Regent Retreat!

Hey fine folks!

Well, I just got back from the Regent Retreat, which was super duper, but pretty crazy too. I've had very little sleep and lots of long talks, so this may not be coherent.

We went to Warm Beach Camp, which is neither warm nor a beach. We also had to cross the border, which meant that 200 km took over 4 hours (and that was quick, since we went to an out-of-the-way border crossing... some waited 4 hours just in line). And then it poured rain all weekend until the drive home. Despite these drawbacks, it was a great weekend.

Especially fun were the talent show and the ceilidh dancing (taught by real Scots!). The talent show had everything from a professor dance-off to poetry recitals, from men in tights (literally) to a michael jackson's "Beat It!", but my favorite was the U2 cover band. One professor, one staff, and two students got together. Now, that sounds just "OK" until you realize that one of the students is OBSESSED with U2 and has pretty much all the same gear as them, including guitars, pedals, amps, etc... and knew every song off by heart. And the lead singer was absolutely hilarious - played Bono perfectly. Here is a video of the guitarist, Patrick.

Other than that, we came up with a couple new phrases. Instead of the usual "Ring by Spring, or your money back" Bible College guarantee, the new Regent phrase is "Consummate by reading break!" or, because of the wave of pregnancies, we are renaming ourselves from the "unseminary" to the "inseminary". Har har! (Also, Friday, the first day of the retreat was International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Huzzah! Grog all around!)

This morning we had my top highlight of the retreat. They have a communion service where they take time (sometimes 5 minutes or more) to pray over each person individually as they recieve communion. With over 400 people at the retreat, and about 20 stations, this can take quite a while but it is really worth it. I ended up at Polly and Phil Long's station (also known as my Greek and Hebrew teachers from Tennessee!). It was really a neat time. If you have a church where you can do something like that, I'd certainly suggest trying it.

Otherwise, I had a whole bunch of really great talks. And I finally met Rick Watts properly - I'm pretty sure he'll remember me. I think we ended up at 3 meals sitting beside each other. And the last conversation we had was great, covering my absolute favorite topic of the moment - evolution! Lots of fun.

Well, take care folks! Until next time!