Safehaven's 1st Annual Retreat

Sedona Resort, Bintan, Indonesia

9-11 July 1999

By Kenneth Lau (and hopefully others)

All of us are writing this from memory three years after the event so recollections may not be as clear as we'd like them to be. No one also thought of bringing a camera, so words will have to suffice, at least until one of us decides to do a sketch from memory.

[Kenneth]

We had been meeting for about a year before we decided to hold a retreat. I had just been to the Sedona at Bintan and suggested we hold it there, booking two chalets from SAFRA. For the record, Adrian, Boon Long, David, George, Jason, Nick, Patrick, Sean and Tuck Leong and I attended the retreat. Jason handled the entire program and Nick coordinated the ferry tickets. In addition to booking the chalets, I also handled the food.

Perhaps because of this I was typecast miserably for years afterwards — look for Ken if you need someone to take care of food! It took a long time before anyone trusted me enough to suggest that I handle bible study, let alone a sermon. Jason, Clarence, Nick and I were having supper after bible study one day and I asked them whether they ever imagined I would become a cell group facilitator one day and all of them replied ... nooooo.

There were only ten of us at the first retreat and this allowed us to get to know one another intimately. We slept late, after quiet talks that lasted into the wee hours of the night. I one such incident. Nick and I were sitting outside the chalet talking about life. He was smoking and it had been something I always wanted to try so I asked him to teach me. Every year since then I smoke about three cigarettes and think about that night in Bintan.

In many ways it was a lot more special than the other retreat I attended (the recent fourth retreat), which everyone agrees was excellent. Although Jason prepared the program, everyone pitched in. In a harbringer of things to come, Tuck Leong prepared a simple communion. The program comprised five stations, made up of a series of readings taken from various sources.

Here are two of the readings:

As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so woudl I learn to attain freefall, and float into the Creator Spirit's deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.	Let me not forget the afternoons full of long words and leisure when I was flush in blessings lolling in your swoon so full and light every breeze was the lifting of time's wing.
Denis Levertov	Katherine Mosby

It was that kind of a retreat — full of long words and leisure, flush in blessings. I felt a strong sense of fellowship; many of the original Haveners have since become very good friends, the sort that you just know will stay with you for a lifetime.