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| PRAISE REPORT | |||||||||||||||||||
LIFE Retreat 2008: GIVE ME A BREAK! On May 18th 2008, a group of around 80 Young Working Adults (YWAs) packed their bags and journeyed up Fraser’s Hill for an awesome LIFE Retreat at Pines Resort. The theme for this year’s retreat was “Gimme A Break!” since it was meant to give the young working adults of ACTS a chance to relax, unwind, and most importantly seek God from the mountaintop. The retreat was filled with laughter, fun and of course, plenty of God’s Word. On the first night, ACTS Church’s one and only youth pastor Pastor Alex, gave the YWAs a renewed sense of purpose as God’s people. He stressed that the absence of purpose will lead to abuse (abnormal use). The young working adults were later separated into 5 groups named after the five highest peaks in the world: Ararat, Fujisan, Apo, Kanchengjunga and Everest. The teams were also given the task of creating an outstanding war-cry and come out with a 10-minute sketch with the theme “Save Something Please” based on an assigned superhero consisting of the X-Men, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, Powerpuff Girls and The Fantastic Four. The next morning Pastor Alex again shared on how to depend on God and not our “chariots and horses”, or in other words our own strengths and earthly riches to keep us secure. There were also awesome testimonies being told as Pastor Alex broke the session up into the groups and had the LIFE Core Team lead discussions on how God has been evident in our lives especially at the workplace. At the next session, Pastor Sandra spoke on raising a generation for God who would live out their lives with a sense of doing the extraordinary for God. Pastor Kenneth who took over also shared on how God gave us our ‘biggest break’ in the form of Jesus Christ who came and gave the world the greatest love of all. The afternoon after lunch was filled with fun station games as the YWAs raced around the Pines Resort compound in the attempt to complete the ACTS Amazing Race. After that in the evening, it was free and easy time to chill, relax and work on the sketches for the night. For the night session, Pastor Kenneth spoke again, this time regarding the four kinds of breaks that we might get in life but emphasized that the biggest break is still from Jesus which we can take anytime anywhere in our hearts. After the message, the whole group laughed our hearts out over the sketches as we were entertained by truly amazing but hilarious sketches regarding superheroes. In fact, a few new talents were discovered that night and everyone enjoyed themselves. As the night drew to an end, we celebrated the birthdays of Jessica Chan and our dear camp commander Jason Martin. After that, some people went into groups to play games while others rested early from a long day. There was even a group who went cycling all the way to town and back in the middle of the night for fun. On the final day Pastor Alex closed the camp with a summary message of the camp and spoke to us on the return journey from the mountaintop to the valley where life is, by focusing on the road to avoid motion sickness and to keep the momentum of our passion for God going. There was a photography session before YWAs adjourned to pack their bags, have lunch and return to the city. All in all, it was a very successful retreat as many people had a good rest from work, had many laughs and fun-filled moments, built and strengthened friendships, were spiritually fed with God’s Word and were refreshed to go home. Here’s looking forward to the next LIFE event for another awesome time with the YWAs from ACTS Church! -End-
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