It's Not a Retreat Without the Element of Adventure

Here is a recap of our weekend. It was crazy, but fun. Definitely something that you would find in a book...well, maybe. Anyways, if you want to hear about our retreat read below (it's long...):

We arrived Sunday night at the place we were going. The bus dropped our students off a few blocks away and then drove the Americans and our “translator” (a national friend of ours who works on that campus) to the hotel. It was nice. A lot of little restaurants and places to hang out. Probably because the campus is the only thing out there! So we got to our hotel and weren’t there five seconds before the manager/owner started pushing and pulling us upstairs as fast as he could. A little bewildered we go upstairs without checking in or anything and are immediately separated into our respected groups (married couple, boys, and then girls) and thrown into our rooms. Finally, our ‘translator” came back to tell us that the hotel is not allowed to have foreigners stay there. Our friends had made reservations ahead of time and supposedly the owner said it was ok then, but now it’s not ok. In East Asia, hotel managers have to register all foreigner activity with the local police. However, because this hotel is not allowed to have foreigners, he did not take our information or anything. He did give our translator specific instructions for us to be careful leaving and entering the hotel. If the police were to see us, then he could get in trouble and fined. So, he asked us to only leave and return when necessary. Uh, ok. He also asked us not to wander around his hotel because he didn’t want the other guests knowing foreigners were staying there. Hmmm… so finally, Jason and Rose and the boys made it over to our room and we had a good laugh about being under “house arrest” for the next two days. Later, the students arrived, but to keep our cover we weren’t allowed to communicate with the students in the hotel. So we’d see them in the hallway and pretend they weren’t there. At one point, the manager came to our door and was trying to ask us questions, but we couldn’t understand him. One of our students almost stopped to help but then remembered and left us to hand gesture with the owner. The rooms were nice, much better than our last retreat so I was happy.

The next morning the manager brought us water and breakfast (because he didn’t want us leaving…) and then after the students had their morning meeting (which we couldn’t go to), we left to go and eat lunch together at 11. After lunch we went and visited a Catholic Church/Monastery that has been there for a really long time (or something like that J). It took us awhile to figure out how to go up the mountain to the Church, but we finally figured it all out. It was really hot that day so many of us were in tank tops and flip flops. Upon arrival at the Church we learned that we couldn’t wear flip flops or tank tops inside, except that foreigners were allowed to wear flip flops, just nationals couldn’t. So after much trading of shoes and jackets we got inside. They were in the middle of mass. It was interesting. Most of our students had never been to a church before and it sparked great discussion afterwards about church history and what true fellowship looks like. What it means to follow Christ versus religion and sacraments. I was surprised that you had to pay about $5 to get to it and go inside, which made me think that all the attendees of the church paid that amount to go there.

After the church we went back and ate dinner and then headed over to our “translator’s” house for a talk on evangelism and games. Michelle, Kelley and I led the games. We had them play Mafia. For those of you who don’t know it’s a game with different personas: Doctor, Detective and Mafia, who are trying to eliminate each other. The Mafia are killing people off, the doctor’s trying to save those being killed and the detective is trying to figure out who the mafia is. It was really fun and the students loved it. We were worried about playing cross culturally, but it turned out great.

Tuesday morning we were again under house arrest until lunch. We didn’t eat lunch with our students because they went out to go and share with others on campus. Since foreigners aren’t exactly common on this campus, we just hung out and played Phase 10… By this time we got good at wasting time in the hotel. Between reading, cards and making fun of the East Asians with the British accents on the English Channel we were entertained. It’s amazing, on East Asian sports news they only ever report about when EA wins tournaments. It was weird. They kept reporting two “obscure” sporting events over and over just because they had won. We heard nothing of other sports. Interesting…

That afternoon we went to a park, which was fun. We played ultimate Frisbee, tossed around the football and bought a kite. We also ended up sending one kid to the ER for stitches. They were playing soccer and he ran over to get the ball on the concrete surrounding the field. He slipped in a puddle and smacked his chin on the pavement so hard it was a clean split. In fact, the doctor told our national friend Elle (who took him to the hospital) that he could see the bone! Our friend, you can call him LJ, got 6 stitches and a shot. It was awesome. The guys of course have it all documented on film. That night we returned to our translator’s house for sharing. It was all in East Asian, but I caught a few pieces and overheard a little of what was being translated. It was amazing how God used our students and showed them His love!

Wednesday morning the students had a rap time and then we ate lunch and left the hotel. It was a great weekend. Challenging with all the security stuff, but it made for an adventure nonetheless. There were a few times when the security guards were watching us and we had to double back to get to our hotel, or sit on the curb until they looked the other way and then make a mad dash for the door. It added an element of adventure, and actually turned out good because they didn’t take down our passport information. It was also an amazing time of building community. As Americans, we do community a little more naturally than Asians do. This time, however, we weren’t with them all the time, so they were forced to build community amongst themselves. It was great for them to learn to build relationships and become brothers and sisters in Christ.