Sunday, March 13, 2016

Don Bosco and the Pro-Life Rally

I'm far behind in my blog posts in order to catch people up.

The last weekend in January we celebrated St Don Bosco's feast day! His feast day is Jan 31st which fell on a Sunday this year. We had our annual Don Bosco festival which is a 3 day event (Fri, Sat, Sun) in order to celebrate it. I was put in charge of organizing a group rosary outside in the outdoor altar that was finished being built the day before the event. It went beautifully and I had 5 CCD children lead the Rosary for the crowd of about 50 people. At the beginning of each mystery the children and parents brought up roses and placed them at the feet of a statue of Mary that I put on the side of the altar. Then we had Mass in the gymnasium with close to 800 people in attendance. It was wild. Afterwards, and also the day before we had carnival games set up for the children to play at and my job was to run the jumpy houses. It was fun.

At the same time though I helped a Salesian Brother run the discernment weekend for 2 young men who wanted to learn more about the Salesian life. I was a bit disappointed that it would mean missing part of the festival but in the end I realized God used me for something greater. That because I said "yes" to God by co-leading the discernment weekend I was able to allow God to use me to help form these two young men into the men God wants them to be. It really hit me in prayer that perhaps I said something or a lot of things to these two young men that will stick with them their entire lives or will have helped them make some next step in their life. And then God will use them wherever they end up to change other people's lives. Now I mean this is no arrogant way, I may have said nothing edifying for them at all, but rather, it was humbling to know that God was using me for something greater than jumping on a jumpy house for a few hours.

Moving right along the beginning of February approached. We had to get ready for the next big event on Feb 19 and 20. It was the annual Tampa Bay Pro-Life Youth Rally. This time I was in charge of planning the liturgy (the Mass) that would take place in the gym. It was a daunting task seeing how I don't even know the names of all the objects the priest uses during the Mass. But over the course of those twenty days or so, with the help of others, I figured it all out. I was working on it right up until the event started Feb 19th. It was stressful, but in the end I'm grateful. I'm grateful because I learned so much about the Mass. I'm grateful because I now appreciate a lot more people who do this because I realize how much work it is to plan something like that. I'm grateful because I was able to accomplish a big project like that and see the results. I'm grateful because it went (smoothly for the most part.) It was definitely worth it!
To my surprise I was also asked to do a talk with my new mission partner, Taylor. Somebody just decided that her and I should do one because the couldn't find another good speaker. Surprise! So Taylor and I gave a talk on Pro-Life Saints and how our listeners are called to be and can be pro-life saints too. We gave the talk twice (1 talk one day and 1 talk the next day). I think that's the first time I gave a talk in front of about 100 people. I think it went really well.

Days before the Rally my parents came to visit! I was looking forward to it! It was a good time! They got to see all the people I work and live with and they got to see the property and work I do. Then we went to the state fair, saw manatees, walked the beach and went out to eat. It was very nice to have them come and stay with me.

So from January to February its been crazy busy down here for quite awhile doing all sorts of great things. Continue to pray for me and those I encounter and see everyday while I am down here!

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations on your different experiences and your generosity in undertaking them, Dan. Glad things are going so well--and you have Taylor as a site partner now. God bless you both.

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