T.L.C RETREAT 2005

I'm baaack.......
There's always that great feeling when coming back from camps...the ride home just seems to take forever.

Church Retreat 2005 was pretty good. Went to Trolak, unknown lil place in Perak.
Well, we young single girls got one bunglo to ourselves, and the first night there was pretty freaky. Me, Weng Yan, Jee Lee and Li Yee shared a room. The bunglo's are abit run down, which was ok by me, BUT there were COCKROACHES!!!!
Imagine this, i went into the toilet to change into my p.j's when one of the girls noticed a roach on the toilet door, i literally leaped out of the toilet and jumped onto the room bed..Then we saw another one on the door. ARGh!!!! By then all of us were screaming,well except for Jee Lee cause she's not afraid of them. Yin Ngai came from the other room and the two of them did a "search and distroy". One of the darn roaches hid itself somewhere so it took about 1/2 hour before the whole thing was over. With plenty screaming in the background of course. Oh, i forgot to mention, the WORST part is it was FLYING roaches... *shiver* Total killed that nite = 4roaches

When it was all over, we pushed our beds together n all slept together, safety in numbers..but of course that meant us not sleeping till quite late, cause as soon as we settled down, one will start talking again and it just goes on and on...

Should people, when sleeping in a group, announce if they're gonna fart? Hmmm...

The sessions were really good. Andrew Cowell is an amazing speaker. He's really dynamic and makes eye contact with everyone when he's speaking. Sadly, my own fault, i was really sleepy at a few of his sessions, so didnt get as much as i could've from him...But he did a very good job, and i think he's one of the best camp speakers to date.

Went for a workshop entitled "From adolescence to adulthood". Was worried at first that it'd be another boring talk, telling me things i already knew, but i was way wrong. Instead, Hoong Cheong split us into 4groups , and gave us each a real life scenario and we were supposed to discuss and comment on it.

Funnily enuff, my group got the BGR topic. The gist of it being Nicola,christian, 26yrs, finished studies, working edi, but put off relationships while studying, but was now ready and looking. A really interesting, fun,adventurous, sweet..etc BUT non-Christian guy is interested in her, and her other option is a boring Christian dude that only askes her to church events and once for chicken rice.So what would we as her friend tell her...?
For some reason my group members didnt think that my suggestions of telling her "to prepare for the worst...spinsterhood" was a good idea.Some of the guys said "She's 26 years old!" i'm assuming they mean she's OLD already...Bleh! But H.Cheong did pose a question,that i thought was so interesting, were Christian guys boring...square...unexciting? Only doing churchy stuff...Hmm, there is some element of truth in that..

Well, Friday night we went to the HOT SPRINGS!!! woo hoo! the whole time before that we were all speculating what on earth it would be like...And laughing bout how it would cause certain things to "mengembang" and "mengecut" hahaha, after a ten minute drive through a pitch black small road surrounded by forest, we arrived there all pumped up. Made noisy grand entrance, *move it, move it!* and when got there tossed slippers off and waded in. It was really nice.. Everyone had a good time, young and old, and it was nice to see the uncle/aunties that were usually prim n proper splashing about...Joshua's t-shirt kept clinging, really clinging to his body everytime he stood up, and the only reason i noticed this is cause he kept LOUDLY declaring it...hahaha... For some reason i got a headache,(according to Samuel,had to do with heart beating faster...?) so didnt follow the others to the hotter dipping pools, just stayed by myself in the main pool.
Though alone, not too bad, bumped into Weng Soon who was doing something interesting with his specs n the water, pretty cool actually, but the most amazing part was he spoke to me! Kekeke, he who never says a full sentence to me actually conversed with me as if i were a normal human being. Then we went to check out the other dipping pools together. Overall, the hot springs is a nice lil place to go, and for RM5 it was worth it lor...its a good place to stop if ever on a road trip.. Only thing is forgot to boil eggs in the water..

Saturday afternoon was Funday, organized by me, Li , Sam n Chris. Till an hour before the thing we still had not finished with all the planning/stuff... That Stress + lack of sleep = headache again..such Joy! Funday was supposed to be at 4pm, but at 3.15 or so, it started drizzling, and by 3.45 it had turned into a full blown storm... Initially, i thought we'd have a problem with too many ppl, but now we faced the problem of no one coming, cause the rooms/bunglo's were scattered all around the resort. But TLC members arent easily put off by abit of rain, and i was delighted to see the first people,a bunch of aunties, come in the hall.. Slowly and steadily the rest trickled in until we had a decent sized group. Actually, it was just nice, not to big nor too small. When the last clap for the last game ended, and ppl started walking out, the four of us just plonked ourselves down, and let out a huge sigh of relief. I personally think everyone had fun, and i think the games we came up with allowed everyone from 5yrs-50yrs to play, so i'm happy with it.

Got back to bunglo after last group discussion pretty tired, and as next day had morning worship, we decided to go to sleep earlier, BUT when Yueen San walked into the room, she saw something moving ON THE PILLOWS , switched on the light and it was ANOTHER BLOODY COCKROACH!!! By that time, we were shrieking again cause it was running about all over our beds and blankets and stuff. Horrible! Ran to nearby bunglo, borrowed bug spray and again Jee Lee and Yin Ngai hunted it down. Sprayed it out from under the bed and splatted it with a slipper. I have NO complaints of the choice of place EXCEPT the roaches... I mean, so many must mean that the place is pretty dirty...eeks!

Today's breaking of Bread service was really good. I enjoyed it because people who usually dont stand up to share, did. Its been quite routine with the same bunch of ppl always getting up to talk. So it was good that others did. Maybe not so scary cause no need to use mike. I dunno. But the last group discussion, about how our worship was, reminded me of how there's SO much room for improvement. Hopefully feedback of discussions will help the leaders in some way.

After a brilliant sum-up and challenge by Andrew, was the evaluation and closing. Even closing was so funny cause an elder unintentionally made a joke about himself , and everyone laughed so much, then turned the joke onto someone else and more laughter followed. Thankfully he stopped before it became too "cruel" a joke, but i really hope the person involved isnt hurt or insulted.

After a rushed pack up, quick dorm photo (well, not so quick actually) left Trolak. Drive home pretty uneventful except for KP accidentally veering off his side of the road and into ours as we were overtaking...Its was like "whats he doing...does he know he's coming very close...ARGH!!!" Then we all laugh laugh laugh. We're a mad bunch. Stopped at Sungai Buluh Bridge for B.King and then continued on home. Thanks again ya, Su, for being our great driver.

Now i'm home. No one's in. Have to write report of Session 4 - the Worldward Priority of the Christain Life is to Evangelise non-Christians. Thank goodness Edwin didnt give a deadline. Only sad thing is mom was using the digicam,so i couldn't take any pictures. Now have to wait for the others to upload and send me theirs.

PS : Adrene and Mun Onn, you guys did great job on the camp theme song...!