Cheerful Giving: Pentecost

I’ll be honest, before this experience I don’t know that I truly knew what Pentecost was. I’m positive I learned about it in PSR and confirmation, but through all of the distractions of life I seemed to have forgotten. In the U.S., or at least at my church, I can only remember having a Mass for Pentecost and nothing else. Here, it seems like every Holy Day is celebrated to the max, and young people from different parishes from Encarnación and the surrounding area joined together to celebrate the vigil of Pentecost.

We left our house at 3 o’clock in the afternoon to meet up with everyone to carpool, and we arrived at the hosting church sometime around 4:30 or 5. I arrived home the following morning at 4 a.m. Retreats in Spanish are not my favorite thing, especially when they last 12 hours. My mind is exhausted by the end, and I’m usually more than ready to be back in my little English speaking haven (my room). This retreat was no different, but I’m so glad I went for quite a few reasons, even if I didn’t always enjoy it.

Generally at retreats Caitlin and I always seemed to be partners, no matter how hard we tried to avoid each other and talk to other people to make friends. So, not having my partner made this retreat even more difficult. We started off with prayer and songs (luckily no dancing yet) and a short presentation by some of the JOMICA (my young adult group) members. We also had a lecture with one of the area priests about receiving the Holy Spirit and being open to God’s call. All good things.

And then things got a little dicey…Speaking in front of people in a language other than your first is scary. For the most part though, I’ve pretty much gotten over my fear with people that I know (AKA the sisters, kindergarteners and parents, my tutoring students, JOMICA, etc.), but with new people it’s still a little frightening. In an icebreaker, I was paired with three girls I didn’t know. We warned them my Spanish wasn’t that great, but when I couldn’t understand the questions we were supposed to be answering and they girls’ way of helping me was to repeat the exact same words over and over again, frustration crept in…as did the tears. I cry a lot so it’s not a huge surprise this happened, but up until this point I hadn’t cried in public yet. Something I was actually pretty proud of. So, as I quickly tried to wipe the tears off my face before anyone could see, one of the girls swooped in with a huge hug and “what’s wrong?” (which many of you know is the worst possible thing you can do when a Smith girl is crying!). As I tried to simultaneously tell them that I’m ok, I’m just frustrated and I cry a lot, and quickly wipe the tears away, there’s a good chance that I pushed the girl off me. Oops! After I got the water works put on hold and we abandoned the questions, we actually had a nice conversation; however, I didn’t run into them again (and as Matt later told me, probably not by accident. You win some you lose some). Gracias a Dios no one in my group noticed my tears, because their questions would have only got them going again. Only Nelson, who is extra friendly despite having a girlfriend, seemed to see that something was a little off, first asking, “Are you hot. Your face and nose are really red.” And then, “And, your eyes are really shiny. Do you want to cry?!” No, no I don’t.

It’s a shame that I was so emotional and on the brink of tears for the rest of the retreat because I really did enjoy the activities and reflection on the Holy Spirit and vocation, but it really made me grateful for the friendliness of the people here. When my fellow group members noticed when I was quiet and by myself, they did a great job of asking me questions and trying include me. It’s not easy to make your way into a group when you can’t really express yourself, let alone barely communicate, so I appreciate their questions more than they’ll probably ever know. Overall, I’m writing the retreat off as a success. It was nice to have a big event for Pentecost because it actually got me to pay attention to the importance of what we’re actually celebrating, and as with anything here, it was a growing experience.