Hello everyone! I have returned home from my leadership camp, and I would like to share my experiences with you. What I have learned here is not only applicable to those at the camp, but to you too (at least I think it is). Happy reading!

For 5 days, I went to a Christian Leadership Institute (CLI) up in a camp called Pyramid Lake, New York. During this camp, we did workshops, small group sessions, reflection, liturgy, and journaling. For those of you that are not Christian, I invite you to still read this, as the lessons learned are mostly universal.

On the first day, we covered communications. The most used skill we learned this week was covered here, something called an "I feel" statement. An example of would be as follows.

I feel greatly thankful
when you guys read and comment on my blogs
because I put effort into them, and I like seeing my work be rewarded.
I need you guys to please keep it up.

These statements are always done in this format, of "I feel", "when", "because" and "I need". Over the week, we as a group must have used hundreds of these statements. Also from this communications workshop, I learned the importance of listening, and skills for successful speaking and listening.

On day 2, we did workshops on decision making and community. One of the more interesting games of the week was done today, for the community workshop. In this game, there were three types of people: those blindfolded that could talk and move, those that had tape mouths but could see and move, and those that were bound and could not move, but could see and talk. I was blindfolded. The objective was to complete a puzzle, having only the blindfolded people touch the pieces. We found this incredibly difficult, and could not complete it, but that was not for a lack of effort. From this, we gained a stronger sense of community and understanding of each other.

The next day involved another hard workshop. This was when the 7 of us in a group were heart surgeons, and had 1 heart to use in an operation. There were 8 people to choose from as of whom to save, and only 1 could be saved. There was a 35 year old priest, and AIDS researcher, a young musical prodigy, a 15 year old pregnant teenage, a high school drop out supporting her grandparents, and 3 others (sorry bad memory). Anyway, we had to choose whom to save by a consensus, which was very hard to reach, because roles were assigned to each of us in this group (leader, agitator, talker, devil's advocate). The differences in personalities of these people made choosing very hard to do, and it was even harder for the facilitator to actually get anyone to listen. The point of this was to show how an extreme group meeting would happen, and also to build teamwork. Another lesson taken from this was to base decisions on facts, not opinions, prejudices, or possibilities.

On the afternoon of Day 3, we experienced 4 types of prayer: nature, scripture, music, and labyrinth. Each was unique, and each helped me to see God in my life a different way.

On Day 4, we covered the main point of this camp; leadership. This workshop was done by a priest named Fr. Bob, who was the most energetic priest I've ever met. One of his main points was to love your friends and your enemies, and that a good leader does not force his own opinions on others; rather he listens.

Later that day, we did a story like meditation (called guided meditation) written and read by our camp director. She had us all close our eyes, relax, and picture out lives as 7 year olds, high schoolers and graduates. This was a way to let go of out busy lives (blogging!) and to think more deeply about what we have done in life so far, and how present Jesus is in our lives.

Of all the things I took away from CLI, the one I hope to find most useful was Wednesday's workshop on Youth Ministry. Before coming here, I really had no idea what Youth Ministry was, because the one in my parish was almost nonexistent, but now I am really excited to start participating in YM. For those of you that don't know, YM involves usually high schoolers working together to plan things such as service projects and the like for our churches. Because I and two other members of my parish (St. Thomas the Apostle) went to this program this year, we will try to start using these ideas at home. Some ideas we can build upon are more active participation of young people, more energy in the masses, and a liturgy band. As a side note here, I played alto saxophone and sung in out liturgy band here. Almost every song was fast and upbeat, causing everyone to be involved in the music, by singing or clapping to the beat. I really loved playing music like this for mass, and hope we can do something similar at home.

On the last day, our workshop was on planning. The activity we tried to put together was a reunion for the last 4 years of CLI. I don't know if this will actually become a reality, but I am really hoping so, because I absolutely loved my experience here. The friends I made here were awesome, and everyone worked extremely well together as a group. It was sad when we had to leave on Thursday, but I know that I'll never forget this week.

For those of my friends from CLI reading this and all of you fellow bloggers, thank you very much. To my friends, you made my week better than I thought it could be, and I need to give you a standing "O". (Ovation). The same applies to you bloggers, when I see the responses on my blogs, it makes me feel involved and part of the Star Wars family.

God bless all of you, and MTFBWY always!