Joey was blessed by his godmother and got to spend the last week at an amazing catholic camp. I spent lots of time praying about whether he should go, and really felt that he should. He was adamently excited about it from the first time we told him! I was actually shocked and surprised at his confidence. Here I was thinking, an entire week without my joey, how can that be? And he's like, it will be so fun, I can't wait! In fact, the days leading up to camp, Ina was very sad that joey was going to be gone. I heard her often say, joey I'm going to miss you so much and be so sad. And he'd reply, but I'm not going to miss you, I'll be too busy having fun! At drop off, he confidently said goodbye, even with Ina clinging to him and crying alligator tears. He was so excited for his camp adventure!
I'm sure there are many more blessings that we've yet to find out, but some of the most amazing things that happened were:
- One of the priests told me, your son likes to read the bible more than any boy his age that I've ever seen! He told me that he'd be reading the evening prayers and joey would go and get his bible, and look up where he's reading and follow right along. I was thinking, wow, joey must have had alot of help because he's not a strong reader, but it still touched my heart. In fact, I almost didn't send a bible with him because I didn't want him to get frustrated by how hard it was to read.... so we are driving home on the long ride home and joey gets out his bible and says, I left off on John 6... he flips it open and starts reading it perfectly. With fluency and everything. I was shocked. He struggled so much with reading, and would pause and sound out every word before he left for camp. And here he was reading from the bible out loud like it was no big deal? ! Evidently he just needed a week sitting around reading the bible to become an amazing reader. I'm so excited for him, especially since I knew that his reading skills being behind were going to be a real challenge with him starting school this fall. I'm glad he will have this extra confidence boost to help him.
- upon pickup, we had mass together at the camp. There was also mass on Sunday drop off. The small, rustic loveliness of mass at a campsite, even though it was HOT, reminded me so much of the little things that brought me to the church and made me want to be Catholic. I'm so glad for my kids that they got to experience mass in that way, too. Mass at St joes is lovely, but there's something about the small intimate mass that is very powerful. I noticed that during the drop off mass, most people received communion on the tongue, often kneeling. I always receive communion on the tongue, and this is something we've talked to joey about a little, but since he's only just made his first communion a couple months ago, and they "taught" him to receive in the hand, he has been really focused on the method and not been able to get beyond that. When during the mass on the last day, joey received Jesus on the tongue, I cried. His reverence, love, and understanding had all increased so much in that week, and I could tell just by watching him receive communion. Thank you Jesus!
We are so blessed to be Catholic, and my kids are so blessed that they get to be raised in the faith since before they were born, they were Catholic. Joey is amazingly blessed with such a great godmother, I'm so glad we heard God's call to make her his godmother. I keep this in mind and close to my heart as we are currently discerning who to ask to be godparents to Robin. <3 p="">
Oh, and he was wrong. He missed all of us. But he also can't wait to go back to camp again next year!
