winter retreat: first night

The first night of the retreat was really easy. We unpacked some of our stuff and then went outside in the dark cold to play some wall volley ball. It's similar to the princples of hand ball, but with a volley ball instead.

In the dark, there's little to no depth perception, so people would swing and miss the ball or they'd hit it too hard and it'd go over the small wall that we were playing on. We played for about an hour, and then went in for worship.

The break up for the small groups was really interesting. It turned out that almost my entire small group was there which was really good. I got to really bond with them and get close.

After small groups, we went back to the cabins. Lights went out at 11 PM EST, but the older guys stayed up talking. There are 2 sides to the cabin, in the middle is the shared bathroom. There are 2 doors, one in the front, and one in the back of the cabin with a small foyer connecting the 2 rooms. So if one side is talking, the sound will travel to the other side fairly easily. It didn't help that the floors and the walls and the furniture were all made of wood.

The beds were terrible. There were mostly bunk beds, but a few cots on the sides. I chose not to sleep in the bunk because the structure seemed very unstable. In terms of the quality of the mattresses, you were better off sleeping on the floor. Most of us would have, was it not for the bugs and the dirt. The mattresses sagged like crazy giving most of us back aches all weekend.

The guys on the other side were up talking, our side wanted to sleep so we'd be awake for all the day's activities tomorrow.

We ended up falling asleep around 12:30 AM EST.