Campus Retreat/ICMC Friday-Sunday

Wow!!! What a trip! I just got back from the campus retreat and while being there, I saw a completely different side of Indonesia! I have the pictures uploaded on Facebook, I hope you are dncouraged by them! I also took pictures of today as well, Sunday, but they are on Jenny’s camera, so she will upload them unless she gives the pictures to me and I will have them uploaded tonight. OK…..

Thursday, we woke up super early. Ok, we have been doing this for the past 3 days! We would go to bed extremely late and wake up extremely early! This was not good especially heading off to a campus retreat where you are supposed to be constantly fired up and encouraging people!!!! I will get to more of that later….

We were supposed to leave Mandy’s house by 6am to head off to Bandung. Well, we didn’t wake up till 5:15….. oops…..

So none of us take a shower. We are all rushing to get packed and ready for this excursion and rushing to get to Mandy’s place. So we leave at 5:55 and pray that they weren’t going to come pick us up from our place. None of us are talking to each other. We are like zombies trying to get to Mandy’s as fast as walking with bags will let us.

We get there and no one is awake…..well….. that’s funny…. Haha…..So we sit and lay down and wait for everyone else to get ready….. Grandma and Grandpa…omma and ompa right?…..anyway, they show up and have some breakfast, which none of us were in the mood to eat. All we could think about was sleep and more sleep…..We are very tired. So we don’t even leave till about 7:30. In my mind, I always look at how much more sleep I could have had during that time. Haha…. If you know me, you know that is usually the first thing I mention.

So we all head out to Bandung!!! This is where they have all the factory retail stores! Literally…. SUPER CHEAP CLOTHES!!!!! It takes about 2 hours to get there. We listen to a sleep mix I made, which consists of Coldplay and Jason Mraz I would like to add, and yet, none of us can fall asleep now… weird. So we listen to Till Kingdom Come 5 million times on the way, literally, it was on repeat. Peter threw on his headphones. Haha…. not a big Coldplay fan. We talk a little bit, mostly Would you rather questions and random questions we like to ask one another and see what the answers would be.  I got some snacks for the roadtrip to Bandung. If you have roadtripped with me, you know how I role when I am on a roadtrip….

So yeah, we get to Bandung and stop at a mall and go looking around. We go to a pretzel place and get some. I got garlic, which was great. And it came with some lemonade as well. Austin was trying to be encouraging to someone and so he leaned back in his chair and completely took a tumble. And the funny part about it is that it was in complete slow motion. I think someone might have been able to help him, but he seemed to have everything in control…. until he fell. Haha…

So we get some Starbucks, which I still have not had since I have been here. It is the same expensive american price. I don’t know how they get business here, but I have heard that U.S Starbucks is better…

So we meet up with Linda’s Sister and nephew who is the cutest kid ever, and we hung out with them for a little bit.

We then went to the first factory outlet! These stores consist of everything….Aeropostale, A&F, Hollister, AE, Hugo Boss, etc… It had a lot! I was conservative in what I bought. I was going to buy about 3 shirts, then brought it down to 1 long sleeve shirt. It cost about $75,000! What a deal!!! I liked it anyway…

So after some shopping, we all went and had some traditional Indonesian food! It was good for the most part. I loved the rice….. For some reason, I love the shrimp here, even from the raw. The legs and shell is still on it. I still like it. It’s great.

So after that, we headed off to one more outlet mall. It was about the same. I found a pair of jeans that actually fit me! It was a great victory. Now I don’t need to buy jeans for the next 5 years! Oh yeah, They are Hugo Boss i believe and I only got them for $200,000! I have never bought a nice pair of jeans for so cheap! I think I did get some other things, but I will need to go find where they are, but they are good We had Peter and Austin do a fashion show for the girls, which was funny to see. They ended up buying the clothes though…..

But on our way off to the car to depart to the retreat, we have an art vendor come up to us. I remember my brother saying something about beinging back some Indonesian art for him! So I was very excited and got some art! Hope you like it Bryce! I almost spent 75,000 on it, but I got it talked down to about 30,000.

So off to the retreat we went! It was great. We slept the whole way! We stopped and got some snacky foods in case we didn’t like what was being served. We all got the same snack, which was strawberry wafers, and we ended up finding out that they were all stale!!! And we all got the same kind! Haha… We thought that was pretty funny. So we are heading off to the place and our driver, Yadi, stops in the middle of the freeway, well, off to the side, and leaves the car and asks for directions on where to go…. Haha….. I was scared, but yet, I am having a mindset I shouldn’t. I am slowly repenting from. But we asked for directions a couple of times and finally we called Moses and he came and we followed him the rest of the way. I really hope you enjoy the pictures that are posted. It was truly a marvelous sight that I cannot put into words. The place we were at was in the middle of tea fields! Mountains of tea fields!!!!

So we get our things settled in for the night and start to talk with the Brothers and Sisters that are already there getting things set up. We buy our shirts, which was $28,000, so I bought a couple to take back home! But they are all Mediums. And medium in Indonesia is a small….. Sorry…..

So we get some food for dinner and start to talk with the people there, building up the relationships with them, getting to know the people there. Frisco is singing for Friday, so I got to go and hear them practice. They had some english songs and Indonesian songs. Shout to the Lord. That was the only one. We hear it a lot. I played some chess with Frisco and someone else… I forget names! I am so sorry!!! I don’t mean to leave people out, I am just really bad with names….. forgive me!!! So yeah, after some chess, all of us head off to bed!!! It was 10:30pm……..

Friday

We awaken at 11:30am. That was sooooo nice to get some sleep! But the bad thing was that we were tired from sleeping in!!!! How can we win this battle against tiredness!!!!???? People weren’t showing up till about 3, so we had some time to wake up!!! I went praying with Mandy! We went to this amazing view of the tea plantation! It was a very inspiring place to pray.

After that, we went and waited. Waited for everyone to show up!

I need to go get ready to head to the Single’s Talent Show and Bible Bowl, but hopefully I will be able to come back tonight for me, morning for you, and finish off the weekend. Love you all!

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