Thought as I'd posted a whole bunch of old stuff off of myspace on here. I'd actually bother to write something new on here and something original!
so here goes. I don't completely know what to write, and as I've said often enough before, I would be surprsed if anyone actually took the time to read this, let alone comment on this! so yeah....
I have been saying for ages that I have to write something in reflection of youth work retreat, but I don't think I have anything to say and the only things I have got are many photos with many more to come (hopefully) and many great (and some not so great) memories of the time away! I got to know so many more people so much better than I would have if I had not gone. Some of the people that went became the people in which I leant on in the darkest and the lightest parts of the retreat, who I opened myself up most to, and told the most to, and tended to hug the most. I felt extremely loved that weekend, not only by God but extremely accepted by the people around me.
One particular memory that will stay with me for hopefully a longer time yet, is on one night before dinner, I was writing in my notebook as I do, and I had been almost hyperactive the entire day, but then lost energy and felt rather down and rather needing to cry, so I told a friend that I was going to go on a walk and to my surprise they asked if they could come with. To which, to my surprise, I said yes, so we grabbed a soccer ball and went out walking, I walked in one direction, but then this friend said they didn't want to go toward the people that were in the near distance, so we ended up walking up to the furthest barrier of the campsite and then back, talking about pretty much everything under the sun. I felt thankful that they were there walking beside me, and thankful for the company and the conversation, even though I would've loved to have just walked, listening to music, and been able to cry, but this walk and this conversation was somehow equal to that, and that walk was calming and took my mind off what was bothering me, and let me get it out. I think that friend also felt thankful for that opportunity (well at least I hope they did!). I was so grateful for the hugs and the talks and walks with this particular person!
I also am grateful for the turns about the court with another particular friend, who I felt I could share most things with and they would be there encouragingly! They were able to give me encouragements to share at dead poets, when I did and was able to share a part of myself with others, when usually I would take a back seat!
I could not help but smile one night when I finally got to bed! I was talkin to God and this wave of happiness and smiliness just came over me! It was quite wonderful. I can't exactly remember what I was saying, I can a little bit, but it just made me happy but to think of experiences and past emotions and the good times over the past couple of days!
I can remember taking the longest route possible to get to Tanunda for our wine tasting day and then finding a much shorter road back! all the way there, a friend singing over and over something along the lines of "we're goin to the barossa, we're goin to the barossa", and then on the way back singing "we're all in this together" and the rest of the song by Ben Lee, making up a kind of a dance to it as well, which we then repeated as it got played by the musos organizing the worship (music worship) session (had to define that as I believe that the whole retreat was a time of worship and that we didn't need a certain time for worship). I had an amazing time on the Barossa wine tasting trip, another great memory was when we went into Stanley Lambert wines, in which two friends of mine decided to see how many times they could use my name in that winery. One of them even introducing me to the lady selling the wines and leading people through wine tasting with my last name, which got her asking if i was related to the owners of the winery. Yeah, it was a bit embarrassing.... but i got over it and still managed to have a good time! And because I was the self confessed bit of a wine connoisiuer (or however you spell it) I pointed out good wineries and good wines and grape varieties from whichever winery we were at! I led one of my friends in what to taste and they agreed to try those wines, although I was aware that they weren't a real wine (alcohol) person, so I tried not to subject them to much! One of my friends, who I wouldn't have thought it, actually rather liked wine compared to other alcoholic beverages, although I wouldn't have taken them for that preference and would've thought they were more of a beer person! Yeah... twas a good day
Another memory I have from retreat was the dancing lessons that we partook in the night I was feeling rather down. It started with me trying to teach a friend to spin, and then us both going into interpretive dance, to other friends coming in and then one of them teaching the rest of us to do pirouettes and ballet turns, to us all doing interpretive dance, to us learning how to ballroom and salsa dance. to even more people getting involved and us just putting on music and dancing. Ever through this, the people sitting around the bonfire were watching us, as it was like Big Brother (in some ways). This was rather weird as I only found about this later after the dancing had ended!
Dead poets was quite fun!
Will write more later.
Getting rather late and I kind of want to get to bed and finish reading Anne of Green Gables!
Cheerio (and no I did not get this off of Postman Pat)
Jess
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