A few months ago, I was chaperoning my alma mater’s high school team for Night for the Fight, a 12-hour overnight event for teens that raises money and awareness for childhood cancer. We had just arrived and found seats as a group when my aunt, who was chaperoning, too, tapped me and told me that two girls above us were trying to get my attention. They asked me if I remembered them…I had just had them the week before on a retreat, and they had helped with music. They pointed out some other girls from their school who were also there, and I recognized a few of them from yet another retreat we did for their school. They were pumped to see me, and I was excited to see them!
A few weeks ago, I took some pictures on my iPad and then went to the Photos app to view all of them. I had recently transferred photos from my iPad onto my computer, and this was the first time I had taken photos on my iPad since doing that. So, I was only expecting to see these photos. But I was in for a surprise. The first two pictures in my photos library were ones I had not taken; they were selfies of my small group from the previous day’s Montserrat retreat; I had played some music on my iPad during one of the last activities we did, and they must have taken the selfies when I stepped out of the room to get another piece of paper. I grinned, and thought about what a fun group they had been.
A couple weekends ago, I was at Encounter, an evening of praise and worship music, adoration, and a keynote speaker for local teens. Standing in line with one of the girls from my youth group, a girl and her friend got in line behind us. I thought nothing of it until she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hi, I have a random question. Do you work at that Jesuit retreat place?” I said yes, and she said that she thought she recognized me from a few months ago when we did a retreat for her school. We chatted until we got inside and then went our separate ways; she went to find the rest of her friends in her youth group, and I went to find seats for mine.
Eric and Steve had told us this would happen, and shared stories of silly things their groups had done and times when they have been around town and kids they’d had on retreat approached them. I didn’t know it could happen this quickly, but I am enjoying it! It’s crazy to think that everywhere you go, there might be a kid you had on retreat, even if they don’t say anything to you and you don’t realize that they are there. Disney is right, it is a small world!
