 month old could make that journey; so Jonathan goes and I stay behind and make sure Edmond gets his nap in and doesn't touch that tarantula crawling on the door or drink the water from the faucet he is playing in.

When we are doing home visits, I spend my time multitasking with my 2 littles under 2 and feeling sorry that I can’t give the person in front of me my undivided attention.

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what I am going to feed my family out of all the strange ingredients I found at the market, or what healthy options I can find as snacks to take along with us in the diaper bag for when things run longer than expected which is the norm in missions.

It’s a real suffering trying to keep my children happy, entertained, feed, and rested for the sake of everyone’s sanity while we traveled across the globe for more than 48hrs.

It’s a real suffering when we have unexpected delays and or too many accidents and we run out of diapers or wipes during travel.

It’s a real suffering when I have to take my potty trained toddler into the filthiest bathroom I have ever seen so he can go potty while trying to keep him from touching anything that might harbor horrible germs while trying to keep myself clean as well.

It’s a real suffering to watch my kids suffer; I would much rather it be me. This has been an especially hard time in the Philippines for our almost 3 year old. He keeps asking when we are going home and it breaks my heart.

It’s a real suffering when a ministry ends up keeping you out all day, you ran our of snacks, no one gets a nap and everyone is tired and cranky.

Besides all these struggles depending on where you are in missions, I find myself not getting to do ministry for days on end it seems since our kids are sick or just totally out of sorts and in no condition to leave the house without having a complete melt down. There are also occasions like the one stated above where it’s just not possible to bring kids along and it makes more since for me to stay behind and let Jonathan go alone.

It’s hard being a mom in missions because I keep this silly idea in my head that says I must be DOING something, not just staying at the house and being a mom, that’s not what being a missionary is - right? Well, no, and that’s what I am learning.

Its a really hard lesson to learn, especially after having been a single missionary prior to my promotion to mommy hood. But all these sufferings and struggles allow for connecting with the moms here on a much deeper level and realizing that their sufferings go way deeper than I ever realized. I remember once, one of our kids got really sick in missions and the hospital in the small town we were serving in didn't have the necessary means to give him the help he needed and sent us home. Because we had the resources, we were able to drive to the larger city 45 mins away and get help from a bigger more Americanized hospital, an option the poor don’t have.

The ministries that I am able to do become much more special and fulfilling because I had to wait and work around kids naps and meal times so I could have a short visit with a mom and her sick baby in the hospital or bring food to a family in need. These are the moments when I feel like it was all worth it.

"…if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desires of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desires with good things." Isaiah 58:10-11

The majority of my time in missions is spent much like it would be stateside except in a very different environment and culture, taking care of my family, making meals, cleaning house, and occasionally doing ministry, when life permits it. Missions may not be the exciting adventure it used to be and it may be harder for me to wake up each day and say YES to this life as a mom in missions, but I know that this is the call He has put on our family. I know in my heart that His grace IS enough and that our family will learn from these experiences and sufferings and they will stretch, change, and grow us into His holy saints. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is His mission, His work. Not mine. I need to be flexible and allow Him to use me however He sees fit to and the verse below helped me realize this. "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established" - Proverbs 19:20

So I ask for your prayers as I wait upon His grace each moment to enter into missions with my whole heart, holding nothing back for the building of His kingdom and for the holiness of my own soul and that of my children, my husband, and those we encounter on this journey.

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Visiting Camiguin

We have just returned from our three day trip to the small island of Camiguin where some of our missionaries are serving. It was an awesome adventure complete with long drives through beautiful mountain scenery, ferry rides through crystal clear blue waters, and so much more. 

We were blessed to be able to pray with our missionaries there and fellowship together. The priest that they work with, Fr. Joe, who is an incredibly hardworking and generous man of God, took us to some of their communities livelihood projects including an organic farm, fish ponds, and piggery. 

The boys (& mom and dad) loved drinking the fresh coconut water and eating the delicious meat inside. The boys also got to ride a caribou! 

One morning after our community prayer time we were so blessed to go to nature preserve beach and swim. The water was seriously breathtaking. You could see scores of tropical fish, and colorful coral reefs. The water was so clear you could easily see 15-20 feet below the surface. We ventured down the beach a bit and found some super fun little tide pools that all the kids enjoyed splashing in and exploring for shells and broken coral.

We arrived home last night, tired but very encouraged by our visit and hoping that God lets us visit them again during our stay here in the Philippines. 

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The Gospel is Shared In Personal Encounters

Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness. 

- Pope Francis 

Joy of the Gospel (Paragraph 88)

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Our First Month in Missions

It's hard to believe it's been over a month since we arrived here in Malaybalay! Since we are only going to be here for a short 3 months we are tapping into the majority of the existing ministries that FMC missionaries were already doing. Here is a look into our typical week of ministries.

Sunday is the Lords Day! We attend Mass as a family, sometimes as an entire missionary community. We personally love going to the 8am English Mass at the local Benedictine Monastery. They make some delicious coffee and peanut butter too! 

Recently Jonathan was invited to play soccer with a group of young university students he met at a city park. It's been a great way for him to connect with both young Filipino and Papua New Guinea men and evangelize them. In the evening there is a men's group at Isla Bonita. This group has been growing steadily since the Jericho project last summer and has become a great work of discipling the men in that community; even illness doesn't keep them away.

Monday is usually our day off unless something comes up. It's a chance for us to get some of our main grocery shopping in for the week. We try to talk with our families and friends back home, and write our blog posts. We usually try to take the boys out on a special adventure as well like one of the local parks and have our special meal out as a family. 

Tuesday is our jail ministry day. We begin with morning prayer as a community usually at the Romero's house. At the jail we typically have a time of praise and worship, followed by Scripture sharing, or a talk on some aspect of the faith. After the talk we have a chance to visit with the inmates, pray with them, and share a sweet snack. Close to 100 inmates join us each week for the prayer meeting and often tell us how they look forward all week to our coming. After jail ministry we come home, have lunch, the boys go down for naps and then in the late afternoon we have our weekly team meeting to discuss what ministries are coming up, and what are some needs that those we are serving have. (medical or otherwise).

Recently we felt God calling us personally to begin a ministry discipling a wonderful couple, Junor and Diana at our home followed by dinner. We are really looking forward to sharing with them each week. They are discerning a call to full-time missionary work as a family and need your prayers as they seek God's will for their family. 

Wednesday is work projects day for the missionary dads. This month they are building a completely new home for a family with four girls. Its really a two fold project though because almost all of the work is done by filipino men who are in need of work. They work everyday in rotation shifts until the project is complete. So not only does a work project give a family a huge gift, but it also in turn blesses other families in the greater community with work! This is also our home visit day in Isla Bonita with the moms, but that doesn't mean we don't do home visits randomly on other days :-) 

Thursday, Bible study day! We have community morning prayer again, typically kids prayer here at our house. We love how kids prayer makes us have to dance each week! Our biggest and probably the most fruitful ministry begun three years ago by the Romeros, is a weekly Bible study. What began with only 2 little ladies has grown into ministering to literally hundreds of men, women, and children each week. Right now we are having a series on the Kerygma, the basic Gospel message. Jonathan recently gave the talk on our Salvation in Jesus Christ. 

Friday is our medical needs day. We typically share among all the missionaries the task of bringing people to visit doctors, visiting those in the hospital, and buying medicine for the sick who have asked us for help. But just like home visits, we also do hospital visits during the week when someone we are helping is currently receiving treatment. Just this past week Kristen made several trips to the hospital to visit 3 different mom with sick little ones all from the community of Isla Bonita. 

In the afternoon we attempt to learn the second major language here in the Philippines: Visayan. 

Saturday is desert day, a time of quiet prayer in nature with scripture to refresh our missionary spirits and to be apart with the Lord. 

Sometime we go as a community and after having our own personal time with the Lord we gather back together and share about what the Lord is saying and doing in our own lives. This is also the day we occasionally have Lord's Day as a community. We share a special meal together and just have some good community fellowship. And there you have it, an outline of our weekly schedule. Any questions about what we are doing? Send us an email: missions.jon@gmail.com or drop us a comment below.

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Believing In His Providence

I recently had the blessing of getting to witness God’s great providence in action. On Sunday night, while Jonathan was away at Men’s group, the boys and I were having dinner, and getting ready for bath time when I got an urgent sounding text message. It was from Melissa, a young mom with 2 kids who is currently going through an extremely difficult time. (You can read more about it HERE: http://www.romerosonmission.com/2015/02/the-girl-i-didnt-help-part-1.html

She was texting me from the Geibel’s house, one of the other missionary families who live in our neighborhood but they weren’t home. I told her to come to my house, which is right around the corner. As I opened the door for her I could clearly see the concern and worry on her face as she held her barely one year old tightly in her arms. I invited her inside and asked her what was going on.

She began to tell me about how her son, King, who had slipped on their floor that morning and had been throwing up ever since. I immediately understood her predicament. She hadn’t brought him to the hospital yet because she has no money. I sent her there immediately with enough funds to pay for a visit to the emergency room and some food in case they had to stay overnight. She was accompanied by a mutual friend of ours who said she would keep me updated on King’s progress.

Within a few hours I got a text saying that King needed an x-ray which would cost a little over $5,000 pesos or $100 dollars. She texted me worried about whether or not she should get it considering there was no way she could possibly hope to pay for it.

Since we are nearing the end of the month our family is nearly out of funds and I wasn’t sure we would have enough to cover the cost alone. I thought, "maybe with a little help from the other missionaries, we could pay for the test."  I prayed and thought about it for a minute then told her that God our Father knows our needs and to trust that He would provide for theirs and not to worry. I had just experienced a little miracle of His providence in my own life and knew He would provide. (You can check out that story here.)

The next day I went to the hospital to see how things were going and to see about whether or not she had decided to get the x-ray. She said that they were going to have it done later that afternoon, and not only had the price gone down because they were no longer considered “emergency patients”, but the government help that she had applied for several weeks prior had just gone through and was going to pay for it! I just smiled and said, “Well, praise the Lord!”

Our God is so awesome. We should never doubt His great love and providential care for us!

Update coming soon about King’s results.

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An Average Day in the Life of a Missionary Family

(We must begin by offering this disclaimer. Most days in missions usually do not go as planned. This is our schedule barring problems, interruptions, and the general chaos caused by two toddlers. Missions is all about being flexible and rolling with the punches after all.)

Our day begins between 6am - 7am as the rising sun wakes the boys amid the loud sounds of our non-human neighbours: crowing roosters, barking dogs, and chirping birds. Breakfast follows immediately since our boys can’t wait and wake up acting famished. We typically have a simple breakfast of oatmeal, eggs, or on Sundays our special treat; pancakes or french toast!

Morning prayer follows either as a family with our boys or three days a week with our larger missionary community. We love having Thursday morning kids prayer here at our house, complete with some seriously funny dancing.

After prayer we head to ministries or begin the task of running errands and doing our chores. (See our previous blog post about what ministries we are doing.)

A great blessing of the missionary life is the amount of time we are able to spend together as a family. Being able to eat all three meals together and do many of our ministries as a family is so amazing. After lunch the boys go down for their 2 hour naps while we finish our errands, chores or have our personal prayer time. Unlike life in the states, errands like grocery shopping and chores like washing dishes or clothes take much more time so a great part of each day is consumed with these tasks.

Following any evening ministries like our Thursday night Bible study we head home, have a simple dinner like sandwiches, sweet bread, or delicious fruit, and start our night time routine that most parents are familiar with, bathing little ones, reading night time Bible stories, and finishing with night time prayers.

Our days are both full and blessed with less “doing” than our life in the States but more purpose and person-to-person ministry than we had stateside. The majority of it is spent witnessing to holiness as a family in everyday life to those around us and seeking out ways to reach the marginalized and forgotten in the culture here.

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A Small Miracle Story

So this is going to seem like a really silly story for some, but for me as a mom it was a real miracle.

A few nights ago Philip woke up with a terrible sounding cough and a very stuffy nose. Poor baby was miserable and was having a VERY difficult time sleeping while laying down because he just couldn’t breath. At one point during the night while I was trying to comfort him and help him sleep, I thought to myself, “if we were at home in the states I could sit him up in a bouncer or something so that he could sleep sitting up and breath easier.”

The next day I just kept thinking about our restless night and how many luxuries we have in the states that we take for granted. What in the world do moms do here for their little ones when they can’t sleep laying down? I have been in many homes of the poor and there is usually only one bed for the whole family to share. No cribs or pack-n-plays. No bouncers or swings and definitely no rocking chairs. Most furniture is made out of bamboo which is not something anyone could hope to comfortably sleep on while their little one lays snuggling upright on their chest.

After lunch time, we got a call from the Romeros asking if we would like to borrow their car while they were away picking Sammy up in CDO from his visit to Malaysia. Jonathan picked it up and later that day we headed to town to take the boys to the park and to run some errands. When we got in Philip jumped into the car seat they brought for Maggie and was so content and comfortable in it that he fell asleep almost immediately. He hadn’t napped all day because he was just so uncomfortable laying down. Poor baby slept so hard and deep.

When it was time for bed we set up the car seat in our room where he feel back asleep and slept soundly for most of the night. In the early morning we moved him to his bed per his request where he slept until his usual wake up time. He woke up happy and in a much better mood, not to mention sleeping upright most of the night helped his nose drain and prevented all the yucky mucus from going down his throat causing more discomfort.

At some point I realized God had provided me with a HUGE gift and blessing, in this car seat. It was the answer to prayers, prayers that I hadn’t even prayed; but God knew our needs and provided for them without us even asking. He truly is a good and loving Father who takes care of us-even in the little things.

"…and do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well." -Luke 12:29-31