Well, the time has come… the bags are packed… the drive to the airport looms ahead…  I have just returned a couple hours ago from the Sr. Youth Winter retreat.   What I experienced there has not even begun to sink in yet and I am almost off on another adventure.

Youth… its what its all about to me… the future… the present… the now and the soon to be…  I did alot of watching and listening this weekend.  I watched … I payed attention… I opened myself up… and I was witness to real life miracles.   Youth… young adults… struggling… broken and so, soooo beautiful.   I cried alot this weekend.  Openly, in private and deep inside my soul.  Tears of joy, tears of sadness but mostly tears of hope…..   I held alot of broken youth while they cried this weekend… embracing and letting them know that I am no less broken myself… This is all a jouney we are on together.  A tough one when you choose the path we have…  the hard path.. but the one that is so worth it.

Youth… They laugh… they cry… they hide… as we all do… If people will just listen to them, they have so much to say.  So much to learn… so much to offer… so much to teach each other and us older generation.   All they want is to be heard… they dont even care if we understand… they just want to be heard… I am making it my top priority to listen… to them… to myself… to God….   I know this makes little sense… but I just am writing what I feel and Im still so raw… my emotions are running very close to the surface.  Chalk it up to perhaps being tired if you will… but I know its so much more than that.

Im off to spend 3 weeks with some amazing young people who have begun a journey with Wells of Hope… a co-op experience…. I feel so blessed to share this with them… and Im going to listen… alot… and Im hoping to be witness to some amazing things that God has in store for them… and for me…..

Hey everyone….

So, its Tuesday… I leave on Friday for the youth retreat… and then early… very early Monday morning with my family for Guatemala. Everyone wants updates, and regular ones… this is the only way I could think of to do that efficiently considering how busy we will be and sporatic internet connections. I don’t know if anyone will actually read this and if you are… Im sorry hahaha…. My thoughts might tend to be all over the place. I’ll be using this as a bit of a journal for my own benefit as well. As my wonderful lifegroup girls can tell you, when I get lost in a random thought.. look out. So bear with me… read if you want… don’t read… whatever, its all good.

I’ve spent alot of the past weeks trying to figure out what God is doing with my life… exactly who I am and why I am where I am. Had anyone told me a few years ago that I’d be a youth leader… heavily involved in a community (Church… but I love the word community so much more) … talking major stuff about myself with a random group of people (my own life group) and on my way to Guatemala… well I would have called you nuts. The Guatemala part seems to me to be just about the only part of my life that makes sense. Its kinda the thing Geoff, me and the boys have always done… We’ve been doing Katrina relief work with various organizations since the hurricane… We’ve been to Alaska to build homes…. so Guatemala fits… sort of. The rest it occurs to me has happened because I finally stopped doing life my way and have embraced letting God do it for me so to speak. And look where I am now .. (see above haha). And you know what? Life is so much better. I have a sense of finally kinda being on the path I was always supposed to be on… again I say finally!

I see now that meeting Ted and getting involved with Wells of Hope is no coincidence… becoming a youth leader for Southridge is no coincidence…. meeting and marrying Geoff was no coincidence… Alley and Dave ending up going to Guatemala with our family is no coincidence…. there simply is no such thing…. its all part of a plan… a plan that includes so much pain sometimes its unbearable… but in the end it all somehow works out. Its taken me a very long time (41yrs) to realize that and somehow the realization makes it all seem so much better… I am only one person…. but I can make a difference…. nomatter how small that difference is… I CAN be the change, even if only a tiny speck of it… I CAN!

Much Love & God’s Blessings….
Rita