Retreat!

Our family just returned from four days of fun and fellowship with fellow CRC-affiliated missionaries, volunteers, pastors, development workers and teachers from Central America. Over 80 kids and adults gathered at Vista Mar resort in Pochomil, Nicaragua to learn, fellowship, relax, and get away together--a wonderful way to start out our Semana Santa (Holy Week), which also serves as our "spring break" at NCA and most schools here. This is an annual tradition, and one our kids are already looking forward to repeating in 2015!

Some highlights of our time together:
1. We donned "all inclusive" wristbands, allowing all of us access to free drinks and three good meals each day (nearly all involving beans and rice--even breakfast). . .they ran out of strawberry daiquiri mix on the last day, after our children drank about 5 virgin "slushies" everyday! Ruth and I loved eating food we didn't cook and eating on dishes we didn't need to wash. . .a true gift!

2. We were on the ocean, which meant fun in the sand (volleyball, soccer, tide pools, shell collecting, swimming, boogie boarding, horseback riding, beach fires)--but the hotel also had a few fun swimming pools, which meant swimming in the shade and without dealing with the salt water and dangerous waves/currents!

3. We were able to worship together with the group--a church service with Holy Communion, a Hymn Sing (using all from the Gray Psalter Hymnal--songs we find we actually miss dearly), a campfire Worship Sing-A-Long. . .Andrew enjoyed playing piano for the event.

4. We enjoyed 4 sessions with a speaker on the book of Romans--academically challenging and inspiring to dive in deeply to scripture together. It felt a bit like a college religion course. I must mention that these sessions were both air-conditioned and kid-free: Ruth helped coordinate childcare for the many children that were there, so each child--from ages 0-18, had activities planned during our sessions. Henry and Mae LOVED their "class"--which felt a lot like summer camp, involving nature scavenger hunts (they REALLY wanted to find a whale, worth 50 points!), creating glow-in-the-dark jellyfish, and making windsocks!

5. We loved being together with a wonderful group of people--meals, prayers, fun. . .the kids are becoming "cousins" of sorts with these other kids, and we will be a bit like family attending that annual family reunion, I think. For those of you who know about the annual "Kentucky Reunion"--this year celebrating 30 years!--that is what it feels like to me--a family of people not actually related to you in anyway, but a people united in work and mission and faith.

This was a retreat in the typical sense of the word, but this year it was also a "retreat" from on-edge Managua--our city that right now is a cloaked in fear about an impending earthquake. After a few large quakes and tremors last week, many people continue to sleep outside or under doorways--surely remembering the 1972 earthquake that destroyed the city, and the fact that we are already overdue for the next "big one", which hits a nearby fault line every 40 years or so. Offices and businesses remain closed, and the beaches--typically bursting with people for Semana Santa--were empty as people are staying close to home just in case a big one hits.  Please continue to pray for the safety of those in Nicaragua, and a "peace that passes understanding" to surround those so fearful of the unknown.

We are thankful for this time spent together, and thankful for our denomination (Christian Reformed Church) that deems this time of "coming together" important enough to support prayerfully and financially (we only pay a small fee to attend). We are rested and renewed and look forward to these next two months of ministry and life before heading back to Grand Rapids in June!