JY

Only 8 days more for the JY fest in Rajagiri, Cochin, Kerala. I am getting mails about the different schedules.

I am stuck in Kuwait with work pending to be finished. I did not even get my usual annual leave to come to Kerala. I am sad that I cannot come to this great fellowship of JY around the world.

My first initiation towards JY was through our group in college. Our college was a small college and I was part of its 3rd batch. Hence JY was not present in that college. But my batch mates started JY in our college. Ajai Jose started JY in our college. He had a great exposure in JY and hence was part of different JY committees. Though he brought our college into JY mainstream, his efforts was to bring JY as an internal team movement, within our hearts and within our college.

I started praying with JY when I was in my 4th semester. Then I stopped. However once 5th sem started, I started living with Ajai and Rijo Sebastian. Rijo was also a core member. Both of them animated most of these sessions. I started coming for the weekly prayer meetings. Initially it was strain on our resources. Our weekly meeting used to be held on Fridays when we used to get 2 hours of break in the afternoon. We used to have our food asap and then go for the prayers (though some used to fast on Fridays and then join in for the session). It means not enjoying the college moments, since it was 2 hours break, there were lot of other activities that used to run in our classrooms. In addition to the loss of our college time, we had other constraints too. Our college was a public institution. So we could not use any the institution resources for prayer meetings. Since our college was in a village, there were 2 churches and one orphanage within our college. During 3^rd year, we held our prayer meetings in the parish church, thanks to the priest who was supportive of our activities. During my 4^th year, our campus was far, and hence we held our prayer meetings in a convent cum orphanage. This convent belonged to the same parish. During the last year, we had to walk nearly .5 km in the afternoon to reach one way to the convent. That means that we had to adjust our time. After 1/2 hour break, we walked 15 minutes, reached the convent, prayed for 45 minutes to one hour, and then walked back to reach in time for our classes.

Though initially these constraints used to sometimes bind us from attending these prayer meetings, eventually we used to just get pushed to go for it. It was as if we were blessed by the Spirit of the Lord.

My walk through JY was not arduous as others, but in some sense it brought me some patience, love for my fellows and hope in case of any obstacles. Of course I have to continually thank this movement for shaping at least partially for some of the way that I pray now. Also I can attribute completely JY for the songs that I learned and for using it for my prayers.