Rendezvous 2010

Over New Year’s week, I, Jessica had the opportunity to travel to Rendezvous 2010, a youth retreat geared for the Asia-Pacific Region’s M.K.s. After traveling by myself for the first time, I arrived in Singapore where I spent the night with one of our families that work in the Singapore office. From there I journeyed with the others who would be participating in the retreat to Telunas Beach in Indonesia. We spent five days at Telunas Beach. Rendezvous’ primary goal is to help us third culture kids gain tools for re-entry into our home cultures.

Telunas Beach is a small resort type of place. All of the buildings are over the water on stilts joined by walkways. The beach itself is of white sand and stretches the extent of the resort property. Along the shore are beach chairs and little open-sided huts with hammocks. Close to ten yards from the waterline at high tide is a beach volleyball net set up, a beach soccer field, and a tether ball pole.

Sixteen teens joined this Rendezvous, six girls and ten guys, as well as five facilitators. Each day we had an activity, and small group devotions, a worship time together.

My favorite time of worship was the night when we discussed honesty. I’m sure we’ve all experiences those times where someone does something, serves a certain dish or gives a particular gift, and we don’t like it. However, we know that it’s rude to say so blatantly, but we can’t say that we love it since that would be lying. As MKs we are consistently bombarded by such situations as we move through many cultures. During this particular night after we sang several worship songs and prayed together, as a group, we worked towards a solution to this dilemma. Our conclusion was to start off with “I think this is an acquired taste” or “It’s not my favorite, but…” and then thank the person for the effort, the thought, their willingness, etc.

The small group devotion time that really benefited me the most was the on last day. Though our topic was Jonah, the part of our time together that left an impression on me the most was the time of sharing at the end. During this time we reflected on what we had learned while a Telunas. Also, we went around our circle complementing each other and telling each those features and personality traits that we admired in one another. It was a real and uplifting time that I cherish.

The activity that I had the most fun with was Telunas Beach’s own version of Amazing Race. The owners of Telunas run this version with the many groups that they have come through. Our Rendezvous leaders worked with the Telunas owners to tailor our Race to incorporate some of our themes. They split us up into three teams, but as some of you probably know, sixteen isn’t divisible by three. It just so happened that two teens happened to be at the island who were more than happy to join us and make the teams even. So our goal was to complete nine puzzles to solve at nine different way points along the beach and inland a little ways, but the target was to be the first to complete the race, of course however there were a few way points that carried time penalties and bonuses were also included through out the race. Overall, I had a lot of fun with my team. I enjoyed seeing our strengths at play and talents in use, and I loved noting the efficiency with which we worked together.

I grew so much through this retreat and I can’t wait till NYC when I can see many of them again, but I also look forward to the next Rendezvous which I can share with my brother. Even though quite a few of those who attended this one will no longer be eligible to come again, I rejoice over the fact that there will some that can come once more. I count it one of the greater spiritual milestones. Thank you God!