Encounter!

I mentioned a while back that I recently went on a youth retreat as a sponsor. It took a while for me to gather some of these pictures since I didn’t take a single one the whole time I was there with my own camera- oooops!

The retreat went from a Saturday afternoon until the following Wednesday afternoon. We all met at the Teen Center to load up the vehicles. I was able to organize a van filled with almost all the 12^th grade girls and some of my friends- Kristen and Johanna and Hannah (other sponsors). The ride started out uneventful but then turned into the scariest car ride of my life!

Picture from the road before it started to rain!

It was raining off and on the whole time that we were driving from Ukarumpa to Goroka. But, then, to get to the retreat center, we had to turn right off of the “main” (and only PNG) highway. No one had told me about this side road. Imagine the ultimate 4WD experience without the 4WD. We had about 14 vehicles and only three had 4WD. In fact, one of those vehicles had street tires, so its 4WD capabilities were useless.

So, we all stop at the bottom of this ginormous hill. Each car takes its turn to try and get as high up on the hill as it can go. Then, the 4WD landcruiser hooks up the tow strap and pulls each car up the rest of the way. But, that’s not all. It ended up taking up 2 hours to get to the retreat center. On a dry road, this should have only taken 6 minutes!!!!!! 2 hours, people!

During that time, we had to switch vehicles….which made me so sad. We started in a vehicle that had mud tires at least and ended in one of the worst possible vehicles (a hostel van). We were slipping and sliding and getting stuck the entire way. We went into a ditch and bumped into banks on the side of the road. In the end, the Landcruiser towed us the whole way…..and can I just say that being towed down hill is really scary!! I am surprised that we didn’t hit the car in front of us. We were unable to stop at times….it was traumatic to say the least.

Pictures before it got dark:

My girls were GREAT! They pushed us out of a few tricky spots.

I like to think that I taught them everything that I know!

There I am in INSIDE the car!

I do have to say that I pulled the “pregnancy card”. I sat inside the car the whole time. In the beginning, I actually wanted to push but the driver wouldn’t let me. By the end, I was white knuckling the dashboard afraid I was going to die. At one point, the driver asked me if I would drive so that he could get out and push. I said, “Sure, so long as I can keep the parking break on and then release it when I was ready.” He said that would be fine and put the parking brake on so that we could switch places. Wouldn’t you know….the parking brake would NOT hold and the vehicle started to slip backwards. Worst car ever! There was no way we were going to be able to switch places.

The Land Cruiser was AMAZING! We should have been filming all that it could do. Talk about commercial material. I have never been more impressed with a single vehicle than that day!

Pictures of the ONLY reason we made it up that hill! Above- THE Land Cruiser and Below- Our Driver!

Miraculously, one by one, every vehicle in our party made it to the retreat center. When I got out of the car, I went around to the other sponsors/parents and said, “I will never let MY children go to Encounter! You all are nuts!”

The rest of the retreat was really great. The weather improved. On Saturday, we were all really tired, but we still had a session with the speaker. It was a real treat for me because the speaker and his family used to live here in Ukarumpa and are good friends of ours. I had so much fun seeing them for such an extended amount of time.

The theme for the week was “The Gospel”. And, the talks were intense and deep. One kid put it really well. He said something like this, “So many times, speakers for youth retreats will come feed us milk and sugar and hype us up on caffeine (figuratively) only to send us home with a rush only to crash. But, this speaker gave us the meat of the Scriptures. He knew we could handle it and he didn’t hold back with the theology. It is this kind of spiritual food that will last.” I am not wording it the same way he did, but you get the point.

I enjoyed getting to spend some more one on one time with my girls in my cabin. I love these 12^th grade girls. They have grown SO much in just the short year and a half that I have known them. I am so proud of them because not only are they maturing, but they are all unique and FUN girls. They celebrate each other’s uniqueness and I am so happy to be working with REAL girls who are not just missionary kid robots. They are going to bring so much with them when they go back to their home countries for college. I am excited to see how God is going to use them.

(Kelsey, Me, Eileen, Stephanie, Leslie, Emma and Kaela)

As with any retreat, there were some real break-throughs. I think that our Bible Study group is going to be closer and more real because of this experience. I am praying that God would continue to use me in their lives. It is an honor to be trusted by them….and I thank God for this experience.

The only other thing worth mentioning about the retreat was that Kelly (a college friend who lives here in PNG) and I were asked to be the MC’s for this year’s Encounter Talent Night. My next post will be all about that…(In other words.....let the embarrassment begin.....)