yay for class retreat!

So the first full week at marine lab was great! i'm taking marine invertebrate zoology which is pretty much the lab section of bio 26 except every day and for 7.5 hours a day and a test every friday.. Besides that, our field trips are fun! We've had 3 so far. First we went on a boat "Susan Hudson" then we went to a mud flat to dig up stuff, then we went behind the scenes at the nc aquarium. Just when I was starting to accept that life would be different here though, class retreats arrived and remind me of all the cool people I'm gonna miss this semester :)

Preparation for the retreat was pretty intense. Probably 70% of the content ended up getting written/edited the last week before retreat. With that said, i'm more amazed at how God used our inadequacies and was present with us this weekend. It was really a different experience being on content team this year. I feel like I learned a lot from it, but at the same I wish I could've seen it with fresh eyes at the retreat, if that makes sense. For our 4 sessions we talked about (1) returning to God, our first love, (2) going all-in for God and letting God be in-all parts of our lives, (3) being/making disciples by looking at how Jesus called Peter and Levi, (4) serving others and having tangible results from a discipleship legacy. I especially found session 2 to be really challenging. There is so much I do with my time that has nothing to do with God. For example, basketball probably causes me to lose 4 hours a day directly and indirectly (i always get hungry after and eat at cookout or something and waste so much time) on top of that, sports in general make me prideful/not-very-nice and distant from God. The sharing session was really meaningful again this year. Mid way through I sort of wanted to share too, but I felt like this time I should just really listen to other people. I ended up sharing a little in small group the next day though.

Small group was an amazing experience for me too (as was at soph retreat) :) While I know i'm not a natural leader and can be sort of awkward when i'm the center of attention, I really enjoy hearing what the people in my small group had to say. We kinda got off topic from the questions enping suggested for us, but I feel like we ended up talking about really practical and meaningful things. small group sunday morning got intense, i think we ran over time. I really learned a lot about how to deal with other people's burdens: Everyone goes through really unique lives and our troubles are all different. Some people go through harder troubles, some people "less so", but none of those should make us think we can't still reach out to others. Sometimes we feel like we can relate, other times we have no idea what they're going through. The key is to be honest and genuine about it though. True, your friend will hurt a bit when you tell them you dont have the answers, but you'll be there for them when they need it. This really makes me think about my definition of discipleship.. like I thought that it should be sort of a teaching sort of thing, but I feel like while we may be at different steps in our spiritual walk, we're all on the same level in terms of brokenness. While it is good to teach and learn in a discipling relationship, the most important thing is to just be genuine and willing to carry each other's burdens. So thanks, small group people for teaching me so much!

Commitment time (Sunday night we made commitments to put things we learned at retreat to practice through the semester with a partner) was amazing for me. I partnered with Perry and we ended up talking for hours and hours just non-stop. He is such an encouragement to me. God has changed his outlooks on life completely. He's so genuine and passionate about what God's gonna do for him next. So willing to take the next step. As we were talking I couldnt help but remember the times last year he would tell me why he isn't Christian and just marvel at God's ability to work in people.

One thing I commited to this weekend is to have the courage to talk about God with my roommate here. He's from papua new guinea and i just found out that his parents are christian (lutheran and catholic), but he has lost his faith. Can you pray for my relationship with him? and that God will give me opportunities to plant a seed in his heart.

So wow, this was a long post, but this retreat was what I needed :) I miss everyone so much, but I guess I will be coming back next weekend with Christina anyways haha.