"We Permeate Awesomeness"

This weekend, I represented my school at the annual Diocesan campus ministry leadership workshop. Various student leaders from various schools throughout the state get together, along with campus ministers from the same schools. Unfortunately, the one student who was going to go on the retreat couldn't make it at the last minute... so that left only one me.

Fun life-fact: I called Ana from the ferry because I was making the drive alone, and I am used to fun people on the ferry with me. Apparently I called her just as she needed directions to a St. Louis coffee shop that we loved. God sometimes has easily identifiable awesome timing.

As for the retreat itself, God was there too. Most of the student leaders had fun exchanging ideas with and just getting to know students from other schools. The relationships were, in my humble YACM opinion, the most important part of the whole weekend. Oh, and the s'mores were a very important part of the weekend as well.

For me... well, two other YACMs came along as team. First of all, I like being in the company of awesome people such as these two YACMs; secondly, I took comfort in spending time with people who do the same thing that I do. YACM is a strange, liminal position. One which I love, to be sure, but a strange, liminal position nonetheless, and there is a camaraderie created by that fact.

And, the event I've been anticipating for weeks, I got to tag-team a talk with one of my favorite male-folk. He was the assistant coordinator to my coordinator on a retreat two years ago, and our awesome team has remained awesome. And, as he pointed out, our talk would be great, because "we permeate awesomeness." Granted, I didn't expect one of the campus ministers to tease us all weekend about being a couple, so that my talk partner introduced us by saying, "We're going to be married in one month." But that got the talk off to such a dynamic start and gave us and our audience the momentum to stay awake, alive, and animated during the Sunday morning slump.