Crystal, MN

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The following report comes to us from team leader Sharon with our St. Raphael parish team in Crystal, MN:

We had a hot and steamy weekend for our festival with more of a crowd on Saturday than Friday. At our booth was our popular Kids Bible Trivia and a special guest, St. Teresa of Calcutta. Later, Teresa T. , who made our St. Teresa of Calcutta displays, retrieved from the church our parish relic of St Teresa.
We gave out close to 100 medals. Sharon had recently filled our container for chains and it was almost empty again. In addition to the medals, we gave out two Spanish Bibles, three Spanish Catechisms, one English Bible and a few other books that had been donated.

There were three memorable encounters. Cathy was trying to help a Protestant gentleman who told Cathy he is gathering information for a book he is writing. He wants to as much as possible accurately portray Catholic beliefs, especially that of Purgatory. Sharon stopped by the booth to retrieve something and pulled out our collection of SPSE brochures which we did not have space to display. The gentleman flipped through the brochures and took several. Sharon told him to come back, if possible, for our next Drive Through Prayer where she usually has a collection of used Catholic books to give away.

Phil and Sharon spoke to a gentleman who is an alumnus of our school. Phil asked where he is currently attending church. He lives out of the area and gave the name of what sounded to be a non-denominational church. Sharon said while she doesn’t know if his church has communion, his church does not have the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in communion as the Catholic Church does. As Sharon flipped through the SPSE brochures and pulled out a few for him to read, Phil gave a longer explanation of Holy Eucharist and encouraged him to read the brochures.

Mary helped a woman and her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law is visiting from Ecuador and does not speak any English. They happily took a Spanish Bible and a Spanish catechism. One of the women will soon be part of a Spanish Bible study. It is quite possible these two women stopped at our booth last year as Sharon remembers a similar encounter and instead of a Bible, several Spanish brochures were taken.

Praised be Jesus Christ!