Hi, I’m back from my Graceland Young Adult Retreat. This was our 1st retreat for young adult ever. (before it use to be just a snow trip). This will actually be a good post, because I’m double checking my writing. So it should be really easy to understand. =)
I wanted to uploaded this random image that I took from behind the 3D transformers glasses for the bubbles. We will get to it later.
For the ride down there I took Ephraim and Diana. We letf pleasanton around 4:30pm. As we were driving up, we decided to eat at someplace in glen ellen (haha, a bad call). So we get up to glen ellen, and find out there really isn’t any food there. Finally, I’m right in front of the street that will go straight up to the campsite. This is a private road, which means there is no more food places. Looking right, we see a mexican deli, so I drive over there. It was so good, becuase I was so hungry. I had 3 chicken tacos, a steak taco, and beef tongue taco. The guy cooking recommend me in ordering the beef tongue, it felt like I was eating beef stew beef, that tongue just slid into my stomach.
Ephraim was having bad allergies, so that is why there is a roll of toilet paper. Don’t worry if you sit in my car, I actually have tissue paper. And my car did not get a dent from me sitting on it, if that thought cross your mind.
Lenguna Taco – Tongue (top right)
Steak Taco
First interesting story of the night. Driving up to the campsite on that road was pretty scary at night. It was essentially a one lane road, that cars would both go up and down on. As I was going up one of the hill with my lights on, the next thing I see is a truck come over the bend on the other side. Ephraim (he’s 19, and I think he’s driven 6 months) is freaked out, (we think he saw his life flash before his eyes). Raises both his hands up, and it was a good thing he didn’t hit me. I just move to the side and get around that truck. However it was so funny talking to Ephraim right after that, becuase he went “thank goodness you were driving and were so calm, if that happened to me I’m not sure what I would have done”. =)
So I’ll give a quick/long recap of what the retreat was about. This year the retreat was at Valley of the Moon Camp, in Glen Ellen, CA.
The theme was “Unleashing God’s Power in Marketplace Life”. We wanted to convey the idea of how powerful God is, and that everything is already done by God, and we have to do is tap into it. Which is what the word “Unleash” conveys. , where God is “unstoppable”, and all that is required is for us to just focus on God and use it. When I was throwing out that word, I had the font cover image of the video game “Force Unleashed” with all the power coming from the character’s hand. Dustin really liked that word so that was the “main idea” of our retreat.
Then the main title was “Going Viral”, on the paper it is suppose to be a play on the youtube image. As for the title, we were thinking about how something that is viral spreads fast and from people to people. Kind of like an epidemic, or some unstoppable force.
So overall, our theme was to help prepare everyone to live out their Christian life in their school, work, and how to also be able to share confidently about the Love of God to co-workers and students.
That place was especially muddy, we couldn’t figure out why, but somehow there was always water streaming into the campsite, because the field was wet and muddy the whole entire time. Even though there was no rain for the past week. =).
Friday night was really nothing, just a free night and letting people come in and set up. In my cabin was assigned 3 guys, but the funny thing was when I went in there, I saw 4 sleeping bags in the room. There are 4 bunk beds in each of the room. So that meant I had to get a top bunk. Which is important for the next story.
Not too great of a picture but that is the right side of the building, on the left side is the one bunk i’m in, an right behind that slight partition in the wall is the other bed. So I was sleeping the first night in the top right bunk (seen in the picture). If you look to the left right under the window, it looks like a power outlet. Which is where I plugged in my phone, because the outlet on the other side was used up by the other 2 people.
We did figure out who the extra guy in the room was, it was Dennis. He thought that cabin B1 & B2 were connected to each other with no wall, becuase there were two entrances into Cabin B1. So we did try to figure out what to do.
1) I could go sleep in his room?
2) Put his stuff outside the door?
3) I just sleep in the top bunk?
So I sleep in the top bunk.
Now for the story, The first thing that was missing when we were all the campsite was the projector. No one had packed the projector so Dennis and Dustin went back (2.5 hour round trip) to pick up a projector from Dana’s Cousin in Richmond.
It was around 12:00am, and I was setting up the phone for a 7:00am alarm for nathan in my cabin. Lights were out at around 12:10 and we were all starting to fall asleep. Just as I’m drifting to fall asleep, I hear my ringtone go off. It startles me away, and I”m thinking “I need to get to the phone”. I’m not really clear what I did, but I essentially jumped from the top of my bunk to the one right next to it. Startled Nathan, then I climbed down and picked up the phone.
Found out that the code to get into the camp did not work, and Kristina (who was the one that really had all the info to the camp) was asleep and not picking up her phone. So they asked me to drive down there, and that would trigger the gate open. The 10 minute drive down the hill, and I’m at the gate and it is slowly opening up for them. I blink my light at them, like in those chevron car commercials like we were talking to each other. Then I followed them back up to the parking lot, and go to sleep.
(I’ll continued this later)
