deb roush

Typically when I look back on a piece of writing, something screams out at me that it could have been better — a lede, a word, a paragraph, a transition. Not so with this column that I wrote in 2008 for the North Little Rock Times after Pople Benedict XVI visited the United States. It might not be perfect, but I wouldn’t change a word.

A Lesson in Faith

Visit to see pope teaches youths ‘that their faith spreads farther than their youth group and their church.’

By Deborah Roush, Special Correspondent

My son Kyle, 13, returned Sunday from a trip with his Immaculate Heart of Mary schoolmates to see Pope Benedict XVI in Washington, and I’m not sure who learned more from the experience, him or me.

Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world converged on Washington to stand outside the places the pope was scheduled to speak, hoping for a glimpse of the religious leader, who brought a message of hope in his first trip to the United States. How Kyle — a non-Catholic from Maumelle — ended up just feet from the pope is a lesson he will carry for the rest of his life, and, frankly, so will I. It’s a story of faith.

A plan in action

It began early in the school year, when Christie Powell, the religion teacher and youth director at Immaculate Heart, a small, tightknit Catholic parish and school in Marche, began her quest to take “her kids” to see their Holy Father. “I was actually trying to get to Sydney, Australia, in July to see him, but I knew it would cost several thousand dollars for each child and only a few would be able to go. I went to Father [Robert] Dienert [Immaculate Heart’s priest] to tell him about it, and he said, ‘Let’s just pray about it.’ ”

Thirty minutes later, Powell was sitting at her desk when the father of one of her students stopped by to tell her he had heard the pope was planning a U.S. visit. “When I ran back to tell Father Dienert the news, he said, ‘Christie, there’s the answer to your prayers.’ ” An Internet search provided the phone number for the archdiocese in Washington, and Powell called immediately to inquire about tickets.

The archbishop himself answered the phone, relaying to Powell that his office had just received the news of the pope’s upcoming visit and would need time to plan. But he did provide a contact for her in the diocese.

Powell e-mailed that contact but was told that the limited number of tickets were earmarked for the Washington diocese. Undaunted, Powell went back to Dienert. “I told him, ‘I still want to go, but I can’t get a ticket,’ ” she said. She decided to rely, she said, on the grace of God, planning the trip anyway. She sent a letter to the youth group and Immaculate Heart students announcing the five-day trip.

“It said if you want a take a chance — to step out in faith — come with us,” she said. There were skeptics, she admitted, though that didn’t bother her. She knew in her soul, she said, she would see her pope. The youths, inspired by Powell’s optimism, began fundraising feverishly — selling lollipops and raffle tickets, hosting a Mardi Gras festival and organizing bingo nights.

Seventh-grader Rianna Bradley said she was on board immediately. “There was no question. Weknew from the beginning we would see him,” she said. Contributions from parishioners started pouring in, along with letters of support. A woman in Virginia — a pen pal of a North Little Rock woman — heard about the trip and sent $25 and a note saying, “I hope you get to see the pope,” Powell said.

She also got an e-mail from “a friend of a friend” in Germany whose grandson had participated in the Flat Stanley reading program. (Flat Stanley is a book character and a paper cutout. People are encouraged to take photos of Flat Stanley in interesting places as an education tool.) “The grandparents had taken Flat Stanley when they had been to see the pope and took a photo for their grandson. They sent it to us because they wanted us to know that if Flat Stanley could see the pope we could too,” she laughed.

Still no tickets

Still, a week before the trip there was no guarantee the group of 74 students and chaperones, who had raised $20,000 for two buses and paid an additional $260 each, would see the pontiff. But they had something better than a ticket. They had Powell’s unquestionable faith that God was in control. So when someone from The Catholic University of America in Washington called Powell — just days before the group set off on its 19-hour journey — to tell her they had enough tickets for the group to be in a private audience of just a few thousand to see him personally, she cried.

See, someone Powell had contacted along the way had told USA Today about the trip her group was taking on faith, and someone there called somebody else — it’s still not clear exactly how it all worked out.

“God blessed us beyond what we asked for,” Powell explained simply.

A sendoff of support

From the outset the Immaculate Heart community supported the group, Powell said. “Everything we needed was provided. I was making gift baskets for auction prizes one day and realized we needed cellophane to wrap them. And then I got an e-mail saying, ‘Do you have any need for this?’ And it was 6,000 sheets of cellophane. It was like that with everything.”

And when the two buses pulled away from the Immaculate Heart parking lot the afternoon of April 16, hundreds of well-wishers were there to send them off. “One lady even brought up a bunch of disposable cameras for the kids,” Powell said. “They thought of everything.”

Cindy Halloran, one of the group’s chaperones, said the bus was loaded with cases of water, soda, cookies and other snacks that parishioners had brought for the journey. When they got to Washington, the kindness continued, Halloran said.

They watched Mass at Nationals Park on a television set up for their group in a church, St. Vincent de Paul, a block away.They were given sandwiches — twice — by people who didn’t even know them.

Then they gathered in the grassy fields at The Catholic University as they waited to see the pope, whom they snapped photos of only feet away. That was the highlight for Catholic High School 10^th grader Devin Bradley. “There were all these people and they had instruments, and everyone was excited and dancing.

People climbed in the trees to see him, and they rushed up to the rail when he drove by,” he said.

Halloran said she liked that the youths were able to celebrate their faith with people from around the globe. “They learned that their faith spreads farther than their youth group and their church — that it’s bigger than that,” she said.

Powell said exposing youths from Arkansas to a larger Catholic community was rewarding.“For them to see so many of their peers excited about their faith, the Holy Father and the church, and wearing Catholic T-shirts and medals and praying and going to Mass … was more than I could teach,” she said.

Halloran said there were other learning opportunities, especially seeing history up close and in person. The group shuttled from monument to memorial aboard a double-decker bus; stops included the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Archives.

While the pope was in town, there were demonstrators in the streets, including a group of neo-Nazis protesting immigration, she said. “Our kids got to see that people will march the streets for evil as well as good, and I think they were shocked at that,” she said.

“They learned firsthand that people can march on Washington whatever their ideas.”

Media frenzy

And from the time they left until, well, this article, the progress of the group was charted in newspapers and on television. The story of hope that the pope brought to the United States trickling down to the hope one woman brought to a small town in an even smaller church by planning a trip on faith caught the attention of not only USA Today but the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the local TV news stations.

It even earned Powell and a student a spot on the national cable program Fox News; a chauffeured car picked her up to take them to the local Fox affiliate.

For Powell, the best part of being interviewed by Fox was that the spot was seen by a local soldier serving in Iraq, who said he was excited for the group and “couldn’t wait until the pope shook our hand,” she said. In Washington, the group was hunted down by a reporter from The Washington Post who included their experience in the conclusion to his piece covering the pope’s historic visit.

Through it all, Powell won’t take recognition for the successful trip. Instead, she credits a higher power.

“I know I sound like a broken record, but I’ll say it again: He cannot be outdone in generosity, and he has done it again,” she said.

Years from now, Kyle’s memories of the trip may fade: the long bus ride, where the group ate and the details at the many memorials. But he’ll never forget Mrs.Powell. In his final year and in the last weeks at Immaculate Heart, she has taught him — and me — the most valuable lesson yet: When you have faith, you can achieve your dreams.

Whatever they are.