after "retreat" which was more like outreach

There is always a big diff between retreat and outreaching. Sometimes a trip marries the two, which makes one kind of confused but worked, full (eating a lot) and yet fulfilled (as you gave out). I do wish all of us had more recreational time or more things to do to play. But on a kelong built on stilts literally, there is hardly enough land to run around.

Haha. I enjoyed visiting the people there to sow seeds of kindness. working with my teammates was fun and watching them help the kids in the games, now that was funny. some of us don't know how to make paper air planes! we gave mosquito repellent to them, rice, food, snacks and bubble making toys to them. The kids will MAKE you love them. seriously, even if u didn't like kids at first.

the best part was talking and getting to pray for village folks who were CHINESE. yes on Jemara island, Indonesia! The chinese were the ones who started business and trade there. Entrepot trade, how familliar, by buying fish from all the indo fishermen then selling them abroad to other islands! which reminded me of early national days.

yea we sowed seeds to more than 6 families, two of which were chinese. I learnt the importance of SOWing seeds of kindness first, without expectations of any opportunity to share the gospel or even, praying. Because that's where people connect with you on a normal level first. If they cant like the messenger, why would they listen to the message?

So the best part was the last family we visited which was super open to telling us their story. Listening does the trick. So we listened to their amazing Teochew stories about their problems and adventures in life till they asked us to pray for them. "Just a blessing is good" they said. In the end we took pictures with them too.

our ferry reached the port at promptly 810pm which was time for the pledge. hahaha.

then i realised that our team was very fun and took care of others.
those who were healthy were always on the look out for others - those who were sick, and offered to run errands for them. those who were good swimmers watched out for lousy swimmers (like me).

I was involved in some bernoulli effect near the fishing raft at the front of the kelong which made me not so able to swim out from that area back to main sea and was tempted to go through all the stilts following the current but apparently i heard that might have gotten me lots of surface cuts (I doubt it was life threatening seriously!). But there was one or two of them onlookers panicking over nothing. (They haven't seen australian waves that i went through with God's help and survived) But the current made it pretty hard to swim back to where we were so thank God one of my friends pulled me away from that area.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of inclusiveness where everyone joined in the card games like snap. and the fun and jokes during the meal.

I did learn though that sometimes i should be aware of golden opportunities when people do approach me or offer me something. And not grumbling after, when they pass me by. Glad i managed to resolve a misunderstanding with one of the sisters there when she pointed this out to me. (Something about seashells).

Everyone was pretty honest and direct to each other throughout preparation and during the trip so it was a good time of getting to know each other better as a cell.