Committee Retreat Part 2

The friday morning of the retreat started with a devotion session by Daniel. We had home-cooked breakfast, courtesy of omelette-frying by Chun Chung and sausage-frying by me. The next session was conducted by me! Haha..it's actually a personality test for the committee members to know about themselves and those in the team. We spent some time doing a quiz and then tabulate the results of the quiz to determine which personality we are. The one which I gave them was the Sanguine (I), Phlegmatic (S), Choleric (D) and Melancholy (C) test but each of them have a direct counterpart at the DISC test. It's pretty interesting to note the personality of each committee member. I think most of us would have expected what the primary personality of each of us would be but the secondary personalities were a surprise for some. I gave an explanation for each of the personality and we had a short discussion on the different types of personality by matching them to each other..haha.

Lunch was at an Ipoh restaurant at Bangsar. Lol..the serving was small, but my bill came up to RM10, and the extra rice was RM2! Wow, but I thought it was still better priced than the mamak though. When we got back, we played the tic tac game where we have to take turns to say what things we have not done before. Oh gosh, the taste of 10 tic tac sweets in my mouth is not pleasant at all..haha. Afterthat we resumed another lengthy period of discussion with me manning my station with my lappy. I think this was the longest discussion meeting that we had coz we only stopped at about 7.30 pm plus. It's almost like we're too distracted to go makan. This time round, we had something different for dinner in that we ordered the dishes and rice for everyone to take together instead of individual meals.

When we got back, it was Bishop's sharing time. Lol..we were like little children gathering around a storyteller in a circle. He actually played a game with us before he started sharing!..haha. Anyways, I was really inspired and felt impacted by his sharing. There's like so many wisdom contained in his sharing and he has an admirable wealth of experiences. There were a few things which struck me during his sharing. Quoting one of his phrases, he mentioned "Learn the good to do it, learn the bad to NOT to do it." I used to think, how can a man truly be someone great if he has no good example to follow. His quotation just answered the question and he pointed out that a person surrounded by negative examples can still turn out to be very good indeed because he knows what NOT to do. The bishop did share about his experiences in growing up and while studying abroad. Haha...when God calls, He'll make sure everything will fall into place. At first, it was planned that the Bishop will share for about an hour, but because he had so many experiences, it stretches on to 3hrs until about 1am, with Jia Lerd's mama serving us fruits and drinks to keep us company. Lol, we were planning for some discussion after the sharing but looks like it has to be delayed until the next day.

On the last day, Erwin and Lynne had to leave early since they had to serve their respective churches on that day. After breakfast, we had the final round of discussions. We also did something for each other in writing some kinda like a personal testimonial for each other. So, each of us had a small memory to bring back with us from the retreat. At about 1pm or so, we packed up, have some photo sessions with the Bishop. For lunch, we headed to Mid-Valley to makan lunch. Actually we wanted to do walk around to sight-see, but since we had shortage of time, we just headed back to uni. Lol, at the end of the trip, I can't believe I've actually drove through KL road and personally navigated through the vicious traffic in there. A milestone indeed. =p Anyways, I'm slightly disappointed when I got back to my hostel to discover that I could have left my testimonial paper at Lerd's house. Since Lerd's papa and mama is away on a trip, it looks like I won't get to ascertain where I've placed it until they come back. Ahhhh..I can't believe that I could forget to bring back such an important document! >_<

A small reflection on my short stay there at the Bishop's house - Hmmm..looking around the photographs and the items around the house gives me the fuzzy homely feeling. It's the kind which I've not been feeling for quite a long time. I personally felt that Jia Lerd and her siblings do grow up in the most perfect family condition a child can ever hope for. And yea, I would say the Bishop and his wife are model parents. When I do become the head of a family in the future, I would love to follow in the footsteps of Lerd's papa in establishing the foundations of my family. Taking from Joshua 24:15 - "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" :)