The first bus had made it to the jetty and half of the ladies were on the boat heading here, but the second bus was just arriving at the border control on a desert Friday night and was stuck in traffic. The captain of the boat was in communication with us, telling us that he could not get permission to bring the second group of ladies after 8pm. So we all waited at the resort, holding our breath and praying that the bus arrive safely and quickly. Here is a picture of us all waiting in the lobby, ready.
The hotel staff has the mango juice poured and ready for the first busload of ladies.
There is always a picture of the king somewhere!
It's dark, but the first bus has arrived! We were so excited to start the retreat.
After we welcomed everyone from the first bus and had a short orientation, we sat down to dinner. Here I am with Alisa (who is a homeschool "mum") and Natasha, a new friend from New Zealand.
This is Dotty and Karen (Karen lives in my neighborhood and will keep Jordan for the week while we're skiing in Utah.)
We were happy when the second bus finally arrived.
After breakfast the next morning, we enjoyed listening to our featured speaker, Lana Packer, who came all the way from Germany. She actually wasn't allowed a visa to enter Bahrain, and we thought we might have to find a substitute speaker for the weekend, but she got on the airplane and prayed that she would be able to enter, and when she arrived, they gave her a visa!
The theme of the retreat was "Bloom where you are planted," which hit home to every one of us. Lana spoke about Ruth and Naomi and how God went with them when they had to leave their home in Moab. I really enjoyed listening to Lana's lectures, and I had some time away from my family to think about how I can serve God while I am here.
Here are the two worship leaders. The music was absolutely beautiful, and I enjoyed the singing.
I was hoping to spend some time by the pool this weekend, but there was a big dust storm in Bahrain, and the dust rolled in on Thursday, as you can see from the pictures below. The first picture was taken on Tuesday when we arrived, and the next three were taken today (on Thursday.)
Look at the difference in the sky.
In spite of the dust, we were given a tour of the island during our free time. I didn't think the island offered much to see, but we were able to see some unique animals. These are pictures from our tour.
There was a buffet at each meal.
On Thursday evening we had a talent show and had lots of laughs watching individuals entertain. This lady put on a few skits, and then danced in her traditional Indian dress.
These ladies hosted a contest of guessing texting abbreviations for senior citizens.
My roommate, Jennifer, put on a magic show with her kids' magic kit. I really enjoyed getting to know Jennifer; I had just met her a few days ago, but now I had the time and opportunity to get to know her. Here is a picture of us together.
After the talent show, everyone did some line dancing and macarena.
After breakfast on the last morning, we had our church service before packing and leaving.
We had a large banner made with a tree on it, and in each lady's binder we put a silk leaf. Everyone wrote on their leaf something that they learned or treasured while here. Then we had a ceremony of taping each of our leaves to the tree on the banner.
Here is everyone that was on the leadership team.
After we packed everything up, we boarded the boat that took us back to the jetty in Bahrain.
Here we are at the jetty, boarding the bus in which we'll cross the causeway back into Saudi Arabia.
It should only take 50 minutes to get from the jetty to the causeway, and then another half hour to get home to Dhahran from there; but we ended up getting home around 9pm due to the desert Sunday night traffic at the border!! This is what it looks like...
All 40 of us had to get off the bus twice to show our passports; and at one point, our bus got in a closed lane and had to back up in order to get out of that lane and into a moving lane. No one would give the bus enough space to move... so he backed up anyway... and actually hit the car behind us! I was in the back seat of the bus watching the whole thing... all the ladies in the back were screaming to the driver to stop... it was hilarious! I thought it would delay us for hours, but the car just moved to another lane and drove away. Finally, two ladies got out of the bus and started directing traffic so that our bus could back out of the lane. I thought we would stir up the men's anger for being forward western women, but they were very friendly and helpful once they realized what we needed.
We were tired when we finally made it back to camp. I got a ride home with Tamara, the guitar player. It was actually nice to be "home" again.
- Pattie -
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