Trip to EWTN

John Thorkelson (one of our students) and I had a great time on our trip to EWTN, to appear on the show - Life on the Rock. I thought I might write up a quick synopsis of how the trip went.

Thursday morning I got up much earlier than I normally do, remember, I work with college students. We caught a flight out of College Station to Houston and then another flight into Birmingham. I actually had a nice nap on the second flight, which is very rare for me on an airplane. An EWTN driver picked us up at the airport and took us to one of the guest houses. We then went to the EWTN cafeteria, which has great food cooked by a wonderful cook who knows great Southern cooking (while in Alabama I got to have some of my favorites - pork chops, grits, meatloaf, etc - yum).

Now, before I left, I tried contacting Fr. Mitch Pacwa (a former professor and a friend of mine) to see if he was in town. But Fr. Mitch is terrible with email, so I didn't expect a response. Lucky me, we ran into Fr. Mitch in the cafeteria. We got to eat lunch and then he invited us back to his house, which is next to our guest house, and we had some fun talking about hunting, theology, and cats. I like the first two a lot more than cats. The pic below is of Fr. Mitch teaching the son of one of his friends how to shoot his compound bow.

Around 3pm we left Fr. Mitch's house and I showed John around the grounds. We prayed a Chaplet of Divine Mercy in the chapel and then went back to our house to get ready. We then went to the studio to prep for the show. The studio isn't very big, so they stay very busy shooting shows.

While waiting for Fr. Mark and Doug Barry, the hosts of Life on the Rock, we got makeup put on. As you can imagine, I am not much of a makeup guy. John had a lot less shine to get rid of so he went first and was a good sport when I wanted take a pic.

Random fact - the makeup kit was entitled "St. Clare's Makeup Kit", I still haven't figured out why.

We then prepped for the show with Fr. Mark and Doug, shot the show, and then went back to Mother Angelica's old office for dinner. Jason and Crystalina Evert came in while we were eating, because they shot another show that evening.

We then went back to our guest house. Some other friends of Fr. Mitch's were also in town so Fr. Mitch came over and the five of us watched the show and visited.

This morning, we had breakfast and went to the airport, along with Doug, Jason, and Crystalina. Jason and Crystalina had the same flight to Houston, so we got to visit even more until they left to catch a flight back to California. This was Crystalina's first time, in many years, to not have a baby with her on a trip. So, she was in a good mood after a nice night of sleep.

To cap it all off, we were able to catch an earlier flight back to College Station. So, it ended up being a great trip from start to finish. Thanks for everyone who watched and for all your prayers. Please continue to pray for St. Mary's and other campus ministries, as well as the students we serve and the benefactors who make it all possible.

Peace,
Marcel