The beginnings of a busy weekend

Dear Jesus,
Help me to spread your fragrance
everywhere that I go

The last 2 days I have been at the Anaheim Convention Center. Yesterday (Thursday) it was for Youth Day!!! 14,000 Catholic youth all gathered in one place to praise and worship God. Cardinal Roger Mahoney .joined us and celebrated Mass with an overflowing Arena!!! We're talking standing room only. Rumor has it that Hall B was filled as well. The music was great, the readings beautiful (Ask, Seek, Knock), the testimonies given by 2 Catholic High School youth were touching, inspitring. The workshops we went to were insightful. Yet amidst all of this, the time I spent goofing off with my kids (dancing with A,F and D), watching them clap, dance and get into some serious praise and Worship music (JE-SUS!!!!!!! "Our God is great great God...he's a greeeeaaaat Goooood"). Laughing hysterically over the fact that just a couple days ago JP2 blessed a group of break dancers in Rome, are the things I treasure the most!!! At lunch we sat around this small round table, all 9 of us and just shared stories about life, school (Spanish classes at WHS are no good I've learned, or at least the teachers SUCK), and we all learned how much G LOVED dill pickles. Good times? No, GREAT TIMES!!!! I love my kids!!! I am proud of them and I see so much potential in them to lead lives of Faith, filled with so much grace!!!! This isn't to say that they don't already. They have admitted that they need to work on a good many things. Thus, my calling to better myself as their leader, begins.

Today I attended the first day of Religious Education Congress. The morning started out with a Keynote address, which unfortunatley, I missed a good portion of because there was traffic, I had to stop by work and yea, I know excuses, excuses. My first workshop was on Jr. high ministry.(Circling the Wagons: Junior-High Ministry Ideas ) The woman who gave the workshop gave us alot of insight on how to effectivley run a good Jr. High ministry program. Her key thing was to get us to recognize that while Pastors, and other lay people run from adolecents, God has called us to intertwine them with the "old fogies". She played some really fun games with us (yes I took notes, and so if you want them, let me know), and gave me a good many ideas to try and incorporate into my developing Jr. High Ministry program (we do not yet have a youth group for them, only Religious Education at my job).

For mys econd workshop, I attended one on Dynamics of Youth ministry. Alot of it was stuff I already knew and one of my leadership members was there. C got ALOT out of this one and he said to me on the escalator down to the main lobby "Sometimes I get really frustrated when certain things don't happen in our group, but then I have to step back and remember that Hey, we're still barely a yr old yet!!! It will take time to get "there" " The presenter said something that really hit home "If a Youth Ministry program ends/leaves when the last YM leaves and you are having to reinvent the wheel, then there needs to be a re-evaluation of what was really happening. Was it the YM's program or was it the Parish's program" Though I have tried to maintain what was going on, most of the program was gone with you know who. Interesting.

The last workshop was "Get to know the Bible: Getting teens to embrace the scriptures" The guy who presented was Mark Hart from Lifeteen He was GREAT!!!! I really enjoyed this workshop the most, of all the workshops I attended and am looking forward to implementing alot of his ideas with my Youth. Starting with asking J, to give her testimony at our Mar 5th Youth Group Gathering. I am going to pray about asking her. I dont want to approach her and say "Hey I need you to tell the story you told the other day at Adult Confirmation and have her suddenly feel uncomfortable because she knows a good portion of her peers will be there. She may surprise me and say "Oh of course I will"!!!! That's why I'm praying folks!!!!!

I'm pumped, I'm fired up and I'm ready to take things head on. I say that now but come Tuesday I'll probably be back to stress and what not.....but this is my challenge for the rest of Lent...to get on things. C and I are going to meet and collaborate and talk about the various things we heard at our workshops. Perhaps start the beginnings of a vision and get the team to finish it up!!! I told C he has so many wonderful gifts and I am so fired up about him being on the team because I intend on honeing (sp?) in on his gifts!!! He looked excited and seemed eager and willing to help!!! Yessssssssssssssss

Thank you God.......YOU ROCK MY FACE OFF!!!!!