Iowa Trip: November 14-16

Last weekend, Father Nathan spoke at a retreat in Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University. Consequently, Ames is only 15 minutes from where I grew up. When Father agreed to speak at this retreat, he handed the weekend over to me and asked me to arrange for him to speak to as many young people as possible while we were there. As the Ames retreat was a Saturday evening retreat with a Sunday afternoon talk attached to it, it gave me a few possibilities.

It became quite the adventure. With an outdoor Mass on Sunday morning with young adults from Des Moines, we began the day running. We had a great turn out and shared a lot of smiles as we moved logs and fallen trees together to create our Mass space. We came out of the cold wind refreshed and excited to move into the next stage of our journey, which was a talk given by Father in Ames followed by Adoration.

After Adoration, we headed to my house to play with my nephews and share a meal with my siblings. In my excitement to play with Roman and Judah, I don’t quite know what all we talked about, although I do know that we ate spaghetti. Roman has gotten so big since I left and he’s speaking so much more (if that’s possible.) Judah cut two teeth and is still a bouncing happy baby, who the girls were happy to hold while he slept.

From the family homestead we headed back to Ames where Father spoke to a youth group about Our Lady. I spent most of the time running back and forth down a hallway with Roman, giggling all the way. In between playing “chase” I gave a short talk about the Summer Conference as well as showed two movies to the teens.

Monday we went to the Field of Dreams in the morning and then said Mass for the Catholic Home School group in Iowa City. We had lunch with them afterwards and showed the promotional videos to them as well. And then we played a raucously wild game of pull up with the younger kids.

As you can see, we had quite a whirlwind weekend. The plan had been for the girls to stay with my brother and sister-in-law over the weekend. However, the week prior almost everyone had gotten sick, and three girls decided to stay back. I’d been sick the weekend before but felt better on Wednesday. Friday morning, however, I felt a little off and later developed a fever. You can imagine my distress, I’d been so excited to bring everyone to Iowa, and it looked like I’d have to stay back.

Luckily, my fever broke in the middle of the night and I felt a lot better Saturday, but under the guidance of my parents, I decided it might be better if we find a different place to stay over the weekend. I only had 2 hours to find a new place to stay so I called several people, my main contact being my Confirmation Sponsor (she knows EVERYONE). An hour after I called Rosemary, she got back to me with news that a lady named Regina had graciously agreed to take us in.

I called Regina and discovered a very open and giving soul. She told me how she hadn’t had anything planned for the day or evening, and so in the morning she’d asked the Holy Spirit what he wanted for her day. It was shortly after this prayer that my Confirmation Sponsor approached her to ask if she could take in 5 stranded eaglets.

Getting to know Regina was such a joy, as she shared her exuberance for life as well as told us stories. She was so gracious and welcoming to us, that we felt right at home with her for the two days we stayed with her. It was a true lesson in being open to the Holy Spirit and to humbly accept His plan.

For a detail-oriented planner, I’d had all my ducks in a row by Thursday, including a backup rainy-day location for our outdoor Mass along with directions to each. To change plans so suddenly on Saturday was an opportunity to grow as well as to love the ladies I’m living in community with. If we hadn’t stayed elsewhere some of them might not have been able to come, and it would have been a sad weekend without them.

It was hard for me to put aside my carefully laid plans and accept that the Father had different plans for the weekend. I admit, I had my moments where I did not acquiesce to the Father’s will as gracefully as I should have, but looking back on the weekend, I learned a lot. I’ve begun a beautiful friendship with Regina, whom I mightn’t have gotten to know otherwise and I discovered a little more what it means to live in community.

For someone discerning a vocation to religious life, it feels like a huge revelation. To put my community before my family, though hard, brought forth its own fruits. To submit my will in obedience to God’s, though not exactly what I had in mind, took me a few steps farther in trusting His plan.

It truly was a productive weekend, internally as well as externally.