Preparing for Ignite Northwest

The parish which put on Ignite NW was Our Lady, Star of the Sea Parish in Bremerton, WA, just a few blocks from where you take the ferry. (The parishioners usually just call it Star.) It is an amazingly active parish.

Here are some photos of the inside of the church.

 Side altar to the Holy Innocents

Side altar to St. Lawrence Ruiz, a lay Dominican, and his companions, martyrs

Here is Fr. Lappe, the pastor (on the right) with his friend Fr. Sibley

This is the parish's famous van in which we were driven around by Angelle, one of the parish's missionaries, who is from Louisiana. The van is named the "Holy Moldy." As its name suggests, it is very idiosyncratic. For example, the sliding door on the side often sticks, and once I had to climb out through the front when I was sitting in the back. We had so many adventures in the Holy Moldy (including getting lost in it very often, since all of us who used it were out-of-staters), 

I couldn't leave out a photo of it. 

(Thanks for the picture, Emma!)

We got to work early Monday morning in the parish hall. The first thing Tamara did was to present to the Washington crew a replica of our own new statue of "Our Lady of Ignite," as we call her.

That day and the next two days, there were endless meetings and consultations.....

The cell phones never stopped buzzing and ringing, and there was a big table around which was seated a large group of people, each with a laptop, furiously keying away. Others were folding shirts, sorting name tags and making lists.

These sights and tasks were very familiar!

Some of the volunteers and we ate at a nearby park on Tuesday evening. 

Left to right, Flannery, Priscilla, Josh, Lauren, Tamara, Emma, Molly and Angelle.

Joseph entertaining Josh's and Katie's twins while daddy worked v-e-r-y late

Finally the group bags were all packed.....

And the U-Haul set off. Oh, so familiar.

Joseph, Tamara, Angelle, Emma taking a break before we left

On the way to the conference site, I saw Mt. Rainier for the first and only time. I was so excited!