Crossing Rivers and Growing in Faith
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Crossing Rivers and Growing in Faith

Georgia Tech Catholic Students share their experience backpacking as a community

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Crossing Rivers and Growing in Faith
Kathy Cabezas

Last weekend I went on a retreat with the Georgia Tech Catholic Center. The retreat was originally going to be at Camp Hidden Lake’s retreat center. However, due to Hurricane Irma, Camp Hidden Lake didn’t have power. Our chaplain, Father Josh, quickly came up with a new plan to take 20+ catholic students of varying degrees of athletic ability backpacking. Months of planning went down the drain as Father Josh, Alicia, Patrick, and Srishti tried to come up with a new retreat to hold in the woods (without electricity, running waters, or any form of toilets) in just two days. They decided to take us to Jacks River Falls and the trails connected to it. We would hike about 7 miles both Saturday and Sunday with a plenitude of river crossings.

We still had small group sessions, retreat talks, adoration, and mass, but now the small group sessions occurred with s’mores in hand, the talks around a campfire, adoration under hundreds of stars, and mass next to a fast-flowing river with a newly set sun. The retreat was always supposed to be community building, but many agree that Camp Hidden Lake would not have led to the community we were able to grow into on this backpacking trip. We had to help each other cross rivers and climb rocks up to the trail; we had to make sure no one got left behind; we had to take trips into thicker parts of the woods together so someone could hold the flashlight and another person hold the wet wipes while a third dug a hole in the ground just to use the restroom. We prayed rosaries and had deep talks while surrounded by chirping birds and falling leaves. We experienced God, and grew in friendship with Him and with the others on the retreat.

I was able to interview two awesome people who had gone on the retreat with me, and would like to share our conversations and their experiences to give a more complete picture of the time the students of the Georgia Tech Catholic Student Organization had:

First, tell me about yourself and your connection to the Catholic Center.

Srishti: Okay well my name is Srishti. I’m a senior aerospace major graduating in the spring. My connection to the catholic center is this is where I became catholic and spend most of my time.
Kiersten: So I am a second year and I’ve kind of been involved with the Catholic Center since the beginning of my freshman year.

Can you give me a brief overview of the retreat?

S: This retreat was supposed to be a community building retreat held in Camp Hidden Lake however because of Hurricane Irma it became a backpacking retreat which wasn’t planned. We backpacked at Jacks River Trail for two nights and had talks and mass there but mostly crossed the river 22 times.
K: So we spent most of the retreat just hiking along the trail crossing a river a ridiculous number of times which I really really enjoyed. It was a really incredible community building experience. We also had some traditional retreat activities like mass and adoration and talks and things of that sort.

What made you decide to come backpacking after Camp Hidden Lake fell through even though you could’ve easily cancelled?

S: I was the retreat coordinator. If I bailed, that would not be good. God was definitely calling me to go, though I was very reluctant about it because I didn’t know if I could backpack very long. Definitely not something I would have chosen by myself
K: I love backpacking so when I found out it was a backpacking retreat I was even more excited than I was before. We were told we could get a refund and I had 3 tests this week so I thought maybe I shouldn’t go but I felt like I really needed to go on this retreat so I was still going to go.

Did you have any favorite discussions/activities/talks?

S: I absolutely loved praying the decades of the rosary between river crossings with Ludwika. My favorite part of the retreat though was adoration under the stars, nothing can beat it. Literally nothing can beat it. I almost started crying before father talking about it. It was amazing.
K:I really liked having mass by the river. It was just very beautiful. The retreat just as a whole was very beautiful; the scenery around us was gorgeous. Nature can help make you feel closer to God in a way and I never really had been through something like this before where you are having a close experience with nature and God at the same time and it’s a very powerful combination.

What was the funniest moment?

S: So at one point, we’d all crossed the river and Father Josh was at the end as usual. He picked up his hiking sticks and gave us all a thumbs up with a giant grin, and I hadn’t seen him do anything like that. It was weirdly playful and cool. Also, when Brandon was making the tent and all the girls were standing around giggling. And then a spider came and the giggling turned into screaming and more giggling. It was the perfect example of TOB [theology of the body].
K: When Chris made the sign of the cross before cliff jumping.

Did you feel like we grew as a community?

S: Yes. Yes. How we were helping each other physically and behaving physically was the literal manifestation of how our spiritual community should be. So we definitely did grow.
K: For sure. I think that just kind of being forced together into a real situation where we are legit helping each other just builds a community in a way that artificial team building games can’t quite do. This was the real thing. People just came together in such a beautiful way.

What did you take-away from the retreat?

S: I can’t do one thing with this, but an encounter with God. In the city, it happens but we are so distracted with our phones and like everything that it doesn’t really happen. We didn’t have phones and it was a new moon so we saw all the stars; we got lucky. You see one star in the city and it isn’t even a star, its Jupiter. There you saw God’s creation unmarred by humans so that was pretty great, also the humans around me were pretty great.
K: My personal biggest take-away would be that I don’t have to do things on my own. Not just that I don’t have to but in some situations maybe shouldn’t. In a lot of the river crossings I would go off and forge my own path which was a lot of fun but also resulted in a lot of falling and almost getting my stuff soaked and people turning around (who I had just denied my help) and asking if I needed help. And I would go off on my path again and people would still help me up. This is exactly how we should be operating on a daily basis as Christians. We help people as much as they let us and when they don’t we can’t do anything about it but we welcome them back as soon as they let you. I think that was a really important lesson for me because I frequently have a hard time letting people help me. Having a living metaphor helped me to see things I hadn’t really seen before.

Did you have any God-moments?

S: Yep. Father Josh told us to “go outside, look at the stars, and see how great God is.” I realized that we don’t get the stars that are out there. How will we understand the Creator? But then we went to adoration, and the Eucharist in adoration, was more beautiful than the stars. It was surreal. Seeing who He is right after seeing all these amazing stars, and feeling that He is better.
K: The moment that jumps out to me the most is the beginning of the retreat when the topic was announced to be community building and Godly friendships. This is an area that I had been praying about a lot, so it was like God was saying, “hey I’ve been listening to you, and here is this opportunity to dive deeper into it”. I definitely felt like it was definitely a God thing that the retreat came when it did in my life.

Any other comments?

S: We got everyone back alive and all the equipment back so that was a success!
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