Retreats

For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
a stranger and you welcomed me.

Matthew 25:35

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Locuras Retreat Reflection
By Carly Loughran

A few weeks ago, I accompanied six adults and about 30 teens on
the Freshmen – Sophomore Retreat. Retreat is about as close as
I can get to Worktour during the school year. While the Retreat
lacks the manual labor Worktour revolves around, it still provides
me with the fun, bonding activities and discussions I associate
with Worktour. This year, I was asked by Becky Terlep to be a
retreat leader. I met with the retreat team prior to going on the retreat and
learned what the retreat was all about. As I was perusing my binder stuffed
full of details about the retreat, I began to worry that the retreat would lack
the surprise and excitement I had felt on retreat last year due to all this prior
knowledge. I could not have been more wrong. Retreat was as gripping and
delightful as ever.

This year’s retreat was called Locuras, which in Spanish means Craziness. The
other participants and I spent the whole weekend learning what it means to
“Be crazy like Jesus.” Being crazy like Jesus means doing something that may
be considered weird, but is still the right thing to do. The thing I love most
about Retreat is how much it separates you from the outside world. While
leaving phone and friends at home for the weekend seems annoying at first, it
gives me and any other person who has ever gone on retreat the opportunity to
meet new people and make new friends without the burden of prior judgments.
When I go on retreat or on Worktour I do not know many of the teens and they
do not know me. I am generally a more quiet and reserved person but retreat
allows and sometimes demands I be more outgoing and crazy. One of the
first activities we did on retreat was to learn a dance called Waves of Mercy.
My fellow teen leaders and I had to teach the dance in front of all the other
freshmen and sophomores. We did so many activities that encompassed the
theme of craziness on this retreat, but I believe the Waves of Mercy dance
showed it the best. The dance required me to act crazy and get the other
teens involved so I was not trapped in my own little shell of awkwardness
dancing in front of 30 kids. I felt as if we played the song every five minutes
and at the end of the weekend I could recite the whole thing word for word. I
observed teens who were quiet at the beginning of the weekend explode in a fit
of craziness during this song. Everyone belted out the lyrics and was dancing
so vigorously that someone as uncoordinated as me felt comfortable and at
ease participating in the madness. The retreatants and I opened ourselves up
to each other and accepted each other for who we were just as God wanted
us to do.

While this year’s retreat involved a lot of dancing, it also gave us time for
discussion and reflection on our faith. We discussed how we change, how we
act around certain people and may not let them see our inner selves. I though
it was very enlightening. In small group discussions, I listened to other teens
talk about their experiences with this idea and found their views were very
similar to mine. We discussed how God made us who we are for a reason and
that he loves us. We devised ways we could take off our outside masks and let
our true selves show so we could become closer to the people around us, and
closer to God. Every year on retreat I feel I get to know the Foundations teens
better, this year was no exception. We learned how to let our true selves show
and what it truly means to LOVE LIKE CRAZY!

Carry Loughran is a Teen Leader for the Locouras Retreat