My First Youth Retreat

Well, I survived. It was only 2 nights and 2 days altogether, but it felt like a week. I learned a lot about planning large youth events in big cities. Luckily, we had our faithful office staff to rely on for making reservations for hotel, buses, food, drivers, etc. We also had dedicated and willing parents who went out in Jakarta on the hunt for snacks, supplies, and prizes for 25 hungry youth and adult leaders. We learned that teenagers in Indonesia are even more non-committal than teens in the U.S. Not only were the teens joining/backing out last minute, but the adult leaders were as well. That will definitely require more advanced planning in the future.
We knew the headache would begin with navigating a bus through outbound Jakarta traffic at 6:30pm on a Friday night. On top of that, it was raining = really bad traffic. It took 10 minutes just to get out of the church driveway and onto the street. I knew it was going to be a long ride when the bus driver suddenly jumped out of the bus (without pulling over) and ran around the outside to some storage compartment where he kept the dvds. Luckily, the only one of 3 English movies that was NOT rated R was Mr. Bean - which the kids loved and even provided narration for.

Kid 1: Oh, now he's taking out the test.
Kid 2: There're two tests. He's got the wrong one.
Kid 1: Oh, this is the part with the pens.
Kid 2: Where's the teddy bear?
Kid 3: He keeps pulling out more pens!
Kid 2: Now he's cheating!

Just a tad frustrating. But the 2hr 45min hour bus ride (the earlier bus made it in 1hr 15min) allowed me the time to breathe easy between the stress of loading kids and bags on the bus and unloading once we reached the destination.

After only one turn-around on a narrow mountain road complete with hairpin turns and steep drop-offs, we made it to Gunung Geulis Resort in the mountains of Ciawi, Bogor (south of Jakarta).

After some snacking (thanks to the moms) and a little orientation, we had an exciting game of capture the flag in the dark, on the side of a mountain.

The next morning at 7 am, I woke up the girls (I think my knuckles are bruised from knocking so hard on their doors), and we rode up to the meeting hall in a golf cart to discuss the devotions I had written for them.  They spread out around the resort to spend some alone time with God.

Our breakfast was a yummy spread of fried rice, fried chicken, and french fries.  The morning continued with sessions of worship, lesson, and small group time, as well as team time to decide on a name and cheer.

My team - The Red Cross! (yes, we know the cross is actually white)

After lunch, we kicked off game time by showing off our team cheer.  Games included throwing darts, running around (and through) the swimming pools, and last, but not least, the String Labyrinth of Death!  Game time ended in a rousing game of "dump buckets of water on as many people as you can"!

After a nice hot shower and a little quiet time, we met back up again for dinner and another session.  Most of the kids said this night-session was their favorite.  There was a short message, then a presentation for salvation.  Though no one came forward for that, the Holy Spirit was moving, and several kids came up just to have a leader pray with them.  Then several groups of kids broke off on their own to pray for one another while other kids spent time writing letters to God.
We asked the resort to build us a campfire.  It was very nice - right in the middle of a parking lot.  A little unconventional, but a campfire is a campfire, right?  Before long, every kid had a long stick to play in the fire with.

The last planned event of the evening was a lip-sync competition between the four teams.  Given 45 minutes to prepare, our team finally decided on "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" with 10 minutes to spare.  Yikes!  I believe you can see us in all of our glory on my Facebook wall https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=187701288.  I was falling asleep by this time, so I headed back to my room while several of the guys and youngsters stayed up to play "flashlight kick-the-can."

Sunday morning was another bright-and-early 7am wake-up call for the girls.  We packed our things and drove up to the meeting hall for devotions, breakfast, and our final session.  Before leaving, we had a group photo shoot, stocked up on snacks, and made sure everything fit on the buses.  Then we were off!  I thought for sure the kids would be asleep in no time, but I was wrong.  The chattered all the way home!  I guess we didn't keep them up late enough the night before.

All in all, the weekend was a success.  We've received several messages of thanks from students and parents, kids are continually uploading videos and pictures to Facebook, and they're even talking about the next retreat coming up in April.

To view all of the photos from the retreat:

Verity Retreat Oct 2011