Healing Retreat

Participants on March 17, 2018
Photo by: Evelyn Reyes

At least twice a year, the church group I belong to organizes a healing retreat for both men and women over the age of 18. My parents, a couple of family friends and I lived the retreat at St. Jude on General McMullen and with our priest's approval, we were able to organize the retreat at Divine Providence.

The first time my church held it was back in November 2016, which my dad was the director. I can still remember him stressing about how it was going to happen. There were 32 participants living it. We later had two more in 2017, one in March with 38 participants and the other in July with 43.

Our most recent retreat was held this past spring break, March 16 through the 18th. About 28 people showed it, which was unexpected because our team expected more people to come. What was more shocking was that there were more men than women since most of the time women are usually the ones spending time in church.

I've been helping out with this retreat since 2017. After the retreat my dad was in charge of, the man who took on the leadership after him decided that it would be a great idea to take group pictures of the participants so they could have a tiny souvenir of their weekend.

At the time, I was in my final semester at Northwest Vista College taking a Photography II course. My dad, sadly, is one of those parents that like to brag about his kids to his coworkers and friends and the word got out to people in my church that I do photography.

The new director contacted me four months prior and asked if I could take group pictures for upcoming retreats. I enjoy doing group pictures. I've never actually had a problem doing them. This past March, at the end of the retreat Sunday afternoon, we finally took group picture of the team as well. With the help of my trusty tripod.

Healing Retreat team
Photo by: Evelyn Reyes