The Outback weekend is a beautiful thing and has changed more lives than The Biggest Loser. For me, it embarked an intimate relationship between my Lord and me, and I do not know where I would be today had I not had that weekend experience with my dad. ~Gaillard Teague
(Editor's note: The following article was written by Gaillard Teague, daughter of Sally and Chris Teague. A McGill-Toolen graduate, Gaillard is a sophomore at Spring Hill College and a lifelong parishioner of St. Ignatius Church in Mobile.)
I had heard of it before… the Outback retreat I mean. I knew people that had gone, I'd seen the t-shirts and I was familiar with Camp Grace, but it was never something I had any desire to experience for myself. In fact, I was pretty opposed to the whole idea. As a teenager the idea of going away from my friends for a WHOLE weekend, sleeping in a musty cold tent at the end of February, and having the promise of no company but my father’s, would have easily made my Most-Miserable-Ways-To-Spend-A-Weekend list. Yet, here I was packing my bag to do just those things.
It’s not that I hated my dad, or even the outdoors. I actually loved them both. No, what made me so apoplectic was the idea that my parents kept insisting it would be “good” for me. Like there was something that needed help in my life. My relationship with my Dad? As good as it was gonna get. My relationship with God? Golden. What good could possibly come from spending an entire weekend with my dad and God? I mean I was thirteen years old... at the prime of human intelligence. Well, regardless of how I felt towards it all, I was going and that was that.
After arriving at Camp Grace that beautiful Friday afternoon, we were given some groovy golden bandannas. Despite the direction to wear it somewhere visible, I effortlessly shoved it in the bottom of my backpack. Once settled in to our oh so elegant purple tent for two, we were placed at a table under a huge pavilion - our dining destination for each meal throughout the weekend. Sharing our designated dining table was our “small group”, which consisted of 4 other pairs of immensely uncomfortable middle-aged men and omniscient teenage daughters, all so stylishly sporting their golden bandannas. Small talk and get-to-know-you games. Alas. Two of my favorite methods of communication.
Somehow I endured that dinner, and was then filed into the big white tent for what was ensured to be a fun evening of sitting still and listening to people tell me how I was doing life wrong. Soon after sitting at our assigned “elf” chairs, we were forced to stand back up by some spunky dude encouraging us to dance, as if I could be pushed any further outside my circumference of comfort. Well it happened. Somewhere between watching the spunky guy make grown women do the sprinkler in front of 200 people and tossing a baby doll off a ladder, I relaxed. Not completely, but the rest of the weekend was somehow less of a struggle than those first few hours had been.
By Sunday, I was at a completely different place than I had been just two days prior. I did not realize it at the time, but, in retrospect, I know that it was that weekend that marked the beginning of a long journey to become the individual I was called to be.
The Outback weekend is a beautiful thing and has changed more lives than The Biggest Loser. For me, it embarked an intimate relationship between my Lord and me, and I do not know where I would be today had I not had that weekend experience with my dad.
The Men of St Joseph Outback weekend is something every single Catholic, whether they are 13 or 73, should experience. After staffing it two years in a row, I have seen first-hand the fruits the weekend produces. I have witnessed and encountered the power God bestows upon His children through His most Holy Sacraments, and it is so outwardly evident during these weekends. It is such a unique experience not many Christians are offered, and is arguably the best thing that could have happened to the Catholic families in the Archdiocese of Mobile. We are very blessed to have this unique opportunity in our Archdiocese, and even more blessed that Archbishop Rodi has supported it in the manner he has. The Men of St Joseph's mission is "To put the family in the hands of the Father". I cannot imagine a more effective way to do this than this Outback weekend.
Please do yourself and your family a favor. Sign up today.
Source: The Catholic Week, Sept. 13, 2013, Vol 79, No. 19., p. 18.
The Men of St Joseph Outback weekend is something every single Catholic, whether they are 13 or 73, should experience. After staffing it two years in a row, I have seen first-hand the fruits the weekend produces. I have witnessed and encountered the power God bestows upon His children through His most Holy Sacraments, and it is so outwardly evident during these weekends. It is such a unique experience not many Christians are offered, and is arguably the best thing that could have happened to the Catholic families in the Archdiocese of Mobile. We are very blessed to have this unique opportunity in our Archdiocese, and even more blessed that Archbishop Rodi has supported it in the manner he has. The Men of St Joseph's mission is "To put the family in the hands of the Father". I cannot imagine a more effective way to do this than this Outback weekend.
Please do yourself and your family a favor. Sign up today.
Source: The Catholic Week, Sept. 13, 2013, Vol 79, No. 19., p. 18.
