I'm originally from Connecticut and currently live in New York and work in the education department at Cornell University. I'm soon going to attend graduate school for a degree in education, teaching English as a second language. So that's what I do. I just found out about it quickly from my mother who watched EWTN and told me about the pilgrimages that they take. I just decided “why not?” I’ll apply and see what happens. I got in and here I am in France and so I'm very happy to be here. 

   Great, and so with all my experiences also living abroad there's a lot of absolute truths out there that people believe in. So I'd feel ignorant in all this feeling like who am I to say this one is the absolute truth. So I came here to also kinda come back and get in touch with what I grew up with which is the Catholic Church and see what comes of it. So I'm really just being open-minded and looking for friends and just hoping that I make some friends coming out of this and maybe some more answers. A lot of people search for people usually my age, people like my age.

   I just think everyone is kinda growing in their faith in this group. One thing I just observed in general is that a lot of us have come with the same viewpoint as I have. 

   If they are not already strong in their faith and wanted to strengthen it and they are caught in the middle of feeling empty inside and they’re feeling that with bad things back at home and knowing that they are not happy they came on this journey hoping to find answers and maybe perhaps the right thing to fill that void with, whether they're going to take that path and become more devoted Christians or not remains to be seen. But I think a lot of people will have answers in the end. I think the one thing I found is that everyone's on the path of faith, …on the path somewhere along the way so you have to respect where each person is on the path regardless of where their devotion stands. 

   If they wear a scapular, or if they carry a rosary in their pocket or they don’t, it doesn't matter. I don't think any of us should, …I mean we come from all different diverse backgrounds and different points on our path and so I'd bank on learning to respect each other's state in the spiritual life. That's what I'm coming away with. It’s that you should never judge each other because we have all been there on that path.