My spiritual journey is probably much like yours, with the main goal of trying to discover myself. What I like, and what I don’t like. What I believe, and what I don’t believe. Who I want to be, and who I don’t want to be. Although I’ve only had 21 years to work on this, I’ve come quite a long way from where I started.
My grandfather was a minister, so ever since I can remember I have been attending church. It wasn’t until I was 12 however that I really found a connection to what some would call The Mystery, a Higher Power, or as I refer to it, God. There is a place in Jaffrey, NH called Monadnock Bible Conference. They run Christian based week long retreats year round for young adults, and it is here that I consider the beginning of my journey. These retreats were full of fun and games along with two worship services each day.
These worship sessions were much like sermons, but catered to youth to keep us engaged. We listened to youth pastors and young adult speakers from all over the country who challenged and guided us in our faith. Along with these speakers were incredible Christian rock bands who played songs that moved us to get up and dance, and even knee down and pray. I remember attending one of the retreats right after starting 7th grade. I was overwhelmed by my new school, the peer pressure of new friends, and other typical 13 year old problems. I was listening to one of the speakers talk about how amazing God is, that when you have a relationship with him you have someone who is always there for you, someone you can turn to whenever you are overwhelmed and feel comforted. I broke down and cried because I wanted to have a connection like that.
I remember praying right there for the first time, not really knowing what to do or what to say, just that I wanted to feel connected to something more powerful than myself. After I said a prayer the worship band started playing and I felt this sense of peace and love that I hadn’t experienced before. From that moment on I was, as my friends would call it, “on fire for Christ.” I walked around with my bible, reading different chapters in my free time. I spent weekends with my pastor getting to know more about Christianity and the church. When I turned 14 I decided to be baptized into the church I had been attending, and really thought I knew who I was and what God was all about. That was until God had another plan for me.
Not only does Monadnock Bible conference run amazing youth retreats, they also have been running an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti called “Love in Motion” since the early 80’s, and teams would travel there to work in the orphanage and do community service projects. I was at another retreat the following year and I watched a video of the children at the orphanage. A voice came into my head while I was watching saying “You need to go to Haiti.” You can call this whatever you want, but I knew God was speaking to me and that Haiti was in my future. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I signed up for a 10 day long trip to Haiti scheduled over my 16th birthday. Talk about not your typical sweet 16. I was counting down the days until this trip when the unthinkable happened. Haiti was hit with a 7.0 earthquake just months before my trip was scheduled. Although we were warned it might not be safe, we continued on with the trip knowing the people of Haiti needed us now more than ever.
Traveling to Haiti is the next stop on my spiritual journey. I went into Haiti expecting to help the people and children there by spreading the word of God and rebuilding their country. But they ended up helping me in a way I didn’t expect; they gave me a new outlook on life. I met incredible people who were full of love and faith, yet they had lost everything. They didn’t care about race, sexual orientation, or who had the nicest possessions. They were thankful just to wake up in the morning, have people in their life who loved them, and a God who was with them. I left confused and lost when I came home from that trip because everyone in my church was so focus on the material aspects, like how the flowers were arranged in the chapel or who the new church sexton was going to be. I took another trip to Haiti the following year and worked with a medical team setting up make shift hospitals all over the country, and if the first trip didn’t change my way of thinking this trip sure did.
I returned home from my second trip wondering why I felt so disconnected from my church now. I had been with this church for years and use to be so sure of myself and what I believed, but after the people I met and the experiences I had in Haiti I didn’t know what to think. I went from thinking this church was the best thing since sliced bread to feeling like it was all a fake performance to keep the elders in the church happy. Two years passed and I moved away from my church to attend college. In a typical college fashion I partied way too much, made lots of terrible decisions, and the thought of getting up early to go to any church made me want to sleep in even longer. My relationship with God had dwindled into an occasional prayer that I would pass my next exam, and a “thank you Lord” for not getting pulled over for speeding.
I finally hit rock bottom when I was 19. I dropped out of college, was going through a tough break up, and was living at a friend’s parent’s house. I called my mom feeling completely lost and helpless, not even recognizing the person looking in the mirror at me. My mom said I needed a change in my life, and she suggested traveling back to Haiti. At first I waved off the thought. It had been 3 years since I’d gone there, and I didn’t feel worthy of traveling with the same Christian organization I had been with before, especially since I didn’t know what I believed in anymore. After a few more conversations with my mom, she convinced me to look at an organization called Be Like Brit, which was started after 19 year old Britney Gengel from Rutland, MA passed away in the Haiti earthquake. The last text Britney sent her mother before she passed away said how much she loved the people of Haiti and that she wanted to start her own orphanage someday. Her parents did just that and are now running an orphanage in Grand Goave, Haiti that holds 66 children. You can travel to the orphanage and stay there for one week, working with the children and building a house for a family in the community. After doing some research on the organization I heard a voice telling me once again, “You need to go to Haiti.”
This time however, my mother decided to come with me. And let me tell you, that week back in Haiti completely changed my life. The children at the Be Like Brit orphanage are truly the most loving and wonderful children I’ve ever met. They knew nothing about me or my past, but gave me such unconditional love and spoke so highly of their relationship with God, I knew this is where I needed to be. I returned home and decided I needed to be around more people who inspired me like these children did. People who were open minded to all beliefs, who encouraged one another without judgement or criticisms of anyone’s past. That is how I found myself in this church. My mother reached out to Vivian, who was gracious enough to meet me for coffee and tell me more about the UU church. She assured me I would fit right in and invited me to attend the service that Sunday.
Saying I was nervous about walking through these doors would be the understatement of the year. I had no idea what to expect and quite frankly didn’t know if I would even feel a connection to God again. During the first service I fell in love with the choir, and listening to the music reminded me of the days I spent at Monadnock. I met Will during coffee hour and he invited me to attend the choir practice that Thursday. A few choir practices and church services later, I went home and prayed for the first time in years. I prayed for guidance, for strength, and for the courage to find out what I really wanted out of life. A few weeks later, I saw signups for Sunday school teachers here at First U, and talked to Abby about teaching in one of the Spirit play classrooms.
A year and a half later, I can say my relationship with God has grown leaps and bounds. I feel free to believe in whatever I want to, however I want to, knowing I am a part of an amazing congregation that accepts me just the way that I am. This past year I’ve worked closely with the Be Like Brit Foundation and traveled to Haiti 5 more times leading teams of my own, and I am back in school taking classes at QCC. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more stops on my spiritual journey down the road, but for now I am happy knowing that I can be whoever I want to be and I can believe whatever I want to believe.