Kadi Bishop Reflects on Her Abbey Program Experience

Exciting, Eventful, Scary, DRAMA, Adventure, and Friendship! These are the things that come to mind after being at the Abbey and with my Abbey 2010 class for 3 whole months. I never would have expected to grow and challenge myself as much as I did during those three months away from the states. Our first trip we were supposed to go to Bacelona, BUT the France airline Ryanair thought otherwise (they were on strike). So the 7 other girls and I had a weekend in Paris together:) what a great life we had! I mean not everyone can say oh darn I can't go to Spain THIS weekend so I guess we'll just have to stay in Paris! lol.... It ended up to be a very fun and interesting weekend even though we did have a little bit of trouble getting home on Sunday because the trains weren't running because the wind was blowing too hard... but we managed:) that's what ya gotta do! When we finally made it home (to the Abbey of course) we jumped for joy when we saw Jess again because our "MOM" was there to pick us up at the train station haha... But you'll find that even if its a day trip or your three week long break away from the Abbey; when you come back to the Abbey it will feel like Home. We spent countless days reading, sunbathing, and playing kickball out in the Hershey Kiss fields when we had free time or just didn't want to do homework haha... There is NO stress when your there its just a fact! I mean you have the wonderful weather, the amazing village of people who love you, the best area to go for walks, and your surrounded by Proffesors, Faculty, and Students that love you as well. It's a huge FAMILY that you'll never want to let go. I remember when we were on spring break and my friends decided to do this 98 joke or this thing called SERVE and when we all got back to the Abbey it caught on very quickly we even had Jess and the Professors doing it. Another memory that it stuck in my mind Forever is when we did the Ghost Walk of Pontlevoy. Every student came together and worked on this project with the wonderful help and guidence of our Professor Ariel Beaujot:) She was an amazing teacher and friend to all of us. But the Ghost Walk ended up being a huge success. We had around 120 people come to the event. I put together a night for all of the students and staff to get together and do a talent show which ended up being a very exciting night! We had singers, dancers, gymnastics, and interpretive dance:). haha Annah did such a great job!

Now that I'm back home it's a completely different lifestyle. I miss all my friends, food, and my daily walks in the village. They tell you how much of a shock it is when you go to France and they warn you about how much you will hate leaving France. But it's all on you with how you handle the trasition back into reality. Back to school, work, church, friends, ect. it takes a while to get back into a rutine and to figure out what you want to do with you life because when you leave the states you know who you are, but most people really find themselves after being at the Abbey. Sometimes you end up changing the way you think about life completely or you may never want to leave France (and don't). All I have to say it that Lord really helped me figure out how to get to France and He has helped me how to live without France. It is tough but we all must come back to reality sometime:)