RETREAT | 003

Both my full retreat weekends landed right in the middle of what is probably the hardest, or at least the busiest month and a half of the program, with Jr High being right as we were starting to plan out the Old Testament film for our next class and writing a major research paper for our previous class, and Sr High happening right at the end of busy week of filming, editing and planning, the retreat weekends definitely provided tons of different challenges in and of them selves.

For Jr High I counseled a group of 7 boys with one of my room mates Zack. I have counseled before, never at Qwanoes but at Imadene, we had a pretty rowdy group of guys, not really wanting to sleep at bed time the first night made for a pretty late night, once they were finally settled in I tried to sleep. The worst night of sleep I've probably had all semester was that Friday night, not because of the campers, but because of everything else going on, my mind was non stop racing, trying to figure out my main points and arguments for my paper, figuring out scenes, and casting and details for the film, and anything and everything else my mind could wander off to. Waking up in the morning I did not feel rested, that night would start the next couple weeks of not getting proper sleep. Our campers that weekend were definitely a handful but they definitely weren't my biggest challenge that week, the biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to prioritize things, not just with my actions but with my thoughts as well, trying to think less about the film and more about connecting with the campers.

My second full retreat was Sr High, having both full retreat weekends back to back probably wasn’t the smartest idea looking back, but they were still the retreats that I wanted to be around for, this weekend I was on media up in Q-Town (Qwanoes version of chapel) and All Star (their program team), although I was working a full weekend since I wasn’t counseling I had a bit more free time to my self, as well as the chance to connect with more then one set of campers, I was able to talk to some during meal and during games, and I had a bunch of different groups come up and hang out with me at archery, that weekend gave me more time to connect with campers as well as connect with my self and spend some time alone.

Being able to take sometime, even if it was just 15minutes during different parts of my day to spend alone trying to figure out this busy season was all that I needed at the time.

Its been a crazy couple weeks, until next time

Take care.