As we begin this new blog it seems like our youth pilgrimage to Journey to the Father is good place to start. Journey to the Father is an annual youth pilgrimage held in St Raphael's, Ontario ..just outside of Cornwall. This is our second year going as a group and we'd like to tell you about our adventure.
We left at 10:00 a.m. Two vans filled with 16 people...13 youth along with our chaperons, Father Freitas and "uncle Bruce and auntie T ". From the start it was an adventure on each of the vans; laughing, singing and sleeping filled the next six hours on the road - not to mention a few unusual smells filled the vans for the next six hours. Father Freitas led the vans and he even let us stop along the way for a nutritious meal at Mc D's. We arrived at JTTF at around 5:00 pm.
Our welcome was great...after registering..we were off to the tents which would form our home for the weekend. Then we had supper, met lots of new people and were off to the Main Tent for Music by the Mustard Seeds. It was amazing to see so many young people - close to 500 there..some from as far away as Texas. It was a little different than what we were use to as seeing people jumping around as they praised God was not the norm for us here in H-town, but we got use to it and joined in as we felt comfortable. We then heard from the M.C.'s for the weekend Jonathan and Katie. They told us to invest our time fully into the weekend ..... to be Rooted in Christ and Moved by the Spirit. We had a skit presented on being rooted in Christ. That was the message too of our main speaker Father James Mallon from Halifax. Then some excitement....a lighting storm came and we headed into two different spots - boys to the Church and girls to the school gym for cover and shelter. We ended up having a great talk on Mary the Mother of Jesus by different speakers and prayed the Rosary together as groups, led by some of the youth present. Then free time..as the weather got better...we had time to check out the sites, eat some poutine and the girls got to get their stuff dried off after they became victim to some of the rain from the storm. We then called it a night and started to get ready for bed at Midnight. It was a good first day...and adventure for sure ....we are looking forward to tomorrow.