Cameron Retreat (Day 1)

HThis is about the Retreat Camp for our bible study leaders at Cameron Highland last weekend. It was a 3 days 2 nights trip from Saturday (7th Mac) morning til Monday (9th Mac) afternoon, just nice Monday was a public holiday.

The participants are me, Audri, Hinn, Alex, Kai Seng, Sarah, Hannah, Clarence, Mark and Uncle Rodney, there're 10 of us! I remembered we departed from Sunway around 10am, with 2 cars: Uncel Rodney's Naza taking Hinn, Kai Seng, Hannah, Mark and Audri while Alex rent another Kelisa taking me, Sarah and Clarence.

Me, Sarah, Clarence and Alex the driver in Kelisa:

Trust me, the long highway to Perak and the windy mountain road to Cameron is NOT FUN AT ALL! Never knew that Alex can drive like a bus driver in mountain road. Clarence couldn't take it, and we stopped by half way to take a break. We reached Cameron area at 2pm.

Have a break, have a snap shot:

So the first thing was, we stopped by a Mamak Shop to take our lunch. They have quite special dishes, especially those served on the banana leaves. I ordered Honey Banana Naan (can you imagine?) and Clarence even had Strawberry Naan (this world has so many wierd things!).

Finally, we reached the place we're gonna stay for 3 days. This place is huge and nice, it really gave me the feeling of having a retreat from all the earthly problems and just be with nature.

After checking in our rooms, we gathered at the kitchen to start our first project - Oreo Pie making session! There's so much fun playing around with foods, I mean... working on the pie. Everyone was complaining so much because most of the ingredients are cream, chocs, oreos... all the fats! We finished making one normal pie and another one with added banana *Mua ha ha*.

Fat ah! Banana ah!

Then, we headed out to a nearby UK home-style teahouse to have our afternoon tea. The interior design is splendid, sitting inside enjoying tea like a prince is just so good! Please be reminded that tea for each person is about RM20 *killing spree*.

After that, we can't miss the chance to visit Cameron Highland's night market (although the sky is still bright). There's so many stuffs, mainly strawbarries' items.

At night, we had a rest while Uncle Rodney prepare us dinner - Spaghetti. By the way, I prepared the dining table while others working in the kitchen (kitchen is not my territory). Thanks Uncle Rodney, the dinner was very nice!

Here comes, after cleaning the table, we gathered around the fire place (we set up the fire) coz it's so cold at night, really feels like living in US during winter. This night, the topic is about how should we improve in organizing our bible study flow.

• We should have a good balance of Hymn and Contemporary worship songs.
• 3 songs are not enough, we should try to make it 4.
• Always be prepared and practice (ice-breaker and worship team).
• Keep everything in time, don't drag it too long, we need to precious others time.
• Make sure the songs chosen in a night has a common theme.
• Start ON TIME!
• Intead of starting with worship, we should start with ice-breaking.

Those listed above are the crucial points I remembered. Uncle Rodney even demo how to worship lead with his chosen list of songs. Oh ya, I haven't mention about it right? We have an upright piano in our vacation house! So, the meeting ends by asking everyone to prepare our own testimony and we need to wake up early the next day for quiet time and be prepared for breakfast at 8.30a.m.

Phew... after a tiring but enjoying day, I bathed with hot shower and went to bed. I'm in the same room with Kai Seng and Alex, our room have 1 double-decker bed (I slept at the bottom one), one single bed (for Kai Seng) and another Queen size bed (Alex took it). Yupz, the room is really big, and the rooms downstairs for the girls and the others are also about the same size! Wow!

In Jeremiah 33:22, the LORD says "I would no more reject my people than I would change my laws of night and day, of earth and sky." Our LORD in heaven is so merciful, he sees through our hardships and send the best solution for us. He will never deny our rightful prayers and all of them shall be realize in the perfect situation. Pray that our bible study group would grow stronger and involve more of the new comers, it's a place for everyone. Also pray for people in Nilai Sunday Service and Cheras Baptist Church to be able to reach out to more people. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.