hakuna mungu kama wewe

Best decision for detox from school/life ever. A week in the Adirondacks surrounded by nothing but friends, music, a lake and nature. I guess a lake is nature but we can argue that later.

I mean, seriously, who would not want to have free time where you can lay back and look at a view like that? RIT should really consider moving it's campus. Stress levels (along with completed homework) would decrease significantly.

A bunch of us piled in cars last Saturday afternoon and headed 4.5 (?) hours up to Saranac lake in the far reaches of Northern NY (aka land of no cell service).

The week was full of bible studies, great food, awesome worship with roughly 100 other college students from around NY/NJ and lots and lots of time outside. For real. I've never been so "tan".

From around 7 am whenever we got up to either go running or have early morning prayer until midnight or later when we were finally finished hanging out in the hot tub or playing basketball, we were outside. It was fantastic. It was rather amusing during sessions because everyone from RIT would rush outside to play frisbee and soak it all in because we are apparently the lone college who doesn't see sunlight on a regular basis.

Every morning after breakfast we got an hour for quiet time that could be spent wherever. Mine was on the dock =) It was excellent except for the morning after it rained one night and i laid down only to get completely soaked. Oh well!

On Tuesday we had what they call a "retreat of silence" which meant a super long quiet time (4 hours) whenever you wanted to wander and just be alone. I spent mine around this rock with the view seen above. Uh, hello retreat of silence during week 5 of spring quarter.. where were you?

After quiet time, the morning session and lunch we got two hours of free time to be spent however. The first day I played volleyball for the entire time but that got to be a bit exhausting and the sand was a little toasty on the toes so for future free times I either waded (one day I got thrown in) in the water or went kayaking. Two days I went on the motor boat with people who were tubing. I was trying to talk myself into going tubing but it just didn't happen. I need to get over my fear of large open water that is not a pool first. Maybe next year if I go back =)

At night after dinner there was worship and a speaker. My favorite song by far was Hakuna Munug Kama Wewe (video clip below from Urbana 2009 which i regret not going to).

Left on Thursday around 4 and got back around 10 after a stop at Cracker Barrel for dinner.

One of the highlights was actually during a thunderstorm on the last night (which i was not exactly that thrilled about because we were outside on a mountain under trees....) but we found a covered bridge that connected two buildings and sat in there while people took turns requesting songs, singing and talking =) Good way to spend the last night even if the rain did cancel the bonfire.

Overall just a fantastic week, I missed it the minute we got back to RIT. A blog post just doesn't really do it justice.