Joni & Friends International Special Needs Retreat
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- My First Outreach - August 1, 2024
- Taipei, Taiwan (Part 2) - June 15, 2024
A few weeks ago we went to this family retreat and I was chosen to tell you about it. We heard about it from our friends and they told us it’s the highlight of their year. The camp is for families with kids with disabilities or special needs. This one was specifically designed to support Missionary families. We got to go since Tallulah has Down Syndrome. Four other kids at the camp also had Down Syndrome. There were fifteen families there from all over the world (South Africa, Taiwan, Cambodia, and all over Thailand) and all of them had kids with disabilities.
The retreat was Tuesday evening until Saturday afternoon. It was at a resort on a mountain and it was really nice. We shared a duplex cabin with another family but we had the bigger side. As soon as we looked around we found out we would be sharing the cabin with tree frogs and hundreds of ants but that isn’t very different from our house in Doi Saket (trade the frogs for countless geckos) so we didn’t care too much after we took the tree frog off the wall of Mom and Dad’s room. Although the frogs outside the windows every night were extremely loud. During the day, the frogs sounded like small dogs yapping from inside a house.
The camp is designed to give the parents a break, so every kid had an assigned buddy to spend the week with. Right when we got there we met our buddies.
As you can see, Tallulah loved her buddy Leighanna.
My buddy Andrei was was sixteen and liked reading and playing games. He did not enjoy dancing and that was completely fine with me. We watched the dance party together.
Jeremiah had a lot of fun with Nathan and Selah loved Brenna.
We were with our buddies at every meal, devotions, and during afternoon activities. After breakfast each morning, we would go to the meeting room and worship. After the parents left for their morning sessions, the teens would go into the neighboring building. There we would play games, watch videos, and make silly reenactments to bible stories. After morning activities we went back to the main building for lunch. Then from 1:00 to 4:00 we had free time to do what ever we wanted with our buddies: swimming, hike up to the cafe, play games, or just talk. Then the buddies would have time off for an hour to shower or change before dinner.
After dinner, we would go and do a group activity. One night we had a huge Minute to Win It competition. Tallulah had a ton of fun playing the Hungry Hungry Hippos game. Having people cheer her on while she mopped up the floor with her shirt was sure Tallulah’s idea of a good time. Jeremiah’s very flexible nose was put to good use in the cookie face challenge. Selah played a good toilet paper mummy, and dad finally put his skill of balloon blowing to good use.
The next night, there was a formal dinner for the parents while the kids had dinner and a dance party.
The last night was a talent show. There was everything from singing to reciting things from memory (like basketball players, car models, or pi) to magic to comedy skits! Selah and Tallulah did a clogging dance. There was also a Dad Joke Contest….and my dad won.
Overall it was a ton of fun and we will definitely go next year.
Josiah
Josiah's soul finds a voice on the piano and through guitar strings and he is on his way to becoming a masterful musician. He loves to get to know the characters in the biggest, thickest book series he can get his hands on, and is now finding his place as the lead character in the epic story God is writing of his life. Stay tuned for his posts on cool creatures in Thailand and an American teenagers' take on Thai food.
One Comment
Grandma
So much fun!! Thank you for sharing this with us