Days 127-129: The Return (1/2-1/4)

After a two-week Christmas Break, it was time to return back to St. Paul for the second semester. We would begin with a week of January Training before hitting the road again for five months. It was a normal morning, 8:30am was when we had to leave for the airport to catch an 11:15 flight. My mom and brothers went with me to the airport, and hi said my final goodbyes to them as i headed into TSA. While waiting for my flight, i has a great conversation with Ginger, an older lady who was going to her grandson’s wedding in Wisconsin. She was very sweet, and was nice getting to share what i was doing in the Minneapolis area. The flight was just blogging the whole time, which i found therapeutic because it officially ended the first half chapter for me as i was about to enter the second. I was greeted by Jaime, my supervisor, and waited for the other last arrivals before heading to the NET center. We were there last “shuttle”, and we arrived at 6:45pm right on time for a praise and worship session. I ate dinner and was reunited with my team, which was much greater than i expected it to be. We had some designated team time to catch up and learn what happened over break (which we did for the most part). After that, it was pretty much time to crash. I said my hellos to other people i saw before heading to bed. Theres a feeling of anticipation, not for what was to come during training, but for the next five months. We are all so comfortable with ministry at this point, it’s just getting back in the road and doing it. But we won’t get ahead of ourselves… hopefully. . . It was the first time in about two weeks where i did my necessary 30 min of personal prayer. I was supposed to do it over break but didn’t, and it was really hard for me not making the time for it. Doing that and team prayer was extremely refreshing, and made me excited to get back into those habits. From there, the NET staff had us look over our training manuals from fall training to refresh ourselves of things we need to hear now that we have some road experience, and share it with our respective brotherhoods/sisterhoods. For me, understanding how important our work is at this current time in the church is what i got out of the manual. From there, we heard a talk about God’s Will: trusting in his plan and wanting his plan for us for us to find the most joy in one’s life. It impacted everybody, but for me, it’s something I’ve always had, but could never put into words, so it was definitely something i enjoyed listening to. Then they gave us a chance to reunite with our small groups from Camp Wapo, where we had our first two weeks of training. Me, Jakob (my teammate), Alex and Tomás (Team 8), Adam (Team 10), and Sam (Team 14), Built such a strong bond, and reuniting with our leader, and my supervisor, Jaime, was the best thing ever. Always and forever grateful for them. After mass and dinner, we setup for the Lifeline event tomorrow. Lifeline is a monthly convention put on at the NET center for youth in the area. At least 400-500 people attend these lifelines, and they are legit: a praise and worship band, guest speakers, chairs all over the gym. Setup usually takes Team 1 about three hours, but with nine more teams joining them, it took about one hour, and had the rest of the evening to chill out. During that time, I had a conversation with two of my best buddies, Liz (Team 8) and Mark (Team 10), both fresh out of high school like me. It led to us praying a rosary and doing night prayer together, which was so nice, not just praying but to do it with fellow 18 y/olds. Not sure how many times anyone sees that or has the chance to do that, but it put things in perspective for me and made me grateful for it. I’m definitely trying to make the most of this week with these people, and doing thing like that definitely fills me with joy and makes me feel like I’m taking advantage of the community i have. . . Today is gonna be lit, not just because of the lifeline, but just everything is super leading up to it. We started with a team activity, which required communication, trust, and following orders. It turned out really well! Very proud of how far we’ve come. After that, team prayer with Team 15, personal prayer, lunch, and Men’s Session at Culver’s, a midwestern fast food classic with the best cheese curds. Now it’s showtime. Our team, specifically our brotherhood, got a special task: security! Since Adam grew up near the NET center, he’s worked as security in the past for lifelines, so his experience allowed us to experience the security guard life. We first welcomed the attendees, ordered the buses to the respective parking spots, and directed parking once the NET lot was full. Extremely cold, but we looked dope! We had bright traffic vests, walkie-talkie systems with legit earpieces. We were a squad with orange lightsabers directing that traffic, and we killed it. Once the event began, we came inside and switched into security vests that said “security” on it like we were mall cops. It almost felt like a joke, a costume party in fact, but we wore them. All the Netters loved it, especially our sisterhood. Nothing happened (praise God), but even if something did happen, there was a cop there, so we wouldn’t even be primary help. But again, so much fun just wearing them. Once the event was wrapping up, we put our traffic vests back on and directed traffic out of the Center. Getting to serve the event was definitely alot more satisfying than just hanging around. Once mostly everyone left, we turned in our gear, walkie talkies and all, we celebrated with Little Caesars pizza. What a time to be alive.