I went on one of those trips where you simply decide to go and go.
Throughout the retreat, I kept saying I ought to write something, but I was genuinely too busy. Every day was exceptionally full, spent enjoying conversations with brothers and sisters and the messages being shared. At last, back aboard the familiar Silver Line, I began another round of typing.
Let me think… I should probably begin with UTD’s battle royale of a hundred clubs. As mentioned in Diary 134, the fair itself was nowhere on my schedule. I merely walked outside, stumbled into a massive gathering, and found that no amount of desperate effort could get me out. Hailan Church’s booth happened to sit along a side branch beyond the circular route. Even if a question mark had appeared there on the map, a speedrunner like me would probably have skipped it. Yet by sheer coincidence I stopped, happened to glimpse familiar Chinese characters, then looked more closely—and suddenly, upon turning my head, there they were where the lantern light was dim.
We did not talk much that day. We exchanged names and contact information. After discovering that their welcome party unfortunately clashed with Enyou Church’s, I said, “I will definitely come by when I have time.” (And then, predictably, stood them up.) Just as I assumed this would be no more than another encounter with old countrymen in a foreign land, neither especially long nor especially short, an invitation arrived.
Brother Zhihui messaged me on August 31. The place did not look too far from home, and my weekend was not very full, so I thought it might be nice to meet some new people. Fine, there were no such high-minded reasons. I dunno—I heard students got in free, so I came.
I set out on Saturday and, after a winding journey, arrived on an island surrounded by a lake on three sides. The moment I entered the lobby of the Retreat Center, or TRC, I noticed three things: the resort seemed filled with elements of faith; far more people had come than I expected; and why was Texas so hot? (Fine, I did not need to arrive before discovering the last one.) Only after asking around did I learn that the center’s main business was hosting church events—and that demand was beyond anything I had imagined. This year’s retreat had to be booked a full year in advance. I resolved to treasure this hard-won opportunity, meet more new friends, and build connections with the local Chinese churches.
Immediately after arriving, I entered my usual state of looking everywhere for something to help with. Only after I had finished attaching the attendees’ name labels did I realize they were supposed to go on the cards, not the plastic holders. Whatever. I left my luggage in the room and chatted now and then with the brothers and sisters who had arrived early. Before long, it was already time for games before dinner.
The organizers’ simple games naturally posed no challenge to the “King of Minigames,” who had ruled over children since childhood. My throat was still aching, however, forcing me to gaze at the chips among the prizes from a respectful distance. In the end, the true attraction was the board-game area off to one side. The Avalon lobby was already full, so I joined a table of UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy. After learning the rules in a tutorial game and suffering a brutal elimination—in case you did not know, holding more than twenty-five cards in No Mercy eliminates you automatically—I knocked out the two veterans sitting on either side of me in the first proper match, successfully scrambling the seating arrangement for game two. Only later did I learn that the uncle beside me seemed to be the pastor of one of the five participating churches. Clearly, I had become so consumed by bloodlust that socializing never crossed my mind.
Dinner was plain steak. This is not a humblebrag; it really was extraordinarily plain, like a half-finished product briefly blanched in water and brought straight to the table. It tasted unexpectedly good, though. Little Tianyao did not yet know that in the future “retreat food, ranked from peak to trash,” this would be the only meal to reach the high-society tier…
The three days were linked by “the three pillars of a blessed life: faith, hope, and love.” During the first message, I had left my backpack in the room and therefore abandoned all note-taking with a perfectly clear conscience—a decision I later bitterly regretted. Pastor Luke Zhang’s talks were filled with the familiar flavor of Chinese culture, and the occasional meme drawn from current events brought knowing smiles to many faces. At heart, this was still an evangelistic life retreat intended for seekers, but the messages nevertheless gave me much to reflect upon.
Omitted. (If I put all my notes here, would anyone actually read them?)
The three days also left plenty of time for conversation. After Sunday worship on the second day, the organizers arranged small-group discussions. A crowd of us around the same age gathered outside the meeting hall and stared blankly at one another until we decided to open up new territory. We climbed to the third floor of the TRC. There were not enough chairs, so we tipped tables onto their sides to make up the difference, sat together on the floor, and began responding to the questions.
It was an unforgettable time. People shared testimonies large and small. With seekers among us, the discussion did not go especially deep into theology, but when it came to life, every word was firmly rooted in the earth. As usual, I shared the story of how I had followed the road of Christian education, and my account encouraged others to share as well. We had only just met, yet felt like familiar old friends.
Among the people my age were quite a few upperclassmen from UTD. After the evening gathering, one of them walked beside the lake with me as we talked, and we got along remarkably well. Later, he recommended a number of opportunities on campus. I am now energetically pursuing them!
Three days and two nights were neither particularly long nor particularly short. When it was time for the group photo, I joined the crowd without thinking much about it. In some unofficial sense, I had become one of them. As the pastor said in his message, “Though people come from every corner of the world, they meet as if they have always known one another.”
With less light pollution than the city, the night sky shone with exceptional brilliance. There was the cloud of witnesses, sparkling like a multitude of stars.
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