Going On Retreat

On boat heading to goat island

The month of fasting has arrived. With it people expect life rhythms to change, for restaurants to close, and for people to be generally grumpy.  So just before the month of fasting begins, people want to party.  In a subtler but similar vain to Carnivale or Mardi Gras—it’s one last chance to do all the fun things before getting all boring, serious and religious (from an islander perspective).  So people make a point of going out and partying.  Fortunately, the island version of this is pretty tame.  It usually involves going on a picnic, eating a bunch of grilled meat, and dancing to loud music.

Well, since the month of fasting is often a rather long and difficult month for us foreigners as well, we thought it might be nice for our team to take a little retreat before the month began.  The thing is, taking a retreat on Clove Island is never quite as easy as one would like it to be.  Basically, it takes planning and work.  We know this going into it, and we still choose to go.  Everyone agreed even with Tom’s history…

It seems that Tom is something of a bad luck charm when it comes to camping and hiking on the islands.  Blue skies turn to gray and rain clouds move in at the whisper of him even suggesting a camping trip.   In fact, he should probably contact the local weather stations and let them know of his plans ahead of time so they could forecast with greater accuracy.

The bungalows- very few structures on goat island

So somewhat predictably, despite the week of sunshine and blues skies, as we left the house that morning, it started to rain.  It rained most of the bumpy 1.5-hour van ride to the town at the tip of Clove Island.  From there we would take a fishing boat to get to the small uninhabited “goat island” that rests off the tip.  The boat transport was not ready on our arrival, so we moved our supplies into someones home.  Shortly after it began to pour. 

But this is not a blog about how rain destroyed our plans.  This is about finding gratitude in the breaks.  The rain would come on and off throughout our overnight on goat island, but we had reprieves so that we were still able to go to the beach, climb along the rocky shore, search tide pools for crabs and fish, cook a dinner of hotdogs and breadfruit over the fire, enjoy some campfire time and looking at stars, and finally the sound of heavy rains while we were snug in our dry bungalows that night.

Hiking past fallen baobab

The next day we climbed to the top of the hill on goat island.  On the way up it poured.  We couldn’t have been much wetter.  But when we reached the top the sun came out, and we were surrounded by a world of green that was breathtakingly beautiful dropping down to the ocean on every side.  It was beautiful and we were thankful.

A boat ride and another taxi van would get us home where we all felt the need to rest after our retreat.  But that’s how retreats go on Clove Island.  Refreshing in a tiring sort of way.  But we had fun, the rain stopped when it counted, we had fellowship, and we saw some soul-soothing beauty.  And so, we are thankful.

PRAYERS ANSWERED

Rainy hiking in swimsuits- at top

Our kids exams have been going well without too much fear or stress for which we are very thankful. They still have exams for the rest of the week, so please keep praying.  The month of fasting has only been going for a couple of days but already we’ve had some great opportunities to share.  We are thankful for these opportunities. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We have many opportunities to share this month but it can also be daunting, tiring and frustrating as person after person asks us, “Are you fasting?  You’re not able?”  We have brainstormed a lot of thought-provoking ways of responding. Pray for perseverance and patience and people who will actually listen to why we are different.  It is our hope that this month of fasting and prayer would spur people of the light to fast and pray for those in darkness.  Pray that the light would shine in the darkness and that it would enter many hearts.   There is a day-by-day guide for the month, email us if you’d like to receive it. The month of fasting means our teaching commitments are greatly reduced and we try to tackle some projects that we don’t usually have time for— pray that we would find good work time and motivation to complete these projects during the month.