Vermont Tres Dias Weekends August 2022

We recently completed our Men’s and Women’s weekends (Thursday-Sunday), the first since COVID hit and Vermont shut down in March of 2020. Our teams had formed, and we had been meeting and planning for the upcoming weekend.

As the time drew closer and Pilgrim’s applications were coming in, we found we had 3 men and 9 women. We decided to continue with this small number of Pilgrims. Then as the days drew closer, one man became ill. So we were down to two men. We also found ourselves in a venue we never used before and holding a weekend during a different time of year – summer as opposed to fall.  We had a skeleton team of faithful men who were doubling down on “jobs.”

Nevertheless, we had our men’s weekend with the two Pilgrims. What a GREAT weekend it was.

On Tuesday following the weekend, one of the men died of a heart attack; one Pilgrim had gone Home.

You see, many years ago we had set a minimum number of Pilgrims we felt was needed to run a weekend. Then one year the men had met the minimum, but the women’s weekend was cancelled due to lack of a sufficient number Pilgrims. We had applications, just not enough.

At our next Secretariat meeting we discussed this and voted to run a weekend if with even one Pilgrim showing up. Part of our reasoning for this is that the team benefits greatly as well. Even though the team members have been meeting and planning and bonding for several weeks, there is something about being on the weekend – sequestered and all together – that has more meaning and adds growth to each person. And now we are so glad we ran this past men’s weekend. A new Pescadore was blessed and shown the love of Jesus and now he is with Jesus forever.

Editor’s note: In Tres Dias we often say that God brings those He wants on each weekend; after all, these are His weekends, we are just the vessels He uses to demonstrate His love for us all. Do we really believe this? Are we willing to trust God completely? Vermont did and they were blessed, not only by a wonderful weekend for the team and the two pilgrims, but also knowing that they were used by God to fulfill His plan in the life of the Pescador who went Home. What an enormous blessing.