And We're Off...

The trip begins at our home parish in Milpitas. But for me, the trip began days ago. Many of us have had trouble sleeping the past few nights. Some because they are so excited, but me because there has been so much to do.

I finally do go to sleep at 5:30 a.m. and back up at 8:30 a.m. so I can take my medicine and get the packs loaded in to the car. Then off to Campbell to get Fr. Jojo. He has been transferred to St. Lucy’s but still will be joining us.

We make it back to St. John’s as the rest of the group is gathering at 11:30 a.m. As we wait for stragglers, we gather on the side of the church near the parking lot.

Once everyone arrives we take some time to give an update on our friend Nicole. She was supposed to join us but, was diagnosed with Lymphoma and will have to start treatment immediately. I made some prayer cards for the group so we can pray to St. Jude Thadeus and St. Penegrin. St. Jude Thadeus was a disciple of Jesus and is the Paton on Desperate cases.

Our former pastor Victor Pavalkis prayed to St. Jude after being hit by a car and upon his recovery dedicated an adoration chapel on the grounds to St. Jude.  St. Penegrin suffered from cancer in the leg and the doctors could not heal him and were going to amputate his leg. But the night before the surgery he had a vision of Jesus coming off the cross and the next morning the doctors canceled the surgery because he was healed. 

Now this may seem strange to my readers who are not Catholic… Some people miss understand Catholics prayers to the saints. One way I explain it is that every company has a CEO but not everyone should bother the CEO directly. He is just too busy. But you go to the manager or the head of the department that you need help from. And if the CEO needs to be asked or apprised of the situation then that manager will move the request forward.

Likewise, this is in a way how Catholics view the Saints and Angels. The saints we believe are in heaven. And now we have a process to try and “prove” that they are. That is another post in itself. But each Saint is assigned a patron of some need or specialty. I will blog more on these saints because they will play a part of our trip.

But for now back to our first day… Once everyone arrived and the business of gathering was complete, we moved to the front entrance of the church for a photo opportunity. There were many parents and parishioners there to wish us well and take pictures. It still did not seem real to me… more like just another prep gathering.

Then our new Pastor Fr. Ritchie blessed us with a beautifully prepared blessing. From there we went to our adoration chapel where the blessed sacrament was exposed. We took about five minutes to pray quietly in front of the host that we Catholics believe is actually Christ.

Myself, I prayed for the strength to lead this group, to stay positive, to ignore any and all pain my body will give me, and for the safety and health of those who travel with me. I thanked my Lord for the opportunity to go on this adventure and asked to be used as a an instrument of His plan. I then began out loud, “Our Father who art in heaven…” The Our Father prayer is central to Catholisim and everyone else gathered in prayer joined in.

We continued with our prayer to Jesus’ mother Mary known as the Hail Mary and then prayed a prayer of Glory. Then I read out loud the prayer to St Jude for Nicole and then the prayer to St. Penegrin. We also asked for Saints John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Clare, St Lucy as well as St Jude and Set Penegrin to pray for us and our safety on our trip ahead. With that we closed with Amen and competed any personal prayers and devotions.

We then gathered outside the chapel… It is this moment when it hits me. WE ARE GOING TO SPAIN AND ROME! All of this time and I have been so busy and there has been so much to do… It did not feel real. But now… Here in this moment… I know for sure… this is real… we are really going… I get chills.

It is also here we notice it is 12:30 p.m. and we are getting hungry. The decision is made by the leaders and parents to make an impromptu diversion to the Great Mall’s food court for lunch. So to the cars we go and caravan to the mall where we try our best to stay together to eat but it is a bit crowded. (As a side note… it is nice to see the Great Mall crowded for a Wednesday lunch does that mean the economy is getting better?) We are back in the cars by 1:20pm and head to SFO.

It takes about an hour to get to SFO and we take a few more videos and pictures and covert some money. Here we that the hugs begin and we say goodbye to the parents and friends who have come to see us off.

Then into security… For me this is always the worst part of the tip through an airport. I opted for the body scanner… but before I could enter… Out had to come all my meds and all my technology…. Since I want to blog and cast as I go I have Cameras, a laptop, a tablet, a voice recorder plus my cell phone and about a mile of cables and adaptors. My clothes weigh 5 lbs. my tech weighs 18 lbs. I have maxed out my 26 lbs limit.

But once I get everything on the scanner including my cane chair. I go into the body scanner. With my pockets empty I raise my hands and the scanner goes round me. They move me out and for some reason my shorts have shown something in my back pocket… It is actually just the pocket itself…. But that is enough for them to hold me and have me pulled aside to have my hands swabbed for something… I guess explosives or something but who knows… Either way I am, of course, clean.

But it took me longer to go through than anyone in the group and then I had to repack everything into my bag and get my shoes back on… funny that people complain about taking off their shoes… but they are able to slip them back on… for me this is a painful process getting my shoes on and off. But hey the things we do for safety.

But once the shoes were on down the terminal we went. By the time we got to the gate the group was already boarding. We are getting on one of these new big planes… they have three doors to get into the plane. I am directed to the far right and I lose track of what door my daughter goes in… and my wife… well most of the group for that matter… but it ends up I am upstairs.I have the last isle seat in the middle upstairs. My daughter is one row up on the other side of the isle. Another member of the group is one more row up but on the other isle. Only one other member of our group is on this level. Everyone else is down stairs. Thankfully they let you walk around and I have gone and seen everyone.

This new plane has some cool new features. Each seat has a media TV in the seat in front if you. There are chat rooms and movies, TV shows, and music, there is even a chat room feature and games. You can also choose a camera view from the tail of the plane and see where you are on a map. That alone has kept us busy for a few hours.  But it is now getting late on our first day of travel and it is time to call it a night even my laptop says it is done for the day… So more to come… You can follow our adventures at  http://milpitas.patch.com/stan-horyza/blogs and www.swimjohn.com Or www.facebook.com/swimjohndotcom. We will be in Rome the first few days with limited access but we will still try to find a way to keep you updated.