Hartland Retreat

The weekend of September 14-16 was the annual Staff/Faculty Retreat at Hartland Camp. The camp is located 90 minutes southeast of Fresno. The last 30 miles is a narrow paved road with switchbacks that weave between mountain pastures. It’s quite the drive. We arrived on Friday evening just after dark. You could definitely feel the temperature difference. We were on a higher elevation and closer to the mountains, nestled on the edge of the Sequoia Forest. The camp was beautiful and the grounds were immaculate.

We were in a cabin with another family right next to the bathroom (yeah!). That night the air was very clear but very dry. We played a few games in Redwood Hall and then around 11 p.m. called it a night.

The next morning Carl and I helped take care of children during the first session. The weather was cool in the morning, about 12 degrees. But by lunch time it was almost 25. It was such a treat to have such good food served to you. The camp had an amazing salad bar. Joel and Kezia never seemed to get to the main meal; they were thrilled with the baby corn and endless supply of broccoli. Asha spent meals in the car seat propped by our table. Otherwise she was in the cuddly wrap the entire weekend. I had many people ask where I got such an amazing wrap. Canada of course!

On Saturday afternoon, Joel and I decided to try out the zip line. Neither of us had had the opportunity to go on one before. Joel was excited and I was quite apprehensive, but I wanted to try it for him. Each of us had a harness and we were hooked to the same line. It was quite hard to let your feet go, feel nothing, and trust for the first few seconds. Then the rope tightened, you felt the security of the harness and away we were off for the best 400 foot ride you can imagine. My heart was pumping and I thought, “Yeah, I could do this again, I think”. Joel immediately announced that he would be going by himself. I felt awful, but my first instinct was to say no. Who would go with me then?! Once we got up to the top, I tried to be brave, and let him go by himself. Oh, he had an awesome time! And I didn’t do too badly either. I was so proud of him. I guess we adults are pessimists and think of all the things that can go wrong. And kids, they just want to have a good time. Joel went a few times with his friend Bryan before the afternoon was done.

After her nap, Kezia and Carl went for a paddleboat ride. The zip line was closed for the day or else we would have taken her too! She really enjoyed floating on the water, especially since her new friend Ryan joined her and Carl.

Saturday evening’s session was a family session. People were divided into groups and given a passage of scripture to act out. Our passage was Daniel 7:1-8. It was a lot of fun to illustrate it for the rest of the group. Joel was the first beast and roared like a lion. Kezia was the second beast and devoured her father’s head. Asha helped us by providing the fourth head of the third beast.

On Sunday morning we had our final session before lunch. The speaker was a retired Old Testament professor. He gave a very interesting devotional (since he said it was going to be under 30 minutes!) on Gen. 1:1.

The part of the morning that I was most impacted by was communion, so I honestly can’t remember much of the devotional. We were invited to form groups with people that we’d like to share communion with. At that moment, I must admit, I felt very awkward. Most of the people at the retreat I wasn’t acquainted with, let alone felt like there were some I would like to share communion with. I felt very lonely at that moment. We noticed a group towards the front with people that we knew, so we joined them. We ended up splitting into two groups. In our group was Andy, who is on staff and a former pastor, Jason, who belongs to a struggling church plant, Danny and Beth who are not sure how they fit into this whole church community thing, and us. It was quite an eclectic group of people. We shared with each other before we had communion and with the deep honesty, I really didn’t feel alone anymore.

For communion we asked Beth to go and get the elements, since in a regular church setting, she probably wouldn’t ever have the chance to serve. And what really struck me before we ate the bread and the wine was that it was supposed to be a spiritual nourishment as well as a physical nourishment. Haven’t you ever wondered what happens to the leftover bread and juice after communion? One time we brought home the grape juice and I almost felt sacrilegious drinking it because somehow I thought it was too special to consume. But on that Sunday morning, we took the bread split it into 6 chunks and ate it. I put more than one piece into my mouth. And the grape juice, well I drank enough so that I wasn’t thirsty and so did everyone else in the group. I’m sure that’s what happened in the upper room and it was a powerful experience to have a new mindset going into communion.

After lunch we packed up our things and headed home. We were all so tired that once we arrived, we put on a movie and all the courtyard kids came and vegged in front of the television. We slapped some supper together and went to bed early. I definitely was tired physically (you never sleep well in camp beds) but also emotionally and spiritually.