If you have ever gone for a holiday tour, or taken a long coach ride from one part of your country to another, then you’d know how I felt after spending 12 hours travelling from Melbourne to Sydney, trapped in a bus together with 40 other young people who, like me, slept very little the previous night.
We had imagined that a bus ride through the Australian bush would have been exciting with songs of all kinds being sung by our young people. Instead, all that accompanied us was the harmony of the orchestra of snores.
We did make three pilgrimage stops along the way. But where we expected free or at least cheap refreshments, we were greeted by overpriced chips, hot dogs, and burgers, probably from the inhabitants of the towns out to make a quick buck from these guillible pilgrims.
Fortunately, our bus driver had the sense and compassion to make an unofficial highway stop that allowed us to make purchases that were worth our money – we had lunch at McDonald’s.
Little wonder that I was glad when we finally reached our accommodations at St. Ursula’s College in Sydney. I failed, and still fail to understand the wisdom of separating us from our luggage on route to Sydney. A few wrong tags led to luggage that never arrived for some of my fellow pilgrims, which meant spending the night in a freezing school hall without a sleeping bag.
The next morning, those who had spent the night under the heater in their sleeping bags complained that they were unable to sleep because of the cold. Those without sleeping bags moved out immediately to find serviced apartments in the city. These were eventually followed by many small groups, each finding their own accommodations in the city.
Was it a case of city kids so pampered by our comfortable lifestyles that many of us were unable to leave it behind to rough it out for a couple of weeks?
Perhaps. But after spending two weeks with these people, I’m inclined to believe that they had already been pushed to their limit. It’s just that some people have greater tolerance for cold than others do.
Still, in spite of their experiences, one fellow pilgrim remarked to me that she was reminded of a scene where the homeless in other countries in winter huddle around a trashcan bonfire. She said her experience of staying in the school, though better than huddling around a bonfire, helped her to relate better to the homeless.
And homeless was what we were, much to the helplessness of our group coordinator, Winnie, until one day, as she sat at the door of the neighbouring parish of Our Lady of Fatima, wondering what to do, an Australian lady from another parish walked in and asked, “Have you got any pilgrims for us? The ones that were supposed to stay with our parishioners didn’t turn up.”
“Can you take 36 pilgrims?” asked Winnie hopefully. The lady made some phone calls and then nodded. “We can,” she said. Immediately, Winnie pointed to five girls beside her and instructed them to immediately go with our mysterious benefactor.
It didn’t take much faith to see how God was working miracles in our lives. Miracles is indeed the one word that characterised our pilgrimage to World Youth Day.
Another fellow pilgrim later remarked that this group of young people from Singapore, if ever asked to host pilgrims from other countries, would probably be one of the first to open their houses and welcome then in because “we understand what it’s like to have difficult living conditions”.
Indeed as we were later comparing our experiences of our home stay hosts, we found that it didn’t take someone with a big house, or with a great knowledge of the Catholic faith to host us pilgrims. All that was needed was a warm and sincere heart. And one thing we’ve learnt is that the one who provides materially for others receives much spiritually.
Filed under: World Youth Day 2008
Hi Catholic Writer, it is great to be able to read your experiences in WYD!
I’ve heard stories from local Sydneysiders who by absolutely weird circumstances ended up becoming a home stay host or at least heavily involved in caring for the pilgrims. But for believers we know that its the work of the Holy Spirit. I personally talked to a husband and wife who, because of work commitments, decided not to register as a home stay host. However when WYD started, in the middle of the night, they got a phone call from someone they did know. They sounded desperately needing help because they were waiting in the airport for pickup but no one came. The mishap was caused by the delay of their flight which made them stranded in the airport for already a number of hours. The people who were originally organized to pickup might have had given up thinking that they were not coming anymore. They introduced themselves as pilgrims and said that they got the phone number from a friend of a friend in the Philippines. The couple immediately jump into action and dared the freezing night to pickup the pilgrims. It was close to an hour drive to the airport and they had to go back for another 2nd trip since they cannot fit in a normal 5 seater car. The following day the couple called their respective offices and filed for emergency leave. They took care of 9 pilgrims (which includes 2 priests) for the entire duration of the WYD. The husband told me that when he realized that the pilgrims were exposed to Sydney winter which is quite cold for Filipinos, his immediate reaction was to get them home as quickly as possible. He then told me that when he arrived in Sydney a decade ago he also had similar experience when no one got him from the airport. He said he wandered around the city in the cold of the night with his luggage looking for a place to stay. “I don’t want that same thing to happen to this pilgrims” he told me. Its so amazing how the Holy Spirit let it happen to him years ago to prepare him for this very night when the pilgrims needed him most. They were telling me again and again that the incident gave them inexplicable joy. They said it was not like a normal happy feeling but something noticeably different which they said like a super peaceful feeling.