Fall Conference 2005 was awesome!
I just got back from Fall Conference 2005 a few hours ago. It was awesome! One of the best weekends of my life. Fall Conference is an annually held weekend up in a really open area called Toinippi in New Hampshire. It's used for several different Christian organizations throughout the year. But this weekend it was used for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship for Yale, URI, Roger Williams, University of Hartford, Wesleyan, and a few other schools. It was amazing. I went to visit erin and rachel peed up at Camp Berea last summer on a wednesday. When I got up there, I was just shocked by how amazing it was. It was 5 days, with a bunch of stuff planned out everyday, a guest speaker, worship time and services, and the place was just so pretty and amazing. And I was just there for a day. And I donno. It was a very contemplative day and I just wished I had had that kind of stuff growing up. So that's one of the reasons I went to Fall Conference: hoping it would be like Berea.
And it was really similar to berea, except it was just the weekend, and it was cold.
We left Friday night around 330 after classes got out. I donno. I felt a little sad as I was leaving for Konover to meet the other people. I donno. It was kinda weird. I've been hanging out with Brian a lot and my friends from Intervarsity, and my roomates over the past few weeks. But Brian's always been there for me. And when we left for home on the weekends, we left at the same time, and when we came back, we left at the same time. But now, I was leaving before him because mom was coming to pick him up at 5. Cause he wasn't coming; he was going to States at the Coast Guard. So he was hanging out in my room for a little bit. But I donno. A really weird feeling came over me that felt like I was abandoning him cause I was leaving before him. And I'm not sure why. But I felt really sad. So I told him to call me if he needed anything. =(
But he ended up not locking our door. My roomates left for the weekend as well. And some bad stuff happened to our room... apparently.
But yeah, we left friday night. I didn't bring much to do; just some clothes, bible, cell, and my laptop. I brought my laptop so I could make a movie with my isight camera. Didn't really end up working very well though cause it was a pain to carry it around, turn it on and off and charge it. So I didn't catch much of what we did during the day and all the fun stuff.
I did so much thinking this weekend and saw so much cool stuff. Usually I'm too busy during the fall to actually notice when the leaves are changing. But this year, I did. It was really neat going down the highway and just stare at all the colors. We saw a plane on our way there come really really close to the ground and we weren't really sure... where it was gonna land... cause we couldn't see any landing strips anywhere. There was a fire on the side of the road... and I think that's about it for the ride up. I caught it on my movie though- chris and sammi's driving- haha.
We got there around 6 and checked in. We played some cribbage before worship, followed by a session with Carl Ellis, an African American man that's done a lot of work with the Islam religion. He was probably in his 60’s or 70’s and because of his work and evangelism, he actually had had a few attempts on his life. Over the weekend, we read through a few chapters of Daniel. He's a very smart and interesting man, and a really good teacher, even though I couldn't always understand what he was saying cause his vocabulary's really big. we had our campus time, basically time with our own intervarsity group. And I got to know everyone really well. We talked about a lot of interestsing stuff- why we were at fall conference, what we expected to get out of it and what we expected to get out of Intervarsity. Um... so then, I think we had snacks at 10 and went upstairs to play a game called MAFIA during free time. What an awesome game. I'm gonna have to play that with my friends at home over winter break. I'm not sure if i wanna take a winter term yet- should decide pretty soon. I was really good at figuring out the mafia, but that gave them a reason to kill me really fast. And after that, we kinda just had some more free time. Lights out at 12; the guys slept in the basement.
The second day, Saturday was the best out of the three. We had breakfast at 8, then a morning worship and session with Carl. And then we had our silent retreat, which was very productive for me. I figured out what I should be doing with a lot of stuff I’m dealing with. This was basically 2 hours of silence by yourself, thinking and spending time with God with just a bible, notebook and pencil. Some people found a place and sat down; others walked the trails. I decided to walk, just cause I like walking when I think so I didn’t concentrate on how cold it was. But eventually I started walking in circles on the trails and found a bench to sit on. Then it go cold and I went inside.
So we ate lunch and then played football. Way too many people. Haha. I met a lot of other people from different schools though. For a second or two, a few snowflakes fell. That’s how cold it was. At 3, we went over the basement of where the girls were staying and we said we were meeting so we could spend some extra time with Hans, the guy that set up the whole weekend. Well it was really to celebrate Craig’s birthday. Haha. The reaction we got was awesome. He was like, “what????? … …. … Ooooooooooooh.” Yeah it was a good time.
Ok. So it was cold enough to snow. Regardless, Craig, Dan, Jeff, and Eric decided to go swimming in the lake. Chris and I were kinda like… yeah... I don’t really feel like going into shock. So we stood there and chris took pictures and I got them in my movie. Haha. It wasn’t that far of a walk back to the showers though. I donno. I might do it next year. Haha.
So we went inside and had a few seminars on different topics- homosexuality, Christianity after college, evangelism, women leadership, financial management and stuff like that. I went to the Carl’s seminar and we asked him questions and stuff like that. I was kinda distracted cause of his screensaver though. He had like a bunch of different pictures from all over the world. It was really colorful… And he had thousands of powerpoints on his laptop. This guy was hilarious too, which made listening to him more interesting. The animations on his hot tub powerpoint were really cool and everytime one of the animations happened, he’d start cracking up. It was sooo funny.
Then we had dinner. Mmm… and after that another worship and session with Carl. I almost missed that cause I was so tired and fell asleep after dinner. They had a table with a bunch of different books. So I checked that out after the presentation. I ended up buying a book called, “Why Bother Being Good? The Place of God in the Moral Life” by John Hare. And then we had some more free time. Made some raspberry flavored tea. I got a rematch in pool with Craig and some ping-pong with Chris. And then we had a bonfire. Craig and Chris took a small wax cup, and a wooden stirrer. And you know how if you bend a piece of wood, it snaps? So they dipped the wooden stirrer into some hot water so that it could bend. And they attached it to the sides of the wax cup, creating… a bucket. Then they filled it with water and took a piece of chocolate outside to the fire. They knew the wax cup wouldn’t burn until the water boiled. So they put the bucket on logs and tried putting it in different places and threw the chocolate in and watched until it boiled. So they were trying to make hot chocolate. Haha. It was pretty cool. I had never seen anything but smores and marshmallows made on a fire. So it was fun to watch. The first few times the logs collapsed on the bucket and the second time ash got into it. The third time went pretty well until ash got into it. So they never really created a drinkable hot chocolate. But it was fun to watch when smoke wasn’t getting into my eyes.
Craig and Chris are engineers in the senior year. They’ve been roommates since freshman year. Chris is also really, really smart and also… really tall. They were really fun to hang out with over the weekend.
Then Eric, Craig, Chris, and I went downstairs and played card games: BS, and I taught them Chinese Poker (Hebrew 13, 13- card Jew) until lights out. Haha. They’re a real fun group. Shame they’re all graduating.
This morning- breakfast, worship, session with Carl. Then we had our last campus time and we talked about the seminars. We grabbed a bag lunch and walked down to the lake to eat it. Took some pictures, cleaned up, and left by 230 or so.
It was such an amazing weekend. I’m kinda disappointed cause I didn’t get to take pictures or get a good movie. I wanted to go canoeing too, but didn’t find the time to. Oh well. I’m definitely going back next fall. It only cost 25 bucks. Rest was paid for by Student Government Organization. It was so productive and it was fun hanging out with my friends and meeting new people from other colleges. I talked to Craig and Chris last night and there’s a 5-day program called Summit held at Toinippi after the school year ends and another before the next year starts too. I think I wanna go to that. I hope a lot of people go. But I had a great time this weekend with the 18 people that went. If you want, most of the people I went with are on my facebook: Chris, Craig, Rachel, Chelsea, Jaime, Dan, and a few other people. If you wanna see what they look like and stuff about them. Hopefully someone will send me the pictures they took. =\
I had dinner with Craig, Chris, Chelsea, and Marsha when we got back. I’m glad I got the weekend to spend away from work. At dinner, I got to talk to Chris about stuff about the Conference. He asked me what I got out of it. And I talked about the question and discussion yesterday after Carl’s session that compared functionality versus affiliation of Daniel in Babylon, and functionality versus affiliation of Christians at college and campus life. And I found that really interesting yesterday. Daniel worked as one of the wise men at Babylon that interpreted dreams for King Nebuchadnezzar even though the king had destroyed and stolen the treasure of the temple in Jerusalem. I think that’s how it went anyway… But when King Nebuchadnezzar promoted Daniel to the Wise Men, Daniel functioned in the Babylonian society, but never affiliated with them. He didn’t drink their wine or eat their meat because it would show the Babylonians that him and his friends Abadnego and Meshach were accepting the culture and the affiliation. He never worshipped the king’s God or any idols of his. And then Chris and I talked about stuff like that that we were kinda dealing with right now at college with all the drinking, and all sorts of stuff that aren’t exactly moral at college. And then he talked about how as, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to keep each other from affiliating with the dominant group and… how we should do that, when we should do that, and how to respond and the course of action when a person starts affiliating with it. And stuff like that. Yeah, Chris is really smart and he’s a great guy to talk to if you need anything.
What a great weekend.
And it was really similar to berea, except it was just the weekend, and it was cold.
We left Friday night around 330 after classes got out. I donno. I felt a little sad as I was leaving for Konover to meet the other people. I donno. It was kinda weird. I've been hanging out with Brian a lot and my friends from Intervarsity, and my roomates over the past few weeks. But Brian's always been there for me. And when we left for home on the weekends, we left at the same time, and when we came back, we left at the same time. But now, I was leaving before him because mom was coming to pick him up at 5. Cause he wasn't coming; he was going to States at the Coast Guard. So he was hanging out in my room for a little bit. But I donno. A really weird feeling came over me that felt like I was abandoning him cause I was leaving before him. And I'm not sure why. But I felt really sad. So I told him to call me if he needed anything. =(
But he ended up not locking our door. My roomates left for the weekend as well. And some bad stuff happened to our room... apparently.
But yeah, we left friday night. I didn't bring much to do; just some clothes, bible, cell, and my laptop. I brought my laptop so I could make a movie with my isight camera. Didn't really end up working very well though cause it was a pain to carry it around, turn it on and off and charge it. So I didn't catch much of what we did during the day and all the fun stuff.
I did so much thinking this weekend and saw so much cool stuff. Usually I'm too busy during the fall to actually notice when the leaves are changing. But this year, I did. It was really neat going down the highway and just stare at all the colors. We saw a plane on our way there come really really close to the ground and we weren't really sure... where it was gonna land... cause we couldn't see any landing strips anywhere. There was a fire on the side of the road... and I think that's about it for the ride up. I caught it on my movie though- chris and sammi's driving- haha.
We got there around 6 and checked in. We played some cribbage before worship, followed by a session with Carl Ellis, an African American man that's done a lot of work with the Islam religion. He was probably in his 60’s or 70’s and because of his work and evangelism, he actually had had a few attempts on his life. Over the weekend, we read through a few chapters of Daniel. He's a very smart and interesting man, and a really good teacher, even though I couldn't always understand what he was saying cause his vocabulary's really big. we had our campus time, basically time with our own intervarsity group. And I got to know everyone really well. We talked about a lot of interestsing stuff- why we were at fall conference, what we expected to get out of it and what we expected to get out of Intervarsity. Um... so then, I think we had snacks at 10 and went upstairs to play a game called MAFIA during free time. What an awesome game. I'm gonna have to play that with my friends at home over winter break. I'm not sure if i wanna take a winter term yet- should decide pretty soon. I was really good at figuring out the mafia, but that gave them a reason to kill me really fast. And after that, we kinda just had some more free time. Lights out at 12; the guys slept in the basement.
The second day, Saturday was the best out of the three. We had breakfast at 8, then a morning worship and session with Carl. And then we had our silent retreat, which was very productive for me. I figured out what I should be doing with a lot of stuff I’m dealing with. This was basically 2 hours of silence by yourself, thinking and spending time with God with just a bible, notebook and pencil. Some people found a place and sat down; others walked the trails. I decided to walk, just cause I like walking when I think so I didn’t concentrate on how cold it was. But eventually I started walking in circles on the trails and found a bench to sit on. Then it go cold and I went inside.
So we ate lunch and then played football. Way too many people. Haha. I met a lot of other people from different schools though. For a second or two, a few snowflakes fell. That’s how cold it was. At 3, we went over the basement of where the girls were staying and we said we were meeting so we could spend some extra time with Hans, the guy that set up the whole weekend. Well it was really to celebrate Craig’s birthday. Haha. The reaction we got was awesome. He was like, “what????? … …. … Ooooooooooooh.” Yeah it was a good time.
Ok. So it was cold enough to snow. Regardless, Craig, Dan, Jeff, and Eric decided to go swimming in the lake. Chris and I were kinda like… yeah... I don’t really feel like going into shock. So we stood there and chris took pictures and I got them in my movie. Haha. It wasn’t that far of a walk back to the showers though. I donno. I might do it next year. Haha.
So we went inside and had a few seminars on different topics- homosexuality, Christianity after college, evangelism, women leadership, financial management and stuff like that. I went to the Carl’s seminar and we asked him questions and stuff like that. I was kinda distracted cause of his screensaver though. He had like a bunch of different pictures from all over the world. It was really colorful… And he had thousands of powerpoints on his laptop. This guy was hilarious too, which made listening to him more interesting. The animations on his hot tub powerpoint were really cool and everytime one of the animations happened, he’d start cracking up. It was sooo funny.
Then we had dinner. Mmm… and after that another worship and session with Carl. I almost missed that cause I was so tired and fell asleep after dinner. They had a table with a bunch of different books. So I checked that out after the presentation. I ended up buying a book called, “Why Bother Being Good? The Place of God in the Moral Life” by John Hare. And then we had some more free time. Made some raspberry flavored tea. I got a rematch in pool with Craig and some ping-pong with Chris. And then we had a bonfire. Craig and Chris took a small wax cup, and a wooden stirrer. And you know how if you bend a piece of wood, it snaps? So they dipped the wooden stirrer into some hot water so that it could bend. And they attached it to the sides of the wax cup, creating… a bucket. Then they filled it with water and took a piece of chocolate outside to the fire. They knew the wax cup wouldn’t burn until the water boiled. So they put the bucket on logs and tried putting it in different places and threw the chocolate in and watched until it boiled. So they were trying to make hot chocolate. Haha. It was pretty cool. I had never seen anything but smores and marshmallows made on a fire. So it was fun to watch. The first few times the logs collapsed on the bucket and the second time ash got into it. The third time went pretty well until ash got into it. So they never really created a drinkable hot chocolate. But it was fun to watch when smoke wasn’t getting into my eyes.
Craig and Chris are engineers in the senior year. They’ve been roommates since freshman year. Chris is also really, really smart and also… really tall. They were really fun to hang out with over the weekend.
Then Eric, Craig, Chris, and I went downstairs and played card games: BS, and I taught them Chinese Poker (Hebrew 13, 13- card Jew) until lights out. Haha. They’re a real fun group. Shame they’re all graduating.
This morning- breakfast, worship, session with Carl. Then we had our last campus time and we talked about the seminars. We grabbed a bag lunch and walked down to the lake to eat it. Took some pictures, cleaned up, and left by 230 or so.
It was such an amazing weekend. I’m kinda disappointed cause I didn’t get to take pictures or get a good movie. I wanted to go canoeing too, but didn’t find the time to. Oh well. I’m definitely going back next fall. It only cost 25 bucks. Rest was paid for by Student Government Organization. It was so productive and it was fun hanging out with my friends and meeting new people from other colleges. I talked to Craig and Chris last night and there’s a 5-day program called Summit held at Toinippi after the school year ends and another before the next year starts too. I think I wanna go to that. I hope a lot of people go. But I had a great time this weekend with the 18 people that went. If you want, most of the people I went with are on my facebook: Chris, Craig, Rachel, Chelsea, Jaime, Dan, and a few other people. If you wanna see what they look like and stuff about them. Hopefully someone will send me the pictures they took. =\
I had dinner with Craig, Chris, Chelsea, and Marsha when we got back. I’m glad I got the weekend to spend away from work. At dinner, I got to talk to Chris about stuff about the Conference. He asked me what I got out of it. And I talked about the question and discussion yesterday after Carl’s session that compared functionality versus affiliation of Daniel in Babylon, and functionality versus affiliation of Christians at college and campus life. And I found that really interesting yesterday. Daniel worked as one of the wise men at Babylon that interpreted dreams for King Nebuchadnezzar even though the king had destroyed and stolen the treasure of the temple in Jerusalem. I think that’s how it went anyway… But when King Nebuchadnezzar promoted Daniel to the Wise Men, Daniel functioned in the Babylonian society, but never affiliated with them. He didn’t drink their wine or eat their meat because it would show the Babylonians that him and his friends Abadnego and Meshach were accepting the culture and the affiliation. He never worshipped the king’s God or any idols of his. And then Chris and I talked about stuff like that that we were kinda dealing with right now at college with all the drinking, and all sorts of stuff that aren’t exactly moral at college. And then he talked about how as, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to keep each other from affiliating with the dominant group and… how we should do that, when we should do that, and how to respond and the course of action when a person starts affiliating with it. And stuff like that. Yeah, Chris is really smart and he’s a great guy to talk to if you need anything.
What a great weekend.