Retreat At Night

When the sun went down at the retreat, the day was still far from over. The first night we had an introductory session that included teaching, a skit, and real life stories of people choosing between God's way and their own. Thereafter the students sat around the campfire and worshipped until 3:00AM (or at least so I hear...I couldn't hack it and had to go to sleep around 2).

The second night the students did something called Spotlight, a retreat tradition that goes back 3 or 4 years. It's conducted like a TV variety/talk show. Two of the older guys, Frank and Patrick (and later a former student, Bob, joined them with a "torch" (flashlight back home) microphone) hosted the show, having people come up and sit in a chair to be asked questions by the hosts and the audience and to sing, tell a joke, dance, or any other display of talent as chosen by whoever chose (be it the hosts or the audience or the guest). I taught them the ever so important word "Yeehaw" (they wanted to know the motto of cowboys and I figured that'd work well enough) and had to sing the national anthem with Kari (whose performance would be far more aptly described as singing than my own as she has such talent and I don't).

One of the most common things they would do to students was to get them up and ask questions about existing, potential, or just made-up relationships. Interestingly enough this was highly embarrassing to the students; even if the student were asked questions about someone with whom he or she had been in a relationship for a long time the student would be hesitant to answer in any way that actually acknowledged any kind of special relationship. It seems that while all the students seem quite concerned with dating relationships there's something cultural that makes them appear embarrassed to be in one.

Once again I was unable to keep up with the students and went to bed around 2:30 (what's happening to me?), but I woke up around 3:30 and could hear that they had switched from Spotlight to worship. Sources say they stayed up until around 4:30. How encouraging it is to know that the students who are already involved will stay up all hours of the night worshipping God.