Flew in to Appleton, WI from San Antonio last night around 8:15 PM, and my mom and I drove home to Escanaba, arriving around 12:30. So nice to use a shower tall enough for me and to sleep in my own bed. (The showers at the convent were all made for people 4 feet tall. No joke.)
Since I had been traveling for 9 hours by plane either in flight or in the airport, I had a lot of time to read and reflect on my formation camp experience. I pulled out the book "The Strangest Way" by Robert Barren (thanks for the book Mike C) and part of the book speaks about meditation and repetitive prayer and how this is used to quiet our souls and bring us back to our center, Jesus. As I read over this part I knew I had found my center again. Amidst all the scurrying to get all my papers together for El Salvador I forgot to pray. My time at the formation camp proved to be a needed retreat to bring me back to my center, to remind me why I had searched out missionary work in the first place - because I felt God calling me.
One of the most beneficial results of the retreat (other than the above stated center finding) are the relationships I formed with the other volunteers. We formed a tight knit community supporting and entertaining each other during the camp and hopefully will continue to in our separate ministries as well. But even if we do lose touch, the confidence I found just in being around them for 2 weeks was priceless.
I had another beneficial result I wanted to write about but now I can't remember what it is. Hmm... I'm sure it will come to me. Eventually.
Two volunteers who had recently been to El Salvador (Sydney and Roberta) visited our camp for one day and I drilled them with questions up to the point where I ran out of questions. Turns out you can only ask so many before you just say, "Well, I can't pack for every detail, I'll just figure out the rest when I get there." Sydney is actually returning to El Salvador on January 26th and will be at a school down the road from me, so we'll get together down there. yea!
3 more days. Oh, I remember the other beneficial thing now! Living with the sisters! They went out of their way to be welcoming and open to myself and the other volunteers. They assured me the sisters in El Salvador would do the same and that if I have any problems to simply speak up and they would work to come to a resolution. Yes, that is it. Very reassuring.
Should have pictures from the camp soon posted here.
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