Day 9 – Leadership Retreat (Part I)

Today was Day One of the Leadership Retreat. Despite the rocky beginning, it flowed pretty seamlessly. The team is doing an amazing job at staying on task and keeping the energy level up considering it is 10-15 degrees hotter here near the beach than it is back at our home-base at Via Olympica.

Half the team set up the retreat center while half picked up participants . Once everyone arrived, we played games, picked team for the weekend competitions, listened to the first talk, and started the competition off with a soccer tournament. The team kept up pretty well considering that soccer is dominated by these Salvadorian kids.

We brought Mama with us to cook for the retreat (yes, we are spoiled), so of course lunch was amazing. In the afternoon, we did tire competitions and enjoyed listening to more sessions. We ended the day with testimonies from Becky and Marito ( a good friend that Tyler and Kelly met back in 2008 as a participant of the leadership retreat. Marito now helps lead the retreats and currently is in college in PA at Eastern University), a talk by Jordan, time for worship, then fellowship with the participants in the pool.

Bishop and Jordan were particularly outstanding today! We’re so proud of how they’ve stepped up! They are dominating their responsibilities as the men in charge of the competitions, and it is such a joy to watch the leadership qualities in them being revealed in new ways! everyone is really struggling with the language barrier, we all desire to be able to communicate effectively with our teams, but we are making it work!
It was a wonderful day, and the team is ready for its 4:00am run to the beach tomorrow!