On Friday, I left for this year's Religious Life Council Christian Fellowship Retreat. This was my third RLC retreat so far, and I hope to go to one each semester, besides my semester abroad. Our group, I think around 25 of us, gathered at the chapel with blankets, pillows, and bags. After approximately 45 minutes in a school bus, we reached Mountain Dale Farms. It's a great location, though it was too rainy for us to enjoy nature as much as most of us would've liked. Last year, all of the girls stayed in one cabin, but because so many people went this year, a group of us girls slept in a different cabin. This cabin had a really cool loft, where many of the girls slept, but I stuck to one of the bunk beds on the ground. Unfortunately, I've had a cold, and I didn't want it spread by sleeping in such close quarters!
In fact, I got so sick that I practically lost my voice over the weekend. This was a major pain but I didn't let it ruin my retreat experience.
Friday night was mostly spent hanging out and playing games in "The Room of Death," the meeting area with comfy couches and chairs and many mounted animal heads. As groups, we played the knot game, which is when people stand in a circle and grab hands so everyone is tangled; then, the group has to work to free itself from the knot. My group was very unsuccessful--we didn't unknot ourselves once! I also played a game of Pictionary Down the Lane that night, which is pictionary mixed with the game Telephone. To begin, someone writes a sentence. The person that gets the sentence has to do a drawing of it. The next person then, without looking at the previous sentence, has to compose a sentence about the drawing. Everything gets wonderfully convuluted! On Saturday, I also had plenty of time to sit and talk with people, as well as play card games and 20 questions.
Of course, the retreat also had a spiritual focus. Susquehanna's Deacon of Spiritual Nurture, a senior religion major, led our group in sessions about heaven and the concept of heaven on earth. These sessions incorporated Bible study and discussion. For some, we listened to and reflected on songs about heaven. During one session, all of us got a chance to bust out our artistic skills and draw our childhood picture of heaven--it was very hard for me to decide on God's clothing and hairstyle! Saturday night, our structured activities ended with worship and prayer. I was a bit sad that, because of my cold, I couldn't sing along to the worship songs. My favorite part of worship was seeing the skits our different groups made about the Scripture readings. My group updated a parable about a servant inviting guests to his master's great feast to a butler inviting guests to his master's luau! The skits, in all, were very creative.
It was very nice to step away from campus and my routines; I wish I could've been gone longer! Luckily, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's Fall Conference is coming up this month as well, giving me plenty of chances to get away.
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