Friday, August 22, 2008

We Made It to Steuby

As we walked into J C Williams Hall, Princess Rose lit up like a Christmas tree and exclaimed, "Mama, Mama, they have nuns here!" Later in the cafeteria, we would sit and chat with a sweet Franciscan sister who asked Princess Rose to commit to pray for her. Sister also promised to pray for us. Princess Rose, all decked out btw in her Princess in Disguise T-shirt, was in Heaven.

I think the nuns who have given up their habits have done a great disservice to little girls everywhere. Princess would've missed out on a good bit of joy had yesterday's sisters been in everyday pantsuits. She also would've missed out on a good prayer opportunity.

Princess late into the evening told me, "I want to go to school at Steuby. The people here are so nice!"

On a previous visit, Buster shared that he would also like to call FUS home someday. Though his reasons are different from Princess, being he's a 12-year=old boy as opposed to an 8-year-old girl. Oh yes, his reason is so much more mature. From the horse's mouth, "I'm going to school here! The cafeteria is awesome!" Yes, Steuby got to his heart through his stomach.

Move-in day went well. Things were so well organized. We pulled up to the front of the hall and a horde of students appeared, ready to take all our boxes up to the room. We didn't have to carry a single thing. Well, except for the two boxes that got sent to the wrong room. But that wasn't so bad as it still saved us a flight of stairs.

Christian got everything unpacked and organized pretty quickly, but then there wasn't much to unpack. It's dorm life -- 100 square feet of living space. You don't want to bring too much. In fact, Christian and his roommate Dustin are planning on turning the beds into a bunk bed to free up space. Maybe they'll be able to even hang their legs off the sides of the bed then.

I had the chance to chat briefly, very briefly, with Father Scanlan. He is such a sweet man. I could see right away how his leadership, along with God's intervention, brought this school back to life all those years ago.

Well, I must get my day going here. There are lots of planned activities plus we have a scheduling snafu and few other little problems to iron out.

Oh, in case you're wondering, I haven't broke down in tears yet. Though my eyes did well up a wee bit when we first pulled up to the school and the enthusiastic students greeting us exclaimed, "Welcome to Franciscan University!" Yes, I'm like the Rock of Gibraltar.

4 comments:

love2learnmom said...

Congratuiations Maureen. I'm sure it's hard but it's definitely a major accomplishment. :)

Maureen said...

Thank you Alicia. Today is the day we leave him. We'll see how well the Rock of Gibraltar holds up :-)

Lisa said...

Maureen did Linda ever tell you of the story when Fr.Scanlan came to our home to pray for my mom? Well he wasn't quite sure which house was ours but then he saw the bumper sticker on our car that said "Pray the Rosary". There was only one problem there was no such bumper sticker! He was telling me this as he was leaving and when I informed him of the above he said "yes there is!" So we went out to look and there was no such sticker! I think the Lord just put it there so he could find our home:)

Maureen said...

Yes Lisa, Linda did tell that story to me. But it was so long ago, I forgot about it. Amazing isn't it!