Ever since my first retreat in 8th grade, LYF Retreat has always been the highlight of the fall. It is time when I can leave and neglect the world and focus on my heavenly father. This year hasnt been any different, I signed up on time for the retreat and was anxiously counting down the days. However this year's retreat did bring about new experiences, primarily due to my involvement in the planning process. Thank you Christine Cho for cutting me some slack and let me in the team as a late entry :)
I, along with Dan,Liz,Esther,and Maggie made up the prayer team. We were responsible for creating an optional time dedicated to prayer in the morning. We named it THEodessey, consisting of different station including reflection, confession, praise, and intercession. All that led to the final station which is situated in the waterfront where me and the other prayer team took prayers for ppl. but i am getting ahead of myself :(
the week leading up to lyf retreat was awful. i just felt wicked rusty and sad all the time, it was not pleasant at all! i yearned for it to come sooner but with god's help i made it thru the week and came crashing into the retreat. the night prior i was making my poster for the praise station. as i was searching for verses to put on the poster, i got a feeling that this weekend will be special. friday was a half day for me, so i cruised thru school and work and found myself on the bus GOING TO BECKETT MA!
As expected, i encountered no problems feeling his presence, away from everything of the world. friday night was a blur. but one problem i was having was dealing with the new location. lakeside has always been the home for lyf retreat and coming to a new setting took some troubles adjusting to. in lakeside, it was truely LAKE side, i mean the lake was right next to us regardless of where we were. there were much more greens in BCCCYMCA. the problem did not last though, his presence is prevalent regardless of location and the new place was necessary to accomodate the large size of lyf.
Devotion time was practically non existent. the only times we had was saturday morning. but i found it hard to concentrate because of the noises around, adding to my dislike of the new location :(
Morning session was about relationship con amigos. bum talked prefaced the message by explaining the current situation of friendships in america. americans determined friendships out of self need, making it more of a consumer friendship (always me first and concentrated on the satisfaction of self needs) as opposed to sacrificial friendships which us christians r called to make. this was also the time when he introduced the 100/0 concept. giving 100% to the other regardless of how much we receive back, even if we receive none. i felt like the message was redundant to me. i have always understood this concept and i was seeking more ways of application. i mean there is a huge difference between understanding and actually doing. simply put, we know we shouldnt sin, but we continue to despite the knowledge that we possess on how sin is bad and unglorifying to god.
Night session was about relationship with family. sacrificial love still remains the anchor of this relationship. in our situations, asian parents went through ample trouble and hardship to establish firm footing in a new country to provide what they think is the best environment for us. one that is safe, one that will not allow us to get picked on. they will that we receive the best education we can get to provide us with the skills to "protect" ourselves, not wanting us to struggle like the way they did. us kids misinterpret their love for anger and hatred. we fringe at the thought of bringing home a D+ in math, fearing of being whipped by a bamboo stick. similarly we cry at the fact that our parents never directly state "i love u" to our ears. but we fail to realize that true love is displayed through actions and not words. if evaluated by actions, our asian parents love us just as much if not more than stereotypical white parents. sending us to SAT classes, piano classes, and violin classes r all actions taken by them to express their love. asian parents show love by providing. y else do u think they're sooo willing to buy us anything we ask for as long it is academically related? with all that said, i along with many others still struggle with communication to parents. to solve this issue we must endlessly pray for the gift of translation.
we must be careful as to whether our parents' view is in accordance with God's
sunday morning session talked about relationship with God. In order to build strong relationships with friends, family, we must maintain a good relationship with god our number one love. bum stated that we must be bold in proclaiming our faith, willing to sacrifice self for others' good, and capable of making decisions in agreement with god's. he also touched on the point that in order to grow spiritually, we must experience trials and tribulations. applications include the have enthusiasm for worship, start school prayer meetings, and be willing to witness to others.
sunday night session was about dating relationships. i found this one especially relevant ._.
he started out clarifying the vast differences between the crushing zone and real love. our needs and desires for romance distort the real image of love. true love is characterized by, surprise, SACRIFICIAL LOVE. going 100/0 regardless of the situation. it was helpful to listen to this message but at the same time scary. maintaining a 100/0 relationship while keeping myself lust free and completely honest seems nearly impossible to do in 21st century america. thankfully bum cleared up all confusions when he said that we must keep steer our hearts in the direction of purity with the notion that the holy spirit will fill the rest of the gap. because we r no where near perfect, we need his help to achieve true sacrificial love. when our intentions r pure and right, and we never cease to pray about the subject, genuine love is possible :) prerequisites for dating includes being 100/0 with god first, and then with friends and families, and then establishing firm accountability within the christian community. this is a hard task and we need our peers who r also struggling to help us carry on. how do we know when we the person we have feeling with is the one we can date? wait for the crush to fade and dip into the sacrificial love zone, if it resurfaces to the crush zone once more, it is a good sign that we r ready :)
small group time was special. josh feng was quite the leader. ben,brian,dave thank u all for sharing ur thoughts. i hope peer counseling time was enjoyable and u all benefited from it. josh thanks for providing leadership and sharing with us even your own past experiences. our 1 on 1 time was truely enjoyable as we talked about everything that was on my mind, u helped me to clear up many confusions. i hope that u r doing allright with the current market situation! westford for life!
prayer team. i enjoyed all the time this weekend we had together. all our prayers will not be neglected by him, keep trusting in that he will deliver the answers with time and patience from us. response time was beyond powerful, it started out shaky cuz ppl were again looking around to c if anyone will initiate. once chris huang made the first step to confrontation with others, the rest followed as part of a chain reaction. there was freedom in the room. friendships were healed, rekindled, and made stronger. i hope and still pray that this can contribute to bring more unity to lyf.
worship. ever since costa rica i felt no restraint during worship time. i freely expressed myself during this time of singing praises. i thoroughly enjoyed worship this retreat. there was nothing negative about it at all. standing next to a bunch of brothers and sisters praising our father, as we dwell in his presence, being held onto his arms, tasting his sweetness and love, i thought "what could be better than this? heaven will be awesome, cuz we'll be there singing his praises forever, and ever"
cabin. this yr i roomed with josh in addition to five 7th grade boys. they could not be better and were huge blessings. every single one of them. matthew, jonathan, kevin, franklin, and jason. the last night we went around and had a long moment of prayer. all of them prayed . i can truely feel the fire and passion inside their hearts and i think they all have potential to be future leaders in lyf. the basketball game - when i saw them working together as two units i saw truely how unified they r and now reflecting back it reminded me of the current struggle with unity in lyf.
cho cho - thank u for fascilitating everything. it must be frustrating to deal with a bunch of teenagers. esp those of us that r stubbornly unwilling to give ground on our ideas (planning). once again thanks for letting me in the team!
da niu (dan yuan) - thanx man for bringing up *that* to me. i apologize for all previous accounts. ur such a warrior. u pray with passion and zeal like i have never seen be4. pleasure working wit u
esther - great talk with u sunday night. same thing, please forgive me for all previous accounts.
maggie - great times serving on prayer team wit u. continue to grow and i hope u develop more of an immunity towards coldness :) o yea we need to find u a new GE GE!
liz - thanks for all the things u have said to me during and after the retreat. our last retreat turned out to be pretty darn decent right?
sun - hey man, dont ever think negatively bout urself bro. u r excellent as a person and i am glad i have known u soooo much better over the course of the last few months. leet DJ skillz
jon chan, pmac, chris huang - we shall continue man talk as we kickoff our accountability group. chris thanx sooo much for those long talks outside the cabin. i hope my words helped to bring clarity to u. and i am sooo glad to be a big bro to u
katie - thanx for the talk as well as spending time to think of the answer, it helped alot :)
christina - those 30 minutes of talk opened up new dimensions and unlocked doors.
kevin ge - man please forgive me for my rashness and immaturity :( ur my bro and i just wanna c the best out of u. i am here for u always. my words r not accurate indicators of my intentions cuz i struggle with putting expressing things into words
cpan - biffle! altho we didnt talk as much as i'd like us to, i am glad we cleared up many things and AHH I CANT WAIT WHEN WE GO TO BU TOGETHER
josh lin - ur the future chris tomlin. man keep it up! thanx for the talk saturday night and coleading bed time blessings.
spencer li - dang dawgus u were there for me when i most needed u. i didnt get a chance to apologize for all that i said previously that might of hurt u :(
nathan W - thanx for that LONG talk and sharing with me some of ur past :)
LLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON
Jesus we're livin for ur name, we'll never be ashamed of u!
In Christ
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