Angie Windnagle describes her experience as a college missionary in the June 28 bulletin of the Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Parish in Scottsdale.

“I would find myself in the presence of the materially poor and desire to do whatever I could to alleviate their suffering, but often families would insist on serving and feeding our group,” Windnagle, now a mother of three boys, wrote of her experience in the mid-2000s. “How could I accept food from someone living with dirt floors and a palm-thatched roof knowing I didn’t truly need it?”

But eating with the poor “transformed her heart,” she wrote.

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“I understood their gift wasn’t meant for me specifically,” Windnagle recounted. “It was their way of saying, 'Lord, I love you more than food itself.’”

The missionaries believed they were bringing the gospel to the poor.

“In truth, we were living the gospel with them, receiving as much as we were giving,” Windnagle recalled. “They understood the gospel in a deeper way than I had ever experienced in my life.”

She discussed the Bible story of a woman who believes she is the one blessing Elisha.

“In the end, the prophet blesses her and she receives far more than she sought to give,” wrote Windnagle. “God will never be outdone in generosity, but His invitation requires a response and willingness to serve Him instead of our own ideas. Do we trust God like the poor and the woman serving Elisha? Do we trust He knows our needs before we speak them? Do we trust that He can be loved more than our earthly loves and only gain from that?”

The lesson reinforced by Windnagle's missionary experience was to keep God first in her life.

“If we love God above all else in our lives, He will give us the unexpected blessing of being able to love others even more, since there is no real love apart from God,” she concluded.