// thoughts

For sometime now I have seen the NyC youth go from strong to almost nonexistant. I seriously had doubts about this retreat coming up next weekend...wasn't sure if it was going to go through or not. And I really didn't care that much since I had my own problems to deal with.

The novenas we've been having have just been awesome! 12+ people are always there. It's a great thing seeing the youth like this, striving, growing and just being together again.

We had vigil on Friday, it was the mandatory vigil for servers. We sent out texts and called people to come to the vigil. The youth also found out a bit late that it was youth sponsored! But we got our things together and were able bring food/drinks and all that good stuff for the vigil.

But WoW! I would have never expected vigil to be that awesome! What I expected was just a regular vigil, opening, briefing and maybe a little chit chat here and there. Boy was I in for a surprise.

The night started out running a bit late since it was raining and I was picking people up. We got to vigil at about 9:30 instead of 9 as scheduled. But there wasn't any mass b/c Father Peter wasn't feeling well. So we opened the vigil and well there was an awesome turnout from the youth! We had 23 youth there! It was freakin off the hook! The numbers weren't the only thing that was great about vigil - everyone was actually into the preparation for the retreat! We were getting our opening song ready, people were singing, people were looking up the lyrics online and it was just great to see the youth participating! That's something that I have never seen before. G, Jen and Jessica weren't able to make it b/c of some last minute problems that came up. After we practiced for the song and did our novena, Kristelle and Mark wanted to do some sort of sharing, they have been for the past few weeks but we were just not able to b/c there was other things going on at the time. We all went to the other room and practiced our songs for another hour or two and did a few kewl things to them siya hamba!

It was so much fun practicing the songs and singing it together, people were actually into the whole thing. Then I told Mark to set off the sharing and get things started. So he asks everyone how they felt about the retreat, why they are serving and all that. We were waiting for someone to just start talking, but no one did, sooooo they volunteered me. It was just great talking to the youth and bringing up some issues that we know people were having. The youth really opened up to each other there! Even if not everyone spoke, we still know that they were listening, new servers, non actives were attentive. People talked about their problems, people gave them solutions, we were really interacting with each other! I remember when I shared about the experience at my retreat, the two new grads and first time servers, this is the first time we've seen them ever since the retreat, they were sooo attentive and their eyes lit up and I talked about Mahal Na Ingkong! I was on the verge of tears for the most part of that vigil.

It was just an amazing and inspiring thing that happened at this vigil. I see it as a revival of the NyC Youth. This time I will not be letting go of that rope that we're all hanging onto now...

+ mon

I remember talking to Shing and telling her that whether we have this retreat or not, I think that something great has been accomplished here. The youth of NyC was once sleeping, dead if you will - but the preps for this retreat have brought everyone back together, working, striving, prayer, loving together. Regardless of if this retreat goes through or not, I believe that something awesome has happened here.

The NyC Youth have been revived, the life of the Lord has been put back into our hearts. The love that we so longed for is everywhere! The grace that we didn't have, is not just overflowing from our souls!

Bottomline, this retreat is...was an awakening for the NyC Youth. You can call us the sleeping giant, and we have now been awakened! The purpose has been served, and should this push through, the blessings will be ten fold for all those involved.

Ahhh I can't wait for this weekend coming up

+ mon

I think we really started preparing for this retreat when we started Novena last Tuesday. Ever since then, it's been preparation, preparation, and more prep for the retreat. It's really great doing the preparations and just getting everything together, getting the youth together.

After that vigil, I thought nothing would be able to top that off - but I was wrong. Satruday after the vigil, we planned for a seven church visitation in the city and confession too. Not many people said they would be going when we asked them at vigil. So come Saturday afternoon, I left for the city and went to Hunter College, where we were all meeting up - this was something that just popped into my head when someone asked where to meet up. Everyone was running on Filipino time. I was there for a while by myself and waited for Mark, JC, Em, Arvin, Ricard, and Shing.

I sat in my old spots of the comfy Hunter couches...there was this filipina chick sitting two away from me and I wanted to ask her to the retreat but was still my scared, timid self. So Mark and JC come, and I see Mark staring at this girl as he's walking towards me. I thought he was just checking out the girl, but apparently it's Kristelle's friend. Mark says hi, and JC sees another friend and says what's up to him. It was such a "coincidence" that all these people they knew were here at Hunter and we just happened to meet here - devine intervention, I think

So Kristelle's friend tells us that there's a flip club meeting downstairs. This was the perfect opportunity to get more candidates! We went down there but they told us to come back after the meeting was done. It was getting late, and we waited for the other guys to show up, Shing finally got there at 6:30pm (hour and a half late!). So we start doing our church visitation and it's freeeezing! All the churches we went to were closed, so we just prayed outside. Another "coincidence" was that there were only seven of us, and we had seven churches to visit - coincidence? I think not.

We did our prayers outside, where people would pass by us - I thought everyone would be "shy" or quiet in their prayers so they don't get embarassed. But it was totally the opposite! We were loud, some of us kneeled on the sidewalks! Everyone volunteered to lead when we got to a church, we never had to ask anyone!

The night was just awesome, how we bonded and how we all stepped up and weren't scared of anything that night!

Tonight, the seven church visitation in NJ...I was getting lazy and didn't want to go, but I went anyways and most of us from yesterday went with the exception of a few. We met up in NJ and this was also a great experience to be with everyone from NJ and see people we haven't seen in a while - Don, Marvin, Michael and Jessica. It was just amazing how things fall into place when you let God take the wheel and let Him drive.

We ended up going to Jessica's house to do the Rosary, since she couldn't join us for the church visitation b/c she had to study. We all went to the final church together and she led the prayer which was really nice.

The preparations for the retreat are just amazing this time around, I have never seen the youth in NyC this strong and so much full of fire ever! If this retreat isn't going to happen, we're not going down without a fight - we'll pray our little hearts out.

+ mon