The Men's Retreat - 49 Peruvian Men

Several American men on the team had been encouraging me to get David to hold the retreat at the hotel we are staying at.  The hotel had a large meeting room and sleeping rooms with good beds and in-room bath rooms.  It would also mean that we could avoid the hour and a half drive to the retreat location.  I thought their request made a lot of sense but David ended up choosing a place in a city in the hills above Lima.  So when Ed and I went up to the Retreat location on Tuesday I was somewhat skeptical.  However, like with every other thing that caused me concern, David was right on.  It had a pool, bunk bed sleeping for 70, a great meeting room, and lots of grassy space for playing soccer.

The meeting room only had a few tables but the gardner who was showing us around said there were "mucho" more.  He didn't speak nor understand English so why we left thinking there were more tables I do not know.  Anyway the place was great.

On Friday after the last class seven of us left for the retreat center.  The team included Ed, Jeff, Lance, Josh, Sally, Berrie, Dick (a guy from Florida who answered my email request for someone to help with Palanca), and my self.  David and his friend Carlos would be coming up on the bus with the men to translate on Saturday.  Then five great guys from the English camp team stayed over a day so they could come up on Sunday.  Four of the English camp guys had been coming down for 10+ years so they knew some of the men already.  All four of them were totally committed to the community and the ministry, an inspiration to the rest of us.

When we arrived on Friday, around 7:00pm there was a gardener there and a lady with keys to the rooms.  Neither spoke English.  Our first crisis developed when we did discovered that there were no more tables to be had anywhere.  We had one table of 8, four tables of six, and two small round tables.  We were expecting 45+ men.  After much discussion we decided to go with what we were given, not that we had any choice.  Actually it worked out just fine.  

                                    

The women slept in a two person room and the men slept in one of the bunk rooms.  It has been a few years since I have done the dorm sleeping thing... as they say "out of your comfort zone."

I awoke Saturday in a daze.  I was sleep deprived.  Ed was putting colored tape on the doors so the men would know where they were to sleep and I was helping, only I was so foggy it was a hindrance.  I could not think straight.  It was really scary.

We celebrated Ed's 70th Birthday at breakfast.

David had a banner made of our weekend theme. "I am somebody because God made me somebody."

The men, 49 of them, arrived at 9:30 and we had them circle around for the room assignments.  (Each of the six tables had a color and so each table had a room and then Ed had each color as a team for the Olympics.)  I had the men count off by eight... there were only six teams/rooms/tables.  We were off to a great start.  However, everyone took it in stride and cooperated with smiles and laughter.

We met around 10:00 for our first of five sessions.  The format of the sessions tended to be the same, a couple of Peruvian songs, I did a responsive thing "I am somebody," a testimony by one of the Peruvians, a talk, posters, and palanca.  It went really well each session.  

The talks were as follows:

Session #1     Elgin     "What are you looking for?"

Session #2     Lance    "Idols"

Session #3     Jeff        "You are not alone."

Session #4     Ed          "Following intentionally"

Session #5     Bruce     "Christian Community"

They worked great, everyone did a good job, and the posters that followed were the best.  These guys really got into it.

I was apprehensive about the posters.  These are poor men with little exposure to leisure activities yet they were more engaged in the poster activity than Americanos.  They were really good with everyone participating and thoughtful, on target, posters.  I mean they were good.

They did a great job of explaining their posters... I think.

Dick did the palanca for us.  We had over 300 note cards, pens, tooth brushes and tooth paste, tracks in Spanish, life savers, altoids, key chains, small rocks with "Jesus loves you" painted by Ed on one side, and other stuff I can't remember.  David and Carlos, the other translator, would go around to each table and translate the note cards.  The men wanted them translated and kept the cards afterwards.  I think they got the idea that a lot of people were thinking about them and praying for them.

After the first session Ed and Jeff ran the Peruvian Summer Olympics.  Each table was a team.  They did the shirt/hat/scarf relay race, pass the peanut with close pin race, and duck tape balloon race.  It was lots of fun and the men enjoyed themselves.

We gave them a long free time period after the games so that we could end the second session right before the agape dinner.  They played soccer, basketball, swam, and I taught some of them the finer points of foosball.  Many of us took needed naps.  The second session went every bit as well as the first.  Our only hitch was dinner was not going to be ready until a half hour later so we needed to stretch out the second session.  Ed had the men compete with the Oreo cookie on the forehead competition.  They loved it!
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While we were doing session two Sally and Berrie decorated the eating area.  They transformed it

For the agape dinner we had Sally and Berrie walk the men out with one on each arm to the eating area and seat them men at the table.  Then the team wore white shirts and served the food.  Several of the men wanted to help serve and were blown away by the fact that they were being served.

Jeff talked at the third session on "You are not alone."  This set up communion outside on the grass.  We gathered around a fire and Jeff gave a great communion homily.  After communion we passed out the crosses that Cliff Johnson had made.  A great close to the communion service.

The next morning the younger men were up at 5:30 swimming and playing soccer.  Needless to say, we did not join them at that time but then sleeping was out too.  

Ed talked at our 4th session and then we went right into the last one.  After lunch David had only the Peruvians meet.  We were then asked to come in.  They were all along the sides and had us go to the stage in the center.  Then each team presented posters of thanks to us.  It was neat.

After the poster presentation several of the men talked about what the weekend had meant to them.  We couldn't understand but it seemed like they were really moved.

49 new friends

We then boarded the bus for Flores de Villa.  All of us on one bus.  We filled all the seats and all the standing room.  Fortunately we all felt a closeness coming out of the retreat.

When we got to Flores de Villa the men were let off the bus and went into a community center building.  There they were surprised by the cheering of their wives, kids, and friends.  It was the highlight of the week.  To see the smiles of the men and the women meant that whole families had been changed.  This was reinforce when the men shared publicly what God had done in their lives these last two days.  

We talked with the Lounsberry's and we four agree that this was one of the best experiences we have ever had.  The men were so open, so accepting, so nice, so warm, so thankful, so friendly, and many of them so strong in their faith.  We all feel blessed to be a part of God's work.  He did good.