White Sulphur Springs Retreat

We went up to White Sulphur Springs for the Wright-Patterson OCF retreat. We went up Friday, getting stuck in all the "get out of D.C. for the long weekend" traffic, including one terrific construction-induced traffic jam on I-70. We made it to Bedford for dinner, where we met people at Hoss's Steakhouse. My parents were there, bringing back Caleb and Jonathan. It was so great to see them after 10 days apart! They could hardly stop talking about the fun things they did. (Jonathan's first comment: "Luke, I know you'll be jealous, but Grandpa let us have a WHOLE candy bar at a gas station" LOL!!!)

There were a lot fewer people at the retreat than have been previous years, but it was nice to have the small group I thought. Since chapel funding was iffy, they couldn't ask a speaker, so instead we watched some of the Ray Van Der Laan videos, "In the Dust of the Rabbi", which focused on discipleship. In Jesus' day, if you wanted to be a disciple of a master, you were passionately committed to being with your rabbi as much as you could be so that you could be just like your rabbi. It made me think about my level of commitment to that goal, but another point was that Jesus chooses his own disciples, instead of having men come and ask him if they could be his disciples. So he obviously saw in them the potential and knew they could be that passionate about him, and he knows that about us as well, whom he has also called to be disciples. After we watched the videos, we broke up into small groups for discussion.

And of course there was plenty of free time as well. We had a bonfire Friday night, horse-back riding Saturday afternoon, a square dance Saturday night, and rock-wall climbing Sunday afternoon. It's nice that the boys are big enough now to do a lot of things by themselves (well, as a unit, LOL), so we could just send them off to things while we relaxed on the porch and the girls napped. I started a fascinating book called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I'll have to do a separate post on my thoughts on that book. I mainly participated in the "White Sulphur Springs Triathlon": eating, sleeping, and rocking on the porch. It's good to be an athlete.

But now, real life calls. Our co-op has it's kick-off tomorrow, so I have to get up and fix lunch for everyone. I'm so glad I don't have to do that every day of the school year!!