First Retreat Group--Santa Clara

Well, Sept 4-14th I led my first retreat group- a group of college students from Santa Clara University in California.
(I wrote this a long time ago with the intention of adding ore but now I have so many other things to write about now that this one is going to be cut short....oops!)

What does this mean exactly? Well, this retreat group stayed at the AJS (where i live) retreat house. So, I took a week off of work at my normal jobs and instead spent the week with this group. We got up each morning and 3 of them walked with me to buy their group bread for the day. Each morning we would visit one of the places where the volunteers work. One of the places we visited was Padre Damien House-a home for people with Hanson´s Disease... and one of the places where I originally thought I may be working. It was really nice to be able to visit here and see my fellow volunteers, Lauren and Carolyn at work here. We were able to talk with the residents, sing with them, and we also were able to see the crafts that they make.... which are super awesome!!! They make these peace doves that are really neat, they make beautiful jewlery, belts, hammocks, bags, crosses and so much more!!! It was great to share these beautiful works of art with the students and it was especially awesome to see how much interest they took in the work that takes place at Padre Damien House. I would like to suggest that you take the time to visit the website http://www.thedamienhouse.org/ and learn more about this awesome place... I think just visiting the website will help to put into perspective why the group was so motivated and touched after visiting this place.

We spent other mornings taking the group to some of our neighbors houses, where they were kind enough to invite us in and spend around an hour conversing with them. This was also really super nice to do.