Schladming and Sonship

We just returned today from a five day retreat in the Austrian Alps town of Schladming.  Schladming is an hour from Salzburg and is situated in the heart of a ski village.  It reminded me a lot of the village I used to live in in Switzerland.  So yes, it was gorgeous and beautiful and I fully expected Julie Andrews and the seven children to come skipping down the mountain singing "Do-Re-Mi" at any moment.

For five days we were holed away in this little hotel with no internet, no phone, no connection to the outside world...and it was wonderful.  We had 6 intense sessions of Sonship with Jeff McMullen, a Sonship director from World Harvest who came over to lead the retreat.  If you've not heard or done Sonship, I encourage you to check it out on www.whm.org.  I was shown the Gospel in a whole new light.  There were many tears, many realizations, and many aspects of my life that I've come to see are idols of my heart.  And it hurt to admit that.  You don't tend to see what your idols are or that they even are idols until you come face to face with them.  

Probably the most convicting talk was the talk on Confrontation and Forgiveness.  As you all are probably aware, I hate confrontation, hate confronting anything, and run from it whenever there's a chance.  But I've had to confront this summer twice and both times were not easy.  Yet, I learned that the Gospel was bigger than my fear of confronting someone else.  The talk this week gave me the confidence and peace of the cross to overcome that fear.  It was truly a blessing.  We are in a continual process mode of how to take what we've learned this summer and apply it to everyday situations when we come back.

The week wasn't just full of intensity.  There were also many laughs and fun times with each other.  Yesterday, the interns took the Hunter kids and Jeff's son, Ewan, into Schladming and up the mountain to do a Ropes course.  We then went to another mountain and rode go carts down an Alp.  It was crazy and something I probably won't ever do again, but it was fun and I can say that I rode a go cart down an Alp!  This morning we went to an indoor water park and went down a slide numerous times as well as swam before we packed up to go back to Vienna.  

This next week marks our last in Vienna.  I'm going to enjoy it to the fullest.  Here are some pics from our week: