Counselors Retreat!

This weekend was such a blast. It was exactly what I needed. I got the news of my Deda right before the retreat started and I was so blessed to have people around me praying and encouraging me. Plus, the craziness of it helped keep my mind off of things. 

We had about 40 counselors come for a weekend retreat here at Word of Life. We arranged for them to stay in some of our nicest cottages, eat some amazing food, and just have a great time getting to know each other better and preparing themselves for camps. 

On friday evenings, we have a fellowship group in town where we train these counselors. Each week we have some train us in counselling youth. We have covered topics such as anger, grief, conflict, self-esteem and many others. This weekend we had some more sessions on ethics and communication. So it was a good mixture of fun and learning. 

Here are our counselors during on of their sessions. This is our main hall where we do pretty much everything. The roof is made of 'makuti' which is essentially grass. It always cracks me up to think I live under a grass roof. During one of our sessions, it started to rain. Our roof is a bit old and is needing repair. So when it started to rain, it started leaking on pretty much everyone. We had to all find spots where water wasn't dripping from the roof. 

This weekend also gave me a chance to see a lot of my friends for the last time since I will be leaving tomorrow. This is Jacky (left) and Betty (right). They are quite the pair. They will chat your ears off and make you laugh till your belly hurts. I will miss these two.

This is Issac or, as we like to call him, Izo. He's another great friend. 

Did I mention we had amazing food?! On Saturday night, we had Coast night. The culture on the coast of Kenya is much different than the rest of Kenya. It has it's own style of dressing, own yummy food, and its own lifestyle. So we cooked a traditional coastal meal. It was delicious. Here is Rahab making chapattis. She is an amazing chef! 

On our last night, we set up a movie screen and watched a movie outside. It was so nice sitting by the ocean, feeling the cool breeze, and watching a nice movie. Although I didn't stay for long. I was pooped and hit the sack.

Good friends. I will miss these peeps. 

Tonight, is my last night at Word of Life. I have pretty much everything packed up. I have shook out all my clothes and found enough cockroaches to make me scream. I just hope I don't bring any home with me. Ha. We are having a little farewell party at my directors house tonight. Then I am outta here in the morning. I am both sad and excited. One great season over, and another one just beginning.