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Thursday, April 13, 2017

5 Great Tips to Foster Vocations in Your Girls} the Molly McBride Book Series & a Rosary Giveaway


Giving your life in service to God as a religious is something that was a lot more common in days gone by for young women. Maybe that is because children used to be exposed to religious in daily life more than they are now. Kids want to grow up to be people they know & admire. Every parish has a priest that little boys can look up to but not every parish has nuns or sisters! How can you foster vocations in your girls if you don't know any religious or have them near you? In a bit I am going to share with you some tips I think are helpful for this! At the bottom of this post you can read about the awesome kids rosary I am giving away.

http://www.somkakamega.org/
Sisters of Mary of Kakamega
I have always wanted my girls to be open to the idea of a religious vocation should God call them to that. We are blessed that there are the Sisters of Mary of Kakamega in the town where my in-laws live and we get to see them when we visit. They wear a grey habit with a white veil but on Sunday they wear all white! The other day when we were out shopping we saw a couple of them at Walmart of all places...people must have thought I was nuts as I started waving at and shouted out "sisters". I didn't want to miss out saying hello to them.


 5 Great Tips to Foster Vocations in Your Girls

1. Pray as a family and encourage your daughter to spend time in prayer alone...prayer journaling or spiritual reading. This is the most important tip because without a prayer life, God has to speak to you in more complicated less direct ways. When one's heart is in communion with God through prayer it's easy for Him to speak to you. The nudging of the Holy Spirit to pursue a certain vocation (be it married, religious, or the single life) will be more clear.

2. Read to your girls about the lives of religious saints.

3. Visit religious communities. If you don't have nuns or sisters at your parish you can plan a road trip to visit a religious community. You could even browse the internet and see if other parishes close by may have some religious teaching at a school our helping in the community. You can start your search here at the online Directory of Women's Religious Communities.


4. Check out the Molly McBride series of children's books and get them for your girls.

https://www.amazon.com/Molly-McBride-Purple-Habit-1/dp/1944008209/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491592754&sr=8-1&keywords=molly+mcbride+and+the+purple+habit
Molly McBride and the Purple Habit 
In the first Molly McBride book, Molly stubbornly refused to part with the purple nun’s habit her mother made for her—not even for her sister’s First Communion. “The idea for the book was inspired by a portrait I painted of one of my daughters dressed up in her purple habit!” says author-illustrator Jean Schoonover-Egolf. “Molly is a mix of both our daughters, and their relationship with the real Children of Mary sisters here in Central Ohio is similar to Molly McBride’s."
https://www.amazon.com/Molly-McBride-Plaid-Jumper-2/dp/1944008330/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492124297&sr=1-3
Molly McBride and the Plaid Jumper

In the second book, Molly faces all the typical anxieties of starting school: making new friends; being away from her beloved wolf-pet, Francis, for the first time; and wearing that plaid jumper. But she overcomes those hurdles with the help of a new friend (a precious five-year old boy named Dominic who doesn’t want to give up his priest clothes!) and Father Matt, the pastor at her new school.

The moral of the story? Uniforms are important markers of our identity, but they’re not as important as our relationship with Jesus. (Watch for Jesus introducing his stuffed-animal lamb to Molly’s stuffed-animal wolf-pet in the new book!)


In addition to any lessons kids might take away from the book, Jean Schoonover-Egolf hopes the series promotes greater awareness of vocations.

5. Watch some you tube videos about the work & prayer life of religious. There are some great ones out there and I will list a couple for you that we love:
Passionsist nuns of Erlanger, Kentucky show how the bread that is used in Communion is made
Benedictine Nuns of Virginia Dale, Colorado run a 300 acre ranch


Purple Kids Rosary Giveaway
The Giveaway for a large ruberized purple kids rosary from SaongJai is open to anyone and you can enter it through the raffle copter widget below. It will end Divine Mercy Sunday April 22, 2017

a Rafflecopter giveaway

18 comments:

  1. What a fantastic post and giveaway!!! Love it!!! You are both so talented!

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  2. I wish we had a community of religious sisters affiliated with our parish! We had some at our old parish but it was an order that wasn't really getting any new vocations, so there were just a few old sisters left... You're right that it's so much easier to use the parish priest as an example for boys!

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  3. I love this giveaway and the content of the post, as well. Amazing!!!

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  4. I'm really excited to look further into this series in the future, simply because I would love to foster a potential vocation! But, I'm going to wait until my one year old is slightly older!

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  5. Oh! Thank you for the review, too... It's invaluable for me.

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  6. Awesome post, Aleesa. I haven't talked much to my girls about vocations, and I need to!

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  7. what a beautiful idea to help foster vocations in our girls! My oldest girl is 5 and perhaps it's time to take her to visit the sisters. Thank you for inspiring me to do so!

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  8. The Pauline Sisters, Daughters of St Paul, are always welcoming young women to visit and also host days for girls of all ages in their bookstores upon request. There are also retreats and gatherings around the usa. Sr. Margaret Kerry fsp

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    1. That is wonderful! Thank you for sharing :)

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    2. Love reading this, Sr. Margaret! If you'd like to carry copies of the Molly McBride series in your bookstores, please contact me @ jeanie.egolf@gmail.com. They are a big hit, and a third book is already in the making! Blessings!
      Jeanie

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  9. Greeting. This is so lovely. I never heard of it until now. These will be great from my girls and I love the rosary. Just beautiful. Have a blessed Easter Season.

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  10. Interested in reading these with my 3 girls!

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  12. Talking about vocation to our children is so important. We need young holy happy priests and sisters who are open to God's calling! We mothers have a special duty to pray for vocations especially in our own families!! Keep up with the good work!

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  13. This book sounds so sweet. And I love your rosaries so much. Great giveaway!

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  14. We have a winner!!!! Brigitte G.

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    1. Thanks so much! My 5 year old will be excited. God bless!

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