Glimpses on Senior's Retreat 2009

I praise God for the just concluded Seniors' Retreat in Rizal Re-creation Center, Laguna.  After a year rest from partnering in this ministry with Hope Christian High School, I praise God that the school has agreed to partner with the church once again.

God works miraculously in this retreat.  So far this is the most memorable Seniors' Retreat I have attended.  I have had good memories with 2002 and 2004 batches, but this batch is quite unique.  I personally felt they were obedient and very cooperative.  It seems we were able to easily get along with them.  They follow instructions well and cooperates with everyone.  They listen and respect the counselors and staff.  I did not have a hard time asking them to go to their quarters every night.  I was really amazed and love this batch.

The uniqueness I realize from this batch was they really care so much for one another.  They also share so many common interest and they are fond of spending meaningful time with one another.  In every group I visit, I really felt very very welcome.  There were very small problem with some but it were no big deal.

We had four days and three nights in this retreat.  I think there were only one or two batches having 4 days 3 nights retreat.  We had a very different program, moving away from how we use to do camps in our church.  We had two full days of heavy physical activities (we called this physical exercise), and then two full days of reflection and messages (we call this mental exercise).  It seems the changed that were done were really excellent.  I do not know how God made the program that way, we just did it to accommodate our speaker's availability.  The new setup was able to prepare the young people to listen well during the different reflection and messages of the speakers.  They were able to easily related the activities to the messages and were able to get a full grasp of the whole idea of the theme of the retreat - To be Ready for Life.  It's that amazing.

Another area, I wanted to praise God about the change of this program setup was that both staff and counselors were able to rest and bond with the students, listen to the messages and had enough rest because there were no other physical activities on the last two days - except the praise and worship.  It seems because of the whole day of mental exercise, the students need to let go of their steam within, the praise and worship was terrific, you would feel the presence of God and the testimonies were blessings to all of us.  It just showed that our love, care and labor throughout this retreat paid off.  The students were sharing the things they learned from camp, realizations in life, and commitment for change.  We were all indeed blessed.

The staff felt blessed in this camp.  Most of the time, if you are a member of the staff, you felt weary after a camp.  It seems after all the hard work you pour out, you will feel empty and not even spiritually nourished.  But this camp all of us were spiritually nourished, even me - God spoke to my loudly in this camp, which I will share in another blog.  

We had a very different reflection in this camp, reflection itself was activity-oriented in a way it created large impact on the students lives as shared in their testimonies.  The dedication was also done before closing, which was also effective in a way, it became a culminating activity of commitment for the young people after all the learning activities in the retreat.

Praise the Lord!  He worked in our lives and in the lives of the students.