Church Retreat Part One

Before I write about my very interesting day at the polls, I have a couple of posts about the recent church retreat I attended.

So, this past weekend while my sweet baby was in the doggie hospital, I attended a church retreat. It was like a flashback to the late 1990s because other than one or two ladies retreat, which isn’t really the same, this was the first weekend retreat I had been on since my days as an undergrad in Tuscaloosa.  

The retreat was held at the Elk River Lodge between Athens and Rogersville and all the festivities were to begin on Friday evening. We were told we could arrive any time after 5:30 and that dinner would be served at 7:00. After work, I went by the house to finish throwing my things in a bag and then headed out of town. I left the house about 5:15 and arrived at the Lodge a few minutes after 6:00. For some crazy reason I assumed I would be one of the last ones to arrive. As it turns out, I was the first. Well, I guess technically the third since the coordinator and his wife was already there. Everyone else started trickling in around 7:00 or later. Clearly this is not a prompt group.

Doug, the coordinator, was trying to get the grill going to grill burgers for dinner and he had no lighter and asked me if I had one. Um, no. Apparently someone was bringing a lighter but who knew when they were going to show up. Long story short, the dinner that was supposed to be eaten at 7:00 was not served until 8:22. To say I was hungry is quite the understatement.

Before we ate we prayed to bless the food and during the prayer I felt something on my head. I thought maybe a strand of hair had come loose from my ponytail, but no – a granddaddy longlegs had somehow found a home atop my crown. I realized what it was when I knocked it from my head and saw it land on the floor. It is truly a modern day miracle that I did not scream out loud and possibly even curse during that prayer. By the grace of God I was able to hold it together and then about a few seconds later that longlegs met his demise when one of the guys stepped backwards and smooshed him.

The burgers, well, they were subpar, which was a huge disappointment considering that we were told the food was going to be amazing. I guess some folks idea of amazing and mine are on different ends of the spectrum – this is the curse of a good cook.

We then had a small devotional and played a weird game. At this point, I was exhausted and congested and in a word, miserable.  The plan was to next bake cookies in the oven, only the oven would not turn on, which had me a little concerned about how the food situation was going to be for the remainder of the weekend.

It was soon after this that I retired for the evening. Strangely enough I had a room all to myself. We were told before we arrived that some of us may have to share beds yet no one bunked in my room and there was an unused bed throughout the weekend. This was just fine by me though because I could do my own thing on my own time, which is just the way I like it.

To be continued…