A Westful We-tweet

One of the highlights of this past break (which was just a bit too short by the way) was a trip to Colorado.

After spending a good few days with my family down at their house, I brought my youngest brother back up with me to my place. I spent most of the time with him at the house and then we took a trip to Colorado to go on a retreat for the Midwest Presbytery youth. I was one of the "drivers" as I'm not sure I'm considered one of the "youth" any more ;) Not quite sure about that though.

Anyway, the trip up was rather nice, in a comical sort of way. First, my car's defroster doesn't seem to work that well with four hot-blooded boys in the car. Next, the windshield wipers were frozen and stiff so every time a vehicle passed my low-riding car, a spray of mud would come up on the windshield. The wipers were only getting one tiny patch down low so I was nearly peering through my steering wheel trying to see. Nearly got a crick in me neck ;)

A couple of hours into the trip, Stephen mentioned and I suddenly realized that the hood was smoking. We pulled over soon after and put some more radiator fluid in but soon after that it began smoking again. We limped on in this fashion nearly to the Colorado border. I was thinking in my mind that I felt like I was limping along on three wheels when suddenly we were! A tire blew out so I quickly grabbed the walkie-talkie and let Alan know. We pulled over and it turned out that I didn't have a wrench to get the nuts off so we tried flagging someone off the road. It took nearly fifteen minutes! Everyone pulled over to the other side of the road like the pharisees in the story of the good Samaritan. But a nice young couple did eventually stop and we were able to get the tire off and the rinky-dinky spare back on.

It was providential that the Colorado border was within 20 miles though because it was after 5:00 our time and all the places would have been closed. However, across the border it was just after 4:00 and we were able to get into a tire shop, get a new tire, and be on our way within just a few minutes. They didn't have anyone else there so they were able to get us in and get us out very quickly indeed!

From there we started going up into the mountains. The defroster kept failing and it was simultaneously too warm and too cool because the windows had to be open while the defroster was on full blast in order to keep even a small area for me to be able to see. It was dark by this time.

We ended up making it safely to the Colorado Springs Reformed Church. We were half-way into the opening lecture but what we heard of it was good.

The retreat itself was beneficial to me, there was more time than usual for games and such. I could only take a little bit of that though, then I grabbed a book and began to read. Such a pleasure to have a bit of time for that!

After the retreat was over, we went skiing, which was very fun. However, it was also (we were informed) one of the coldest days they had had. The sun was covered by a thick layer of clouds and the snow was swirling about constantly. The wind was blowing stiffly through the trees and, in my own un-wisdom perhaps (though I didn't have anything else that I owned) was wearing a mere pair of jeans. With a hole in the knee no less! I survived as long as the bundled up people though, so I felt pretty good about that, though by the end of the day I was very, very cold. Everyone was having trouble warming up their toes but I think everyone agreed that it was a lot of fun.

I spent the first three to four hours with Laura helping to teach her to ski. She was doing great despite the poor instruction. We took two beginning trips down the "bunny slope" and then headed up the lift to a higher run. It was much steeper in one spot and quite a bit longer. Laura did very well and we went on several runs up there before trying an even longer, though still the easiest rated one. We went inside to warm up briefly, then back out to ski down a bit more before lunch. During lunch, Laura admitted that she had been feeling very terrified but she never told me until after the fact! Quite the trooper.

After lunch, Tanner, Josh Mann, and myself had time for three black-diamond runs (I fell down a couple of times, quite fun in the powder!) and then headed in because it was time to go. I was feeling rather iced over anyway. The ski mask I was wearing had ice all around the mouth and nose and Tanner's goggles had ice on the /inside/ of the mask. Later we heard that on a nearby peak, what with the wind-chill and all, the temperature was supposed to drop to somewhere around 60 degrees F below zero!

The drive back home was fairly uneventful, one of the people at the church had very generously said he would look at my car, and he found a small leak in the heater hose so he replaced that and I had no cooling problems since then! Plus the defroster worked a bit better as well. Laura drove for eight hours of the way back home, which was a great boost in her driver's permit time that she needs.

Now, as for the retreat itself. The topic was prayer and a more opportune time in my life could not be had.

I've been praying and considering trying to be more active on campus as an encourager and to help start a prayer group. I'd been talking to another classmate of mine and we've laid some plans but I've not heard back from him as to the place or time yet. I would really like to pray specifically for revival and even if it's only a couple of students a week, then that would be enough.

So the lectures on prayer were good reminders for me. There was one in particular, the last one, that was most helpful. I'm going to upload it (or most of it) so you can listen to it as well. The topic of the last lecture was "Importune Prayer" and he begins by explaining what that is.

I also had the opportunity to talk to some of the other CY about some spiritual issues. We all know that it's so much easier to say that it would be a great thing to start praying more and be very active in that, but much harder to put it into practice. I challenge you to listen to this lecture and really begin praying! God has established this as a means of accomplishing His will and what a blessing that we can come to Him.

http://www.box.net/shared/kzlrd2r4sg