Friday morning after Kinder Homework, Angela and I left for Itocta (the hogar south of the city) to start our retreat with the 10 other SLM´s working in Bolivia. We stayed at a Salesian retreat center near the hogar there. It was really nice. We began with an afternoon Mass at the church across the street and a yummy lunch ....talked about presence of God in our daily lives, Conflict, relationships both here and at home (both that give us strength and love to those that are conflicting), falling in love with prayer, and mine and Ang´s Bible study on youth and humility went really well. Check out Matthew 18 on who´s the greatest, Jeremiah 1;4-10 on how God chooses the young, and John 6:3-11 on how God thinks of the hungry people who are with Him FIRST and uses a common boy´s lunch to work a miracle.
How do these relate to us?? What does it mean to be ¨great¨in God´s eyes? How do we put limitations on ourselves and tell God that we are unworthy, or do not have what it takes by ¨human¨ or social standards?
This is when God proves us wrong and stretches us in ways we never imagined...
How can we show humility and be child-like ?
In our unfailing trust, unconditional love, service to others, purity, hope, etc
When do we fail to give thanks to God even in the small things?
It got me to think about a few things I hadn´t before and in each talk and conversation there was so much insight and so much love! Saturday night, Amber led a few of us in ¨prayer through movement.¨ It´s basically using dance moves, well postures really too, not having to be perfect but to pray. First we thought of a pose for us and then a movement for what we wanted to pray for for our mission, then we had a song to just pray to God using our poses and those of others to pray for them too. It was hard not to think so much before moving, but then I got really into it and plan to use it sometimes when I have free time to pray for others. You can think of movements for others and for what you think they may need right now. so cool. Then we did group prayer where we each verbally shared a prayer and did a pose, then each person moved us in a way to show their prayer over us. Something different, but being into dance it was really great for me.
We ended our retreat with Mass in the city, salteñas, a nice walk to the teleferico (cable car), and took it on up to Cristo. Some went up inside, I just sat by the view and played my clarinet a bit. Then we did Emmaus chats around the hill in 2´s, really good and hung out until it was time to go back down. It was such a beautiful day, talking about our challenges and gaining spiritual encouragement...we even found two butterfly wings where we were sitting, sign from God that even through this short weekend, my wings are growing and growing, sometimes the powder rubs off a bit and I have trouble getting off the ground, but in those moments I turn to God for support and love to allow me to fly once again. I am blessed with a great Bolivian community, even though all but 3 live at least 8 hours away and we are doing different work, it all has the common Salesian bond and youth. We are not great because we are here doing what we are doing, we are here because God is working in us. Those we serve, the youth, these are the great ones in the eyes of God.
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