Senior Retreat

I'm sitting on my sofa right now still feeling a little nauseous from the boat ride back from Falos. The boat landed two hours ago. Blah.

But...

PRAISE GOD the senior retreat was wonderful!!!

The boat ride over was super smooth on Friday. The island was just as beautiful as I remembered it. The schedule was meetings in the evenings and mornings and free time on Saturday afternoon.

Principal Elvis spoke on Friday night. It was in Chuukese but there was an outline in a book they had printed up that was in English. Ultimately, it was on eternity and where your hope lies. Perfect for these graduating seniors. Saturday morning Pastor Bruce spoke. He is an awesome speaker and I think I have blogged about him before. He spoke from the text in 1 Samuel where the Philistines fight Israel, win, and then steal the ark. The message was one of living without the glory of God. It was very convicting. Sometimes disobedience doesn't always seem so bad... but it is!!! Es horible! Saturday evening Vice Ste spoke. He also spoke in Chuukese but just from his presentation and the number of times he used the name "Jesus" I knew it was good. He looked at the passage in Mark where Jesus asks, "But who do you say that I am?" It was powerful. At the end they asked anyone to stand who wanted to commit their lives from here on out to living for Jesus, the Son of the Living God. This wasn't necessarily first-time commitments but still an impactful and decisive choosing to seek to obey Christ for the rest of their lives. I don't have an exact count but I think about 7 kids stood up. They were so sincere. It was really awesome. Afterwards the kids were encouraged to come and pray and talk to the staff if they had questions or just wanted someone to pray with them. Two girls came to me. Both are already Christians but God gave me the wonderful opportunity to pray for them as they want to reach out to their friends and not be a part of the world. It was so great. Afterwards, another girl came up to me and pretty much wanted to know how to be a better Christian. So... I asked her the diagnostic questions (EE) and she responded with "unsure" and "good works" answers. Although I felt like I was rambling and jumbling and doing a horrible job of presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ to her, when I asked if she understood I was surprised to hear her say, "Yes." She prayed to receive Christ!!! It was amazing. Praise God for His grace towards her (Teisy) and His grace towards me for allowing me to be a part of it! It was awesome. ... Sunday morning Director Pat preached. It was a perfect ending for the retreat. He went through and talked about one of the greatest kings of Israel - King Josiah. It was really really good and at the end he had them pick a shell to take home to remind them of the commitments that they had made this weekend. All of it was just so awesome.

So thank you sooooooooooooo much for praying! May God bless you richly because you are also a part of this good work that happened! Thank you! And praise God, praise God!

One other thing I have to tell you... oh, two, I guess. First, I had a great time hanging out with these kids. I love them. God has given me this love for them that seriously makes my brain go into over drive thinking how it could be possible. I swam with some, played volleyball with others, and last night learned a fun new card game that kept us roaring with laughter until 2 o'clock in the morning! Praise the Lord that Director was kind enough to cancel classes tomorrow! The other really awesome thing I wanted to tell you was about my snorkeling experience. When I was at Falos for Easter I had swam on one side of the island so this time I wanted to go to other side where it was deeper. We had to swim pretty far out in two feet deep water with sharp coral beneath us. I got some cuts but they're not too bad. All of the sudden, the coral ended and it was like (ah - how do I explain it!?) you could dive about 12-14 feet under where it was sandy and all up and down and around you was coral and fish and other interesting sea life. It was so beautiful. At first, I didn't really want to dive down. It was pretty intimidating. Then when I did it once it was amazing. I loved it. It's just absolutely breathtaking. You would never even know it's there unless you dive down. God must have had so much fun creating this beautiful earth. And if His creation is just a small representation of Him then... Wow! I mean - WOW!!!!

4 weeks and about 6 hours I'll be on my way to California.
His grace still amazes me...
Katie