Introduction

Hello. Thank you to everyone who reads this blog about my Mission Trip to Kolkata. I just returned from India on Saturday, and will record some of the highlights of my trip on this website, which I was unable to do while I was away. It was the most incredible, exhausting, overwhelming, intense, and beautiful time of my life. Not to mention humid!
Why me? 
Back in May, one week after competing in my first half-marathon (so I should have been content), I was complaining to God at mass. Distracted, I was asking Him why He kept closing all the doors to opportunities I was pursuing for my summer plans. As a teacher, I get the summer off, and so I had many potential plans, but all of them fell through. I asked God to tell me what He wanted of me, because I felt as if He just wanted to spoil everything.  One moment later, the word 'Kolkata' popped into my head. I immediately began to laugh, thinking this was too good to be true, but probably ridiculous and impossible. However, the next day at my soccer game I told a friend about this idea, and she informed me that her brother was serving the poor in Kolkata with the Missionaries of Charity for 2 months. I got in touch with him, and everything fell into place for my month long service trip. 
Why was this something I was excited about? Well, for years I have wanted to do a mission trip, but I often felt like I wanted to do it of my own accord, not because God called me to do it. This time it was different. Also, when I was young my parents met Mother Teresa of Calcutta (the city's name was changed recently to Kolkata so that it would be more Indian than English). She had a profound impact on my family, and I wrote letters to her as a child, all of which she responded to. In college, some friends and I planned to take a trip post-graduation to serve the poor in Kolkata, India. However, plans never materialized, and we didn't make concrete plans for it to happen.