Student Missions Re-Entry Retreat

9-13-09

Friday I went down to Cohutta Springs in Georgia for the SM Re-entry Retreat. I had a fantastic time! A friend of mine (who's done a lot more missions than I have) said it was mostly "an island get-together," but what can I say? The Pacific Islands are well represented among our returning SMs.

I had a suspicion beforehand that it was mainly for us to blab to each other, and I was correct. We split up into groups of three on Friday night, and each one of us was given fifteen minutes to talk. All of us thought that that was an extremely long time, but we each discovered that we were in the middle of a story when our fifteen minutes ended. The next day we spoke about difficulties and fun times and memorable times, and compared our experiences and viewpoints and feelings upon returning. We sang songs and ate meals together. At Friday night's dinner, one of the other groups (a leader from the group of retired church workers) decided to introduce our group and his group to each other--and then made his group clap for us. Me, I thought we should have clapped for them, but whatever. Another of my friends mentioned that "no one had appreciated him for his year of service like that." He thought it felt "weird." Maybe it was. Then again, he and I spent three hours talking about our various years.

I'm a Student Missions Club officer--the publishing coordinator, to be specific--and I am very excited about this upcoming year. You see, the club has a three-fold purpose: to support returned SMs, to support current SMs, and to recruit new SMs. And we have lots of little and big projects in the works that address all three. Sure, it's a volunteer position, but I'm glad to have been picked to fill it. This is going to be a fun year, I can feel it.

More later. I have to study for my first Statistics test.