Sunday, April 3, 2011

Young Adults Retreat Weekend

I had one of the most amazing weekends this weekend. It was the young adults group retreat weekend. I think there was about twenty of us that were between 19-30ish, then the speaker (Ben) and the two young adult leaders (Ruth and Andrew) and their kids.

We got there between 6-8:30 on Friday, had a quick session on what we wanted God to do in our lives this weekend, had a fifteen minutes of silence, then we were free till the next morning. We stayed up pretty late (between midnight and 2am playing games (and a few did some dancing as they are getting ready for swing dancing competitions)) We played Dutch Blitz, which I became addicted to (it is sooo much fun).

We were up for breakfast at 8:30 on Saturday, had a session on our calling till 12:30. We then had lunch and then free time until dinner (5:30) so we mostly played volleyball or Dutch Blitz. Then we had free time till 7:30, then we had another session on our calling. That went till after 10, and Ben and Andrew prayed for us (individually) After that we played "Freeze" and "Fishbowl" which were really fun and went till after midnight. Then we played Dutch Blitz and some people danced till about 1-2am

We were up for breakfast again at 8:30, then packed up and had a time of worship and testimony and then headed home. I am going out to Red Robin with some of the other young adults in about twenty minutes.

We learned a lot about our calling (how God has a different (usually longer) sense of timing than we do, and we want everything to be clear now, but He will show us in due time) We learned that we are all on a journey, and that we are being trained right now, that everything we do up until our calling is clear is training for our calling. We watched clips from "Zorro" and "The karate Kid" to show how important training is, and that although it may not always seem to make sense while we are training, in the end we will find that we have what we need.

We also learned a lot about learning to recognize the lies in our lives and how to rebuke them, and to not let the devil get a foothold. (How he tells us that we are all alone, no one loves us, we are not pretty, smart, special...)

It was an amazing weekend and I feel lighter and cleaner and I am really glad that I went.

Starting today, our church is doing a 21 day fast. It can be any kind of fast (media, food, chocolate... and does not have to be for the whole 21 days). We are to replace the time that we would usually use to do that activity (eating, watching TV...) to meditate and read the Bible, and to make a space for God. I am giving up Netflix. I don't have a TV, but when I come home from work, I go straight to my computer and watch Netflix( after showering) until bed time. I am going to start coming home and reading the Bible, and writing in a journal the Bible verses that go with the issues I need cleared up. I feel like this weekend really opened up for me to be able to do this, having been away from my computer and with other Christians for the weekend, it really made me ready to study and worship the glory of God.

Anyways it is time for me to head out for dinner now, so thats it for this post.

4 comments:

Cherylinn said...

Glad you had a great weekend...What is Dutch Blitz?

Laura said...

It is a very fast card game. http://www.dutchblitz.com/
I have only played a few times - definitely not mastered it yet. But then, I can't play euchre either!

Tonje said...

Sounds like a fantastic weekend! - It's how it should be in our lives every day.

Thanks for sharing from your life. That fast thing seems smart. I would like to try that myself!

Starfall Darling said...

Sounds like you had a good time! Being around likeminded peers is always fantastic.