A Purposeful Retreat

'A Purposeful Retreat' was the theme for our officers and primers over the long Vesak Day weekend. We left for Austin Hill Resorts shortly after our parade in Church on Saturday morning.

The 19 of us who were present include Pastor Anthony, Mr. Chin, Captain Zewen, Big Mdm Sek Hoong, Small Mdm Sook Hwee, officer Teck Chai, Mrs. Lee (Joyce), officer Zhen Hui, Wang Qiong, officer Leon, officer Wen Wei, officer Gary, officer Yi Feng, officer Meng Soon, senior cadet Jeffrey, cadet Jia Wei, cadet Joshua, cadet Meng Huat and me. Taman Jurong cell group joined us for the retreat too.

These are some pictures taken by Mr. Chin.

This is a view of the golf course at the resort.

This was the swimming pool where we swam and played games.

These were our very comfortable and cosy beds.

Shortly after we checked-in to our rooms, we had a few hours of free time 'purposely' planned for us to relax and enjoy each others' company. Chaplain, officer Zhen Hui, officer Leon, Captain, Mr. Chin(photographer) and I decided to head for the jacuzzi and sauna room.

This was our first activity. Officer Wenwei led us to play 'everybody do the same'.

We also played a game of 'Monkey, Rabbit, Elephant and Cow'.

Look at Captain charging towards officer Gary. We broke a piece of art along the corridor while playing this game.

Officer Wen Wei also played a game which involved tossing cards.

We had to dive and grab the cards once he tossed them.

Before dinner, we played some board games. Some of us played Scrabble.

The rest of us played Monopoly, where officer Leon cleverly monopolised the game with 3 hotels. I had the 2 utilities, but they couldn't match up with his hotels.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, however, we didn't really like the food.

This is officer Teck Chai and his wife, Joyce.

This if officer Zhen Hui and Wang Qiong.

From left: Big Mdm, officer Leon, cadet Jia Wei and cadet Meng Huat.

This is my dinner table.

These are Boys from Taman Jurong cell group.

On our first night, Captain led us through a workshop which involved us filling in names into different categories like 'Heaven-limited', 'Achievement' and 'Blessing'.

Some hilarious questions include "Who will you recruit into your team if you are tasked to fight Aliens invading the earth?" and "Who will you choose to be your sidekick?"

Officer Yi Feng slept with his toy penguin at night. Guess who gave it to him?

I led the worship service on Sunday morning and our Chaplain shared about God's kingdom.

Mr. Chin brought us through a workshop about Man's purpose. We read through the first two chapters of Genesis and identified our purposes and functions in our families and society.

After lunch, officers Zhen Hui and Leon went for sun tanning.

We also played rugby in the swimming pool. Officer Teck Chai and Captain were really hard to push. But our team managed a draw with them.

Officer Leon led us through the 'Purposeful Game'.

We had a time for Vesper in the evening.

We played 'Ye Know Not' and did our spiritual gifts questionaire after that.

This morning, we celebrated Small Mdm's birthday. We didn't have any candles, so we drew one using the paint programme.

We had a time of worship in the morning too.

And we splitted up into small groups to pray for our Boys and our ministry.

Captain and Meng Soon are obviously not praying. (LOL!)

These are the members of Taman Jurong Cell Group.

This is a group picture of everyone together.

28th~

We would like thank the senior officers (Big Mdm, Small Mdm, Captain, Chaplain and Mr Chin) for putting the retreat together for us, the officers who organised games and worship sessions for us, and God for making everything possible.