Letter From Denver
By Kristi Gonsalves-McCabe ’93, ’98
DEAR LMU
I never would have guessed that I’d be living in the Mile High City — so far away from my Bay Area home. Peg Dolan, R.S.H.M., always said that our God is a God of surprises! After all, only God could envision something as crazy as throwing me, the youngest of three girls (and a graduate of an all-girls high school), into the practically all-male Student Worker program. There’s nothing like picking up trash on Saturday mornings for four years with 20 guys to teach a young woman humility! Both surprise and humility brought me to Denver, and help me reflect on my journey getting here.
In 1991, James Erps, S.J., gathered a group of students and created LMU’s Christian Life Community program. CLC would transform not only campus life at LMU but each of us in that group. Twenty years later, LMU’s CLC is widely recognized as a national model.
The emphasis on community, prayer and discernment in my CLC invited me toward important next steps in my life, starting with two years with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. After JVC, I returned to LMU to work in campus ministry and complete my master of arts degree in pastoral studies. Call me “ruined for life” (to quote the infamous motto of the JVC), but I’ve only worked at Jesuit institutions since my graduation from LMU.
Today I work in university ministry at Regis University. I mentor students who serve as peer ministers, teach the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults and oversee our CLC program.
My husband, Jeff, and I married in 2001 and moved to Denver in 2004. We have three kids — our daughters Micah, 8, and Molly, 3, and our son, Joshua, 6 — who surprise us every day. And it has been a great pleasure connecting with other Mile High Lions for our regional gatherings, such as this summer’s celebration to send off LMU’s incoming class of Denver freshmen.
The surprises keep coming, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.