I love Steubenville (as I mentioned above, I've been three times). Each and every time I have had an encounter with God that is indescribable. The first year I went, my heart felt literally on fire and I was overflowing with joy (so much so that I walked up to a random guy and gave him a hug). Last year I was overwhelmed because for the first time, I truly realized that God loves me. He died for me. Last year I cried a lot, I admit it :) This year, I got to experience God in a whole new way: through my peers.
Call me a creeper, but during adoration, I couldn't help but listen to everyone around me and look at their faces. Everyone was so on fire with God. As I was looking at their faces, I saw God in each and every one of the people at the conference. It was really crazy!!
Not only is Steubenville a place to get closer to God, it's a place to get closer to other Catholic teens. Our group was pretty crazy, insane, loud (very loud), but we all love God so much that we all got along. Heck, I made one of the guys' nose bleed (on accident!) and he didn't hate me afterwards. In fact, we were all kind of laughing about it.
Even if you're not Catholic, you should go. There was a guy in our group who wasn't Catholic and he came with us. It was truly powerful to witness his conversion experience at the conference. Now, he is thinking about converting to Catholicism! Yay! Seriously, though, seeing him stand up when they asked "Who devoted themselves to Christ?" brought tears to my eyes.
The conference is INSANELY powerful (why do you think I've gone for three years and intend on going a fourth?). And now since I've probably bored you with my ramblings, here are some pictures!! Enjoy!!
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| Our non-air conditioned bus |
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| There was a huge storm, so we had to camp in a parking lot |
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| Elephant ride at Silverwood Theme Park (all the big rides were closed because of the storm) |
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| Left to right: My sister Sam and I |
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| Playing with the Canadians :) |
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| There were roughly 1,300 teens there (the theme was God Is) |
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| One of the speakers/rappers/entertainers, Oscar Rivera a.k.a. "Fluffy" |
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| The music was AMAZING!! |
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| Left to right: Ariana, Theresa, Me, Matt Freud (one of the speakers), and Sam |
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| Fr. Mike at Multnomah Falls |
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| (Some of) our group at Multnomah Falls |
I got the same feeling you described. Absolutely surreal, right? Thanks for writing a blog post - I loved hearing about your time and seeing all the pictures. That's cool that Father Mike went with you! :D
ReplyDeleteyeah, it's totally surreal. it's so hard to describe :) and yes, Fr. Mike went with us and he was pretty funny :) haha
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