Five days, two retreats

I want to write about last week and weekend before it gets swept away in the midst of the present and the urgent. It's already starting to fade a little in my memory, especially the first two days, so it's time on this dreary, cold, and wet Saturday, to write.

Last Wednesday I went to a women's retreat. Many of the women who come look forward to this all year. It's the one time in the year that they get to gather with others who speak English and be ministered to. It was a difficult time to hold a retreat, but it was also an encouragement to those who felt able to attend.

Wednesday was a hard day for me. There were so many logistics to take care of. Not only was I going away for four nights, I was going to two retreats, the second one I was in charge of. I also had a van-load of women I'd volunteered to take up with me. So, lots to juggle. Emotions too. I've got a good friend who's going through an incredibly rough patch. We're in touch almost daily and it's hard to be so far away, sometimes those emotions are getting on top of me at present, Wednesday was one of those days.

It was a great relief to get to the retreat a bit early and have some moments on my own. With school in distance learning mode, I'm not getting much time on my own at present, nor alone time with David: it's not easy.

I went for a walk before breakfast on the first day, this
pond is close to the retreat centre.

The highlights from the women's retreat that stick in my mind are two-fold:

1. People I met and had good conversations with. That's usual for this retreat. I was able to take some time to step away from the busyness of life and process where me and my family were at the moment.

2. Worship. Both together with others. Crying through English worship songs (singing in English in a group is something I miss). Working hard to calm my heart and soul to be still enough to listen to God during the "Morning Stillness" time after breakfast. I dwelt on Ps 46 on the second morning: We do not give way to fear because we know God has overwhelming power and he is our refuge, strength, and is ever-present. Therefore we can be still. 

Backed up by the speaker who spoke on the story in 2 Chron 20 in one of her three talks. Vs 12 is especially poignant: (King Jehoshaphat prayed) "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you [God]."

The retreat was over all too soon and I was hurtled into being responsible and looking after others, rather than being looked after!

The house we used for our writers retreat is an OMF holiday house (the same one we went for holidays twice last year). It is more suited to families than gatherings of unrelated adults, but our group of 13 managed okay. The trickiest thing was that due to the risk of pipes bursting in winter, the water gets turned off and pipes emptied. We had to turn them on, and then off again at the end of the weekend. It wasn't a straightforward task and one of the three apartments never did get the hot water going. 

I slept in the loft. Which had a great view over
the main gathering area, but unfortunately
 meant I couldn't go to bed early and, on the
first night, when I slept very lightly, I heard
every toilet-flush (bathroom was under the loft).

I am so thankful that I had outsourced catering to another writer, so I didn't have that to deal with, but I really could have done with someone who could take care of practical matters such as water and packing cars (thinking my husband would be perfect for the job, but he was at home with our teens). I am also thankful that people generally rallied around and helped when they saw the need: washing up, drying, heating up left-overs etc. In many ways it was quite casual, like a big family event (minus the tensions that arise in families).

The retreat came together in such a way that made me feel like I was a maiden following in God's footsteps, rather than someone pushing my own way through the dense forest. So I had high expectations and they were exceeded!

I had three goals:

1. To provide a space for people who write to get away and do that.

2. To energise writers by getting them together.

3. To offer my help with writing/editing, if people wanted it.

To do that I put these things into the schedule:

• we started each morning with a devotion and time to pray
• plenty of time to write
• time to get to know one another, of course living in close proximity helped a lot
• a warm-up writing activity on Friday night
• time to exchange writing by reading something out and getting other's feedback in a group (scary, but very helpful)
• a time to talk about common problems I see as an editor (eg. flabby writing)
• one-on-one time with me to talk about their writing

It was the last of these that was most surprising to me. I've never done this before, and was surprised that people seemed to want it. I ended up talking to most of the attendees individually for about half an hour each. We talked about all sorts of things, including how to reduce repetition in a piece of writing, structural issues, publishing routes, talking through an idea for a children's book, how to improve a devotional, and how to learn more about writing and publishing. I heard writers talk about where they were on their writing journey just now, and what they hoped for the future. One of the writers brought his 10-year-old daughter and she amazed us all with her writing. I even got to sit down with her and we talked writing for half an hour too. I found it exhilarating and scary, challenging and exhausting.

In fact the whole weekend was incredibly intense for me. Of course that is me, I am not the calmest, most laid-back person you will have met, especially in a group setting where I am in charge. But somehow God enabled me to do it, even with not enough sleep.

Saturday night was a free night. I believe some people wrote, but several of us ended up playing a creative pictionary crossed with Chinese-whispers type game. We sat around a table, each with a piece of paper. We had to write a phrase at the top of the paper, then pass it on. The next person had to draw the phrase, then fold the paper over so the third person who got the paper could only see the picture, not the written phrase. And so it continued. Alternating between writing and drawing. We ended up with some hilarious results. The phrase I wrote was "It was a duct-tape kind of day" and went through cannons firing planks to finally a rabbit combing paper! I cannot take credit for organising the game, but it was definitely a highlight. Life has been pretty serious of late and the opportunity to laugh loud and long was very therapeutic.

On Sunday afternoon I not only had to facilitate the closing up of these three apartments (bringing these writers down from the heights of creativity) but I had to drive back on Sunday afternoon. To be frank, that was a bit scary. By then I was running on coffee. I wasn't falling asleep at the wheel, but I wasn't in the best of conditions. I'm thankful that one of the writers who travelled back with me volunteered to take a driving shift (it was under 2 1/2 hrs journey, but still, when you're tired that's a long way).

The four days away took a lot out of me, but I don't regret doing them at all. In fact I want to organise another writer's retreat, sooner, rather than later. But I'm waiting on God's leading on that. 

Mostly I'm just grateful that I'm able to use the gifts and experience that God's given me to serve others. Even at the women's retreat I was able to help others with something of my experience. On the Thursday night they had a panel of experts, and asked them questions mostly about missionary life. Audience participation was invited. I was able to tell a little of my journey to being a missionary-editor (it's an unusual speciality for a missionary). It's a journey that began at this same retreat about 13 years ago. I was also, in a different portion of the evening, able to tell ladies about some of our strategies for staying mentally healthy when discouragement come knocking. Two things I do is setting up lily pads (enjoyable planned events, like holidays, or even coffee dates) to look forward to and finding things that you can do where you are that you can't do in your home country (from something simple like a food you can buy here, to something complex like camping).

Anyway, that's enough words. In fact I've typed more words than I got to write during the whole writer's retreat! One of these days I'll go on a retreat where I can do the writing.