During my time here at the World Meeting of Families, I have met many interesting people from all walks of life. To follow are just a few of the people I met so far today.

In a breakout session she shared with her husband, Dr. Joseph C. Atkinson of the John Paul II Institute in Washington, DC, Nancy Atkinson, spoke about the family as the "hewer of the hard stone of reality."

While her husband worked, she stayed at home and "did the lab work" of raising a family even while being a wounded woman in her own right. An especially poignant part of her presentation was how the loss of her father early in life created a cloud over her life. It was "a loss that colored my whole existence and left deep seated insecurities. I was 21 before I could relate on a personal level to God as my father. This was result of ongoing healing and conversion to Christ."

But it took time. She was in her early 50s before she experienced the healing of her inner brokenness. This resulted in difficulties in her marriage, but with the help of God's grace working powerfully in her life, she - and her marriage - were able to heal.

 

Just outside the room where Nancy spoke, I ran into Luz Ramos of New Haven, Connecticut who had been praying about wanting to se the pope. signed up as a volunteer and hoped for th ebet. a friend said she  said I'm going Monday and I have an extra room. She thought she meant just two beds in one room0 but it was a room in a very beautiful hotel "romantic" which is where I'm staying! I keep telling people God has a sense of humor because this is the kind of place that in a million years I would never be able to stay in!"

Three young seminarians from St  Charles Borromeo and Mundelein Seminary in Chicago were also very interested in learning not only about the famliy, but how to best communicate Church teaching about this most integral part of society to an increasingly secular world.

"John Paul II said the family is the domestic church," said Christopher Tipton of St. Charles. "This is an essential part of what we belieive. We need to fully understand the family so that we can better educate others to empowered them to take on this faith and pass it on to others."

Richard Lyons, also of St. Charles, loved how the speakers drove home the point of how the family is the living image of God here on earth. "I'm especially interested in how to incorporate family life into the priesthood and the priesthood into family life," he said.

Ryan Adorjan of Mundelein Seminary was impressed by Cardinal Robert SSarah's keynote address earlier in teh day in the day in which he spoke about how God is a community of persons. "Essentially, if we're made in His image, we're made for community and the first community is the family. If that community is not emphasized or off-kilter, that's going to impact our whole life. So the whole family together, parents and children, must be centered in the family of God. If it is, then this becomes like a springboard that lays the foundation to go out and evangelize the world."

People from all ove the world are experiencing the WMF in their own way. For Mariot Arenas Ramos from Cancun, Mexico, who is here with her husband, Orlando, and three young children, she is interested in learning how to strengthen families at home.

"In Mexico the role of the father has disappeared," she said. "We're learning more about the family here and how to reverse that trend."

Mariot is a homeschooler, which is almost unheard of in Mexico. "They say 'you are crazy to do that. Your children will be apart from others. They just don't understand."

Hopefully, she will go home with many new ideas about how to convince others about the beauty - and necessity - of holy and healthy family life!