My name is Kimberly Flores, I am 23 years old, an alumnus of La Asunción in El Salvador, I studied International Relations and Business and I am just finishing my university studies. I am currently part of the Asunción Joven group. I participate as a youth advisor in the JAEM movement (Juventud Asuncionista En Misión) and in the Easter and Christmas missions.
How and since when?
My life in Assumption began in 2004, when I began to study first grade in school. I came from a very small kindergarten and without a Christian education based on values, as Assumption has always been characterized. At that time there were many traditions that I didn't know about and everything made me uneasy, because I wanted to know and to know everything. With the passing of the years, I began to get to know religious and to deepen my charism. In my last year, I had a closer experience; on one occasion they told us that every year a group of senior students accompanied the missions during Holy Week and they needed young people who were willing to serve to go to the communities they planned to visit. In this mission I had the opportunity to experience a close encounter with Jesus; I was able to feel a very strong reality that I only knew in name and that penetrated me deeply; I knew a different face of God; I was able to recognize him in the humblest of people, in those who, having little, gave us everything with joy and without attachment; it was there that I began to feel a deep love for the project of Marie-Eugénie.After that experience I began to get closer to the community that accompanied us and to become fully involved in the activities of the school; I was delighted to see how lay people and religious lived the charism and worked together, giving their gifts and putting them at the service of others. That is how I began to stay and to feel a deep love for the Assumption.
What have I learned in Assumption?
There are two phrases of Marie-Eugénie that were repeated to me many times in school and that at the time I did not know how to understand; "It is madness not to be what one is as fully as possible" and "The world is not big enough for my love. In Assumption I have learned to be in fullness in any area of my life, to love deeply and to give myself completely. The Assumption taught me to forge my character, to have a critical sense of the reality in which we live, I learned to always seek justice and peace in my environment, I learned that education and love for Jesus Christ are the only things that transform our society, that the construction of the Kingdom begins with ourselves, here on earth. I learned to feel proud of what I am and what I represent, I learned to love, care for and deeply respect my roots and those of others, I learned that caring for the common house is of vital importance for the integral and sustainable development of our and future generations. In Assumption everything is a constant learning process and I continue to learn how to strengthen my faith, to seek and always put in place the necessary means for a better encounter with Jesus and my neighbor.
What has helped me the most?
The accompaniment of the sisters in my life, the openness and the trust that they have given me by allowing me to share with them in community has helped me to strengthen more and more the way in which I live the charism of the Assumption. As young people, we have also been given spaces such as provincial meetings which have been a means of strengthening our charism. All of this has helped me to be aware that I cannot transform the world starting from the greatest and here is where I remember another phrase of Marie-Eugénie "to be strong and to have a strong and positive attitude in our small sphere", I think that what I do from my space in favor of others, transforms my environment and those who welcome it and share it with others; they also transform little by little the society in which we live.
What is it for me, being a young assumption?
For me, being a young Assumption is swimming against the current, it is what defines my way of life and it is what guides my journey. Today being young and Christian is not very common, and being a young Assumptionist is even less so, since we live in an environment that is becoming less and less tolerant of the practice of Jesus' teachings. We also live in a society where many young people find themselves in situations where they are forced to follow a mold in order to be socially accepted and very difficult to find "their place in the world.To be a young Assumption has been a profound joy for me, I have always felt that this is where I belong and that it is very difficult for me to leave it; to be a young Assumption is to be surrounded by more young people who share the charism, who dream and seek the way to transmit the message, it is to grow together and to be better persons each day, it is to live the charism of the Assumption and to be characterized by having a different stamp than other young people, it is to feel a profound love for Mary and for the Church.
How do I plan for the future?
Finding my vocation is and has been a constant search; however, I am very clear that whatever vocation God calls me to, I want to live it fully and with great joy, to continue to transmit the charism of the Assumption wherever I go, to continue to make Jesus Christ known as the liberator of the world; to live love, rectitude and humility with deep gratitude for life.
KIMBERLY FLORES
Ex-student.
Member of the group “Asunción Joven” from El Salvador