Life in The Family International

What an amazing experience it was to be up in the mountains with 25 teenagers and a couple of us staff. This was really just supposed to be a small event, but it turned out to be a camp! We started the drive with lots of desperate prayer, as the roads in India are dangerous as it is and the highways are especially so. The road up to Kodi is curvy and you can’t see the traffic coming at you half the time. There are monkeys crossing the road too, cows here and there, and of course the many buses and trucks that speed down the mountain. We arrived safely and started the even with some fun sports events all together. A dance party was announced for the evening, and it turned out to be a blast. Thank you John and Maria for planning it.

In the morning we had live music and invited some of the teens up to play for and with their peers. After two hours of this we had some inspirational reading, on the topic of discipleship and what it means to follow God. This was a very beautiful time, not only for the teens, but I felt very moved as I read with them to evaluate my own life and personal stance.

While this was going on, unbeknownst to the young people, a team of people had slipped away to Kodi (the resort we were staying at was a good half an hour away from the city) to plant many clues around the city that led to a prize. This was something of a treasure hunt, only much better. The young people had to rent bikes, search for clues in public bathrooms, rent pedal boats and ride across the lake to a boat house to retrieve a precariously perched clue. We had some guys jump into the water, some get stuck on the mud banks… My personal adventure was found in getting a real sore pair of legs after pedaling across the lake with a boatful of people! The whole hunt took a couple of hours! Afterwards we made sure to sample the local homemade ice cream that is a delicacy there, before heading back to the resort. We played some more sports together, ate a delicious steak and mashed potatoes dinner, and the evening ended with a bonfire outside with more live music. Only this time a little quieter and some time spent singing to and talking to our Maker! It was so beautiful to be out under the stars like that in the cool mountain air! Just when they thought everything was over and they had gone to sleep for an hour or so, we woke them up for a united movie! They were so surprised, but were so happy to be up again and with their friends! Ha. That was the end of our ‘city meet’ for that month and it was awesome!

Vincent and Sara are second-generation members of the Family International and are fulltime volunteers in India. Vincent conducts Outreach activities, designs for Family brochures, and helps in the managerial aspects of Family life. Sara runs a Baby School for Family babies and toddlers, organizes open forums and activities for teenagers, does secretarial and organizational work, and conducts motivational classes for students. More about Sara and Vincent

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 8:50 am and is filed under Family Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.