To become a nun...I can honestly say that that thought never entered into my mind. Although my Mum is convinced that my becoming a nun is because of watching the sound of music time and time again, it doesn't make sense because she ends up getting married! I got a surprise once when I was about 19 years old when a somebody who I I had just met asked me very innocently whether I had ever thought about becoming a religious sister. I don't know how longed I looked at her for, but inside of me I was thinking what on earth do you see in me that would make you think that I would want to become a nun? I was quite offended by the question. But I answered very politely - no. But that question obviously got stuck in me and it opened up a possibility of a way of life I had never thought about.
So how did I get to where I am now? A religious sister of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity studying theology in Berkley, California. I could give you the long version or the short version...you will probably stop reading the long version so I'll give you the short one!!!
I was born and grew up in Southampton, England. We weren't a particular religious family but we went to mass every Sunday which I did really enjoy. I was a normal teenager doing everything that teenagers like to do. I went to university in Southampton where I studied physiotherapy. On one of my first days of starting my course a new friend who wasn't Catholic asked me about my Catholic faith. I realized I couldn't really explain anything so I spent the next year trying to find answers to my friend's questions. Eventually at the end of my first year of studying physiotherapy I was a party, which happened to be a Hawaiian themed boat party, I must have got a bit fed up of the dancing down stairs so I went up on deck by myself and all the questions that had been going around my mind in the past year came to me. At that moment there was also a girl who was in my class but I had never really spoken to her before but I assumed she was Catholic because she was Irish. So I spent the rest of the party talking to her about all my question that I had. I asked if there was anywhere that she knew that I could go on a retreat, I was hoping that if I went on a retreat I would find answers for my friend. She said she did. So a few months laster I went on a retreat organized my the Verbum Dei Missionaries on the Isle of Wight.
I continued going to the Verbum Community after this retreat experience, I would say that I didn't have any great spiritual enlightenment on the retreat but I just know that I experienced something that I hadn't experienced anywhere else before and I wanted to experience that more.
I eventually qualified as a physiotherapist and I began to work at Southampton General Hospital. I worked there for two years. I loved working as a physio. I loved the people I worked with, I loved what I did, I loved helping people get physically better again but at the same time there was still a restlessness inside of me. There was one moment when I was treating a teenage boy who had two purple mo-hawks and had been expelled from school and while I was treating him, he asked me "Sara tell me about life, tell me about God?" In that moment all I wanted to do was just sit down and talk with him, I wanted to be completely available to be able to guide him in whatever way I could. This was one of many experiences during my time working at the hospital where I realized even though I love doing what I do my heart is longing to do and be somewhwere else. I decided to hand in my notice at work and spend some time in the Philippines.
I remember being on the plane on the way to the Philippines and saying to God, ok I give you 4 months to tell me what you want me to do with my life...if not then its not my fault!! My time spent in the Philippines was an amazing experience which was filled with so much grace. It was here in the Philippines that I really understood very clearly the path that God was inviting me on...not because God said I want you to do this Sara but because I discovered that in fact my deepest desire in complete freedom was to give myself completely to God and to dedicate myself to the charism of the Verbum Dei community.
To give myself completely to God was one thing but to dedicate myself completely to the Verbum Dei charism was another!!! To dedicate myself to evangelization? What!? On the first retreat that I went to on the Isle of Wight I remember getting freaked out because the first sign that I saw was Verbum Dei - Centre of Evangelization. What on earth had I come to. But during my time in the Philippines I really began to discover - why evangelize? One day we went to visit this family that lived in a tiny shack. The first thing that you would say when you arrived there was they needed a bigger house and decent living conditions. When we arrived they didn't ask us for any money or food. Literally the first thing that they said to us when we arrived was "when are you coming back to this town to give us the Word of God?" These people wanted to hear the Word of God.
I have experienced the transforming power of the Word of God in my own life and in the life of people around me, especially here in the United States...and this is what I wanted to be able to dedicate my entire life to.
