Jornadas Pastorales

For a while now, I’ve been meaning to do a more in-depth entry on the jornadas pastorales, or class retreats that I help to plan and lead every Thursday.  They have definitely been one of the most impactful, challenging and fun parts of my work here so far.  At Andacollo (our school), each class goes on a retreat 1 day per school year –all the way from pre-school through High school.  There are 2 classes per grade, so in total, there are 28 jornadas pastorales each year.  The idea is to provide a space for reflection, sharing and growth as a class and community.  In planning each retreat, we talk with the head professor of the course about the particular challenges within the classroom and among the students that year.  We then work to design a retreat that addresses those themes.  This is especially important given the school system here because (at least at our school) the students stay with the exact same students in their class each year.  Even though there are 2 courses per grade (each with about 40-45 students) they don’t mix up the kids except in extreme circumstances or when students leave the school and new ones come in.  Because many of the students are at Andacollo for the majority of their education, the retreats are really significant to help them grow together and address certain problems among the students. 

I’ve helped with about 12 jornadas so far, and it always amazes me how different each one can be depending on the particular group of students—each course definitely has its own character and dynamic, and it’s a challenge for us to try to cater the retreat to work through that dynamic.

                It would be impossible for me to describe all of the memorable moments and things that the students have taught me during the jornadas, but I wanted to jot down some memories in any case.  SO here’s a little thought-collage to hopefully give you a taste of the jornada pastoral experience.

-          My very first week in Chile, I “helped” with one of the high school junior retreats.  First thought—it’s very humbling to be welcomed in to share in an intimate retreat when you are completely new and have no idea what you are doing.  What stands out to me from this retreat is how open the students were with each other.  There hasn’t been a single high school retreat that hasn’t caused the tears to start flowing for both guys and girls.  I guess I was surprised because when I was in high school, I couldn’t imagine any guy from one of my classes breaking down in tears in front of everyone and feeling completely comfortable sharing his feelings. 

-          Dinámicas (dynamics/ice breaker activities).  Chileans LOVE dinámicas.  Meetings always begin with icebreaker activities, and our retreats are no exception :) 

-          Sophomore retreat—somehow I was assigned to a group of all girls when we broke-out into small group discussion.  Each person had to fill-out a sheet choosing one word to describe who they were (personality, attitude, experience, etc.) in each year of their lives, starting in 7^th grade through the present.  They then had to choose one word describing an aspect of who they are that has remained throughout every year.  One girl in my group openly shared how, over the years, her feelings of isolation and other personal struggles eventually led her to seek relief in drugs and to move out of her house.  She remarked that she would describe her personality now as selfish or egotistical.  In the same group, one of my girls talked about the way she changed after 8^th grade because she got pregnant and now has the responsibility of taking care of her one-year-old son.  There are some moments when we are silenced by the experiences of others—their pain, struggles, and brokenness, but often their resilience, courage, and faith as well.   

-          Kindergarten—by far the cutest retreat so far.  The theme was “Jesús nos enseña tener muchos amigos” (Jesus teaches us to have lots of friends).  We had a “Friends Party” where each student was paired up with someone that they usually don’t spend time with, and they had to remain with that person the whole party—dance with them, eat cookies and drink juice together, and answer questions about their new friend when the music stopped in order to win a piece of candy!  Some kids absolutely would not let go of their new friend—precious. 

-          The most challenging moment so far in one of the jornadas—High School senior falling and fracturing his femur during one of the dinamicas.  His leg was literally completely dislocated from the hip—we were lucky the femur didn’t completely break through the skin.  It is in moments of crisis when you especially realize how much we take for granted good infrastructure and health care.  The first 15 minutes after the kid fell were spent arguing about whether he could be moved into a taxi because it would be too expensive to use an ambulance ($100 dollars).  When we finally convinced everyone that the boy absolutely couldn’t be moved without professional help (and he was too tall to fit sideways in a taxi!), we called the ambulance which didn’t arrive for over an hour—none of the clinics close to where our retreat was (in one of the poorer areas of Santiago) had ambulances, and the ambulances from the good clinics had to make their way through all of the traffic and chaos resulting from student protests in the center of town in order to arrive.  And so, all of the students sat by his side in the grass, trying to offer some words of comfort while we waited.

Tomorrow we have our retreat with the pre-schoolers where we will be talking about the Creation story.  All of the little ones are going to dress up like animals!  And somehow, I was selected to be the “Tia” (adult) that also has to dress up—the Chileans here already know me too well J    



4th graders during a jeopardy game I created about violence and bullying (...what can I say, I was trying to make a pretty serious theme somewhat fun!)

With some of the kindergartners during recess