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THIS IS CRAZY!! One day I arrive at camp to start my year of service and now it's already halfway over, time really does fly. I had a lot of time to reminisce about the past months at mid-year retreats from both BVS and EIRENE. But first of course I got to be at my first winter retreat here at Camp Mardela. Since I had to leave early, I helped in the kitchen instead of counseling which was fun. The kitchen still rocks.
Then I was off to Jekyll Island, Georgia for the first week of mid-year retreat with EIRENE, so with all the Germans in North America and Canada. We all had time to present our projects and experiences so far, think about the positives, negatives and of course the future after the service. Also this was a great opportunity to reconnect with the other volunteers and get to know others I hadn't met before. The weather by the way, was amazing. It was so warm we had sunshine and only two days of rain in two weeks. We saw some dolphins too, since we had the beach and ocean very close to us.
We had one day lay over in Orlando, Florida before the BVS retreat started, so me and a few others went to the Universal Studios. When I saw the Harry Potter themed area I was tempted to stay there forever, but the park closed so I had to leave. It was definitely worth it though.
For the BVS retreat I got to visit my fifth Church of the Brethren camp, Ithiel. Still very warm and sunny, we had another week of thinking about the past month, looking towards the future and reconnecting/connecting with other volunteers. It was of course similar to the EIRENE retreat but also different and fun in some ways. Camp Ithiels swimming pond is definitely more dangerous than ours having an alligator in it instead of leeches, but I survived canoeing in there. We also had a beach day for this retreat, we went to Cocoa Beach and saw a ROCKET LAUNCH.
Being back at camp for one evening I directly went away again, to Jennifer's sisters birthday party, FRIENDS themed and a little pre Easter, Easter celebration. Then I actually came back to camp and stayed, to plant some more plants, fold and staple newsletters, just going back to the usual. We had our own Sonrise service here at camp, which was very early but very enjoyable and I was in the kitchen again. That's all about my March, I hope you had a good one too and are as excited as I am looking forward.
