When the Holy Spirit is in Charge

The month of November has been quite busy so far. We have had two retreats this month: third form girls and boys. Both retreats were centered on the theme "Abba, Father" as we looked at our earthly fathers, our relationships with them, the goodness and the imperfections of earthly fathers, and God the Father as the greatest example and the perfection of "Father". It was a very powerful retreat.

The morning started out with an icebreaker and staff introductions. We had students do impressions of staff members and the rest of us had to guess which teacher it was (this part is always entertaining). Next, we had a panel where staff told anecdotes about times they have experienced God the Father. The stories were really amazing and each one was unique with its own twist. At one point there was a pause after the teachers told their stories and I felt moved (Holy Spirit!) to ask if any students wanted to come up and share. After a few minutes, one of the students stood up and came over. She told a story about struggling with loneliness in her faith---she would often go to the chapel alone and wanted her brothers to be with her. Tears starting coming down her cheeks and as soon as that happened I started to other girls crying and I started to tear up as well. She explained that one day she was comforted by God the Father in that chapel and she did not feel as alone. Great side-note: her brothers are now part of a young men's group on campus here that seeks to grow closer to God ("Knights of the Immaculate").

Miss Lucia gave a short talk on what it means to be a daughter of God. She shared with us a struggle she had in high school and how she ran to her father and cried all over his shirt. She was so upset that all of this gook was coming out of her nose and she was ruining her dad's shirt but he said "I don't care, Lucia," and he kept on hugging her. She experienced God the Father's love through her own father. Her story was making me cry too! It was an emotional day.

We later performed a skit suggested to me by one of the SOLT candidates, Nick, who helps out on retreats. He is a huge help to me because he has had a lot of experience putting on retreats for teenagers. He always has great ideas. The skit was called the "Baggage Skit". In it we showed a girl (Miss P.) go through different points of her life as a teenager and how she picked up baggage along the way (after each situation, we had her pick up a backpack and put it on). The first scenario showed her in school with girl friends that excluded her, the second was pressure from her mom to do better in school and help around the house, the third was betrayal by a friend over a boy, the fourth was a struggle with a teacher, and the fifth was her Dad missing her Quinceñera (a huge celebration for a young girl in Belize).

After all of this, Dave and I read an "Apology" that addressed most of the situations covered in the skit. We apologized in place of brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, gossiping friends, disrespectful boyfriends, teachers (ourselves), and others who have hurt these young women. That was probably one of the most moving parts of the day for me.

As an activity, we made a giant circle and I had each girl write their name on a piece of paper. Every girl wrote something good about themselves and then passed their paper to the right and the next person would write something good about the person whose paper they had. This went on until all the papers were filled with good qualities. I always like affirmation activities because I think we can all get too critical of ourselves and each other and it is vital to build each other up.

After lunch we passed out letters from God that teachers had handwritten during the week (it was a letter that has been written by taking various points from Scripture and from our knowledge of the God the father and put it in poem/letter form). The girls were very moved by these letters. They had time to pray after receiving them. I went outside to tell a girl that we were going to have Adoration soon and she was crying. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, "This letter...it has touched me." She continued on and said, "When I have prayed to God the Father, He always calls me 'princess'. I did not expect it to say that in this letter." (The letters we had re-written often address the girl reading it as "princess").

What a day! I was touched more than I expected to be and I was so grateful to see that the students got a lot out of it. The Holy Spirit was ever flowing---everything was working out on time and going above and beyond what we had expected!