Retreat Thoughts

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I’ve been meaning to write more just as I’ve been keen to read more. Just that with life being busy, often I prefer to use my free time to chill instead of using my brain further. That being said, the value of reading and writing is higher in the long term than chilling even if chilling has more immediate gratification, so according to the Einsenhower matrix I should make a conscious effort to do this part better heh. And since I’ve been making an effort to read again, might as well write too. Got material to write from anyway. Don’t think it would be super regular, don’t know how sustained it will be, but hey let’s see how it goes.

Since retreat just ended, I guess I can write a little about it. This retreat isn’t a particularly memorable one. One of the intents of retreats with their overnight stays was to have more bonding, but I don’t think that intent was well met. It was short to begin with, and it was mostly meetings/discussions, with some items having to cut into what was supposed to be team bonding time, and then the person facilitating that bit not feeling well anyway. Also, waking up early means having to sleep early and the lack of a common area to chill means we don’t really want to disturb those who are sleeping. Am not very satisfied with that but it’s fine bah, I guess additional bonding time is not that critical given all the opportunities this team has already.

Meetings wise was satisfactory but not excellent. We had good insights, good progress on the big things we need to work on, but by nature of it being a big thing we never reached a final conclusion. To be honest, I do feel the uncertainty heading into this, and even though I am stepping down soon and technically won’t be the person who has to deal with the bulk of this, I do feel responsible and I want to hand over something that works well to the next generation. With the trip to Chennai coming soon, it also means I won’t be able to see this to its end. So honestly, I have limited control over how this will turn out. Yet as I’ve reminded the next generation leaders, so I too remind myself. This ministry is God’s, not ours. We do our best to facilitate, to provide the environment, and we let God bring the growth.

Once I’m over in Chennai, and on to the next year as well, I’m sure I can still help out here and there if they would like advice or for me to look through some stuff. Would also want to actively make an effort to engage and make sure they are well supported. This is something I feel for as a leader myself, dealing with the time consuming work that is often filled with complexities and uncertainties. Support by people (especially a certain fluffy goat) has kept me going, and I would like to be able to do the same for others as well. Key word being active, something I’m still not very good at, I tend to be quite reactive in how I support people. Being active is important because people seldom want to ‘trouble others’ and so ‘let me know if you need help’ seldom works.

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So I wrote the above, then I went to read my post camp reflections last year, and it’s kinda funny. I realise the above has almost a slightly negative tone to it. I didn’t think the retreat was bad, I thought it was good actually, but it’s just that I focused much on the things that could be better. Well here are two thoughts I have after reading last year’s post. Firstly, I see that the NG has grown so much this year. If you asked me one year ago would I expect to see them where they are today, no way man. I think they’re doing great, and will only continue to get better at what they do. That is something I am immensely thankful for and very humbled by. I remember being so concerned and worried that this whole thing was going to be a sinking ship. Pssht what nonsense was that. Yes certain things are still not great in DI, but there’s a core team of people who are faithful and desire to serve God well. If that group remains faithful, God can use them. I mean, every church starts somewhere right, it may mean a certain level of ‘restart’ or ‘refresh’ is needed, but I trust it’s in God’s hands. We have been undergoing refinement this year so far, and as much as there is uncertainty ahead, I’m also excited to see what is in store.

The other thing thought I have was that I think I’ve kept to whatever I’ve said I would do. Which is hey, this technically wasn’t a new year’s resolution but how about that hah. I mentioned that I see that the NG has grown so much this year, but actually as I think about it, I think I have too. Really am thankful to God for that. In fact, for a large portion of my Christian life, I have always felt that I was someone who was bad at loving people well. While I still think there is plenty of room for improvement, I think I’ve gotten so much better at it. Goes to show that you never stop growing, if you think you are ‘mature’ in the sense that you have nowhere else to grow, you’re wrong. Growth and sanctification will continue till the very end.

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What else about the retreat. Well I don’t intend to get a car but I find that one advantage of having a vehicle is that it’s really easy to go places to eat good food heh. It’s really different compared to taking public transport. Honestly I objectively don’t think having a car is more convenient. I enjoy not having to drive with public transport, and instead of bus or train it’s possible to just grab whenever you want to go to these slightly more inaccessible places. It’s just that with a car, you pay upfront for this convenience, and then you just use it whenever. With grab, each time you make a decision to use it you feel the pinch, and then you decide not to use it and suddenly the effort needed isn’t so worthwhile anymore heh. Well, I definitely should at least get a bicycle or escooter in the future for short distance travel, I miss having that to travel around the jurong area in the past. Maybe both hmm, one for each person. Then I just take the bike when we’re going somewhere together, and the escooter when I’m feeling lazy/don’t want sweat and am going somewhere myself. Idea.

I can’t decide if the place was great or not. Location was great, the cleanliness was great, the set up of the room was pretty cool, with the privacy curtains and all too. It didn’t have a good common area to use to that was meh, but land is expensive in Singapore. It was noisy for sure, the sound of the truck at 3/4am was ridiculous. I also had a hard time sleeping with the backache combined with the mattress, but I mean that’s kinda like a problem with my backache needing a good mattress lol. Overall I think it was a good deal for it’s price lah. $320 for 14 people in Singapore at a great location.

The prayer and meditation segment at night was great. Been awhile since we had something like that. I was thinking afterwards as well, this could be something that we all could do with more of.

Well that’s it I guess! I’ve got a couple of posts that I hope to write coming up, so hoping this habit continues! I also technically have a post about anime/manga that has been in the drafts for more than a year now cause I never got round to finishing it oops heh…

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