Sometimes, daydreams can be life-changing.
Take Jessica Aldrich, for example. In 2007, she was getting
ready to graduate from George Mason University in Fairfax.
One day while she was trying to pray in the university’s
Bellarmine Chapel, she couldn’t concentrate. Instead of
thinking about prayer, her thoughts kept drifting to the idea
of missionary work.
Her first taste of missionary life had come freshman year on
an alternative spring break trip to the diocesan mission in
Banica.
“It really changed my life,” she said. “I was going to become
Protestant and hated the Catholic Church and it completely
changed everything for me, got me back into the Church. It
was really good.”
She went on a few more missionary trips during college,
including an alternative spring break trip to New Jersey and
a two-month stint in Banica in 2005.
With graduation and the “real world” closing in on her,
Aldrich knew she wanted to do more missionary work, but the
idea of being a full-time missionary just didn’t seem
possible.
“I knew I couldn’t do a long-term mission because I had to
work full-time when I graduated, but I really wanted to do
it,” Aldrich said.
Aldrich had heard of Protestant short-term mission
organizations, but not Catholic. Maybe she could start
one.
After receiving encouragement from her friend Ryan Woodard, a
business major she knew from campus ministry, Aldrich decided
to put her daydreams into action. Just like that,
Commissioned by Christ (CBC), a new organization that would
plan short-term missions for Catholic adults and families,
was created.
It took some time, but last spring, the organization was
granted nonprofit status by the internal revenue service.
Aldrich became president and chief executive officer, Woodard
became chief of finance and public relations, and another
friend from George Mason, Joseph Coyne, was named chief of
operations and informational technology.
Today, CBC has grown tremendously. The organization is
completely volunteer-run with four staff members, four people
serving on a board of directors, six advisers and an
ever-increasing number of helpers – mostly friends, but also
people who became interested after stumbling upon the
organization.
Aldrich spent last year working as a missionary in Peru, and
thanks to biweekly meetings over Skype, an internet video
phone service, CBC kept growing. Aldrich and Woodard say they
have learned a lot about the nonprofit world in the past two
years.
“We’ve done a lot of learning as we go in a lot of things,”
Woodard said. “(Aldrich) has experience in mission trips, but
planning them is a different game. I have experience in
business classes, but starting a business is a different
story.”
Now, Commissioned by Christ is planning its first mission
trip – seven days in the Banica mission this July.
Some 33 adults and families applied for the 15 spots on the
trip. The CBC staff spent almost eight hours narrowing down
the applicants.
“Initially, we thought this would be a primarily young adult
trip, but we ended up having families, retirees and
middle-aged people,” Aldrich said. “We really looked for
people who were passionate about going on a trip and hadn’t
had much opportunity to do something like this before.”
The group includes people of all ages and stages of life
including teens, a family of six, young adults and retirees.
Most have full-time jobs.
While in Banica, the missionaries will do everything from dig
latrines to small church repair work. They will teach and
hang out with the local youth group. The missionaries will
attend daily Mass and can receive the sacraments and have
time for silent prayer and reflection.
“Spirituality will be incorporated into the work we’ll be
doing,” Aldrich said. “It’ll have a very Catholic focus
during the day.”
Missionaries will attend a three-part spiritual orientation
program before the trip, as well as a post-trip retreat on
how to incorporate what they learned into their daily lives.
Both programs will be led by CBC adviser Father Jamie
Workman, parochial vicar of Blessed Sacrament Parish in
Alexandria.
Aldrich hopes that within the next few years, CBC will grow
into a full-time organization, with trips running year-round
to multiple locations in the United States and abroad. The
staff is organizing four trips – two to Banica, one to
Northern Peru and one to Appalachia.
“We want to offer different options with how far away and
what kind of work we’ll be doing, to appeal to everybody,”
Woodard said.
In coming years, Aldrich hopes CBC will be able to form
lasting relationships with mission sites, allowing them to go
back year after year to the same places. This will allow CBC
to learn about each community’s specific needs and desires,
so they can help provide the kind of changes needed most.
“We’re growing fast. That’s exciting and by the grace of God,
we’ll keep growing. Our goal is to eventually be a national
organization,” Aldrich said. “Our biggest challenge now will
be controlling the growth, making sure we’re doing it in a
responsible way.”
And, of course, Aldrich and Woodard think the trips will have
a positive effect on the missionaries who participate.
Aldrich hopes that by giving more people the opportunity to
experience firsthand the mission life of the Church, CBC will
be able to help them grow spiritually.
“The mission life of the Church is usually thought of as for
priests and religious, but really everybody in the Church is
commissioned to do mission work each day,” she said. “It’s
important for adults and families to be involved so it
becomes more holistic, where the body of the Church is
involved.”
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