April 24-26, 1998. My lasting friendships had been captured in that group photo. (#171)

Although this was only my fourth trip to Muddy Springs for a retreat with Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, the routine was starting to feel familiar.  Meet at the parking lot by the North Residential Area Friday afternoon after I was done with my classes.  Find out who had been assigned to my car.  Head north on Highway 117 until it merges with Highway 9.  Stop at Wendy’s in Bidwell for dinner, then continue ten miles into the foothills to the Muddy Springs Retreat Center.  Once we reached Highway 9, the rest of the drive was very familiar to me, since my family drove that way many times to visit my dad’s relatives in Bidwell.

One thing was different about this retreat, though: it was spring.  I had been to two Fall Conferences here and a winter retreat, but I had never been here in spring.  The hills surrounding the retreat center were green, and more water rushed through the stream running through the canyon compared to my previous three trips here.

A week ago, as I stood around waiting for JCF’s weekly large group meeting to begin, I overheard a group of students who were student leaders with JCF talking about plans for the upcoming retreat.  “I like that we’re going to keep people in the same Bible study together at the retreat,” Tabitha Sasaki said.

“Wait, what?” I asked.

Eddie Baker jumped in to explain.  “For your small group at the retreat, you’re going to be with people from your Bible study.”

“Hmm,” I said.  My first opinion of this arrangement was unfavorable.  These retreats had in the past provided opportunities to meet new people, or at least to get to know people better whom I had not interacted with much at JCF’s weekly gatherings.  But I already knew all the people in my Bible study.  In some ways, JCF operated in ways that perpetuated cliques that I was not a part of.  I heard this would be changing next year, but the current way that Bible studies were organized and handpicked kept those cliques in place.  With only people from my existing Bible study in my small group on the retreat, I would not be in a group with anyone from any of those cliques.

I would never admit this out loud, but I had another reason to want a heterogeneous small group.  Freshmen typically lived on campus and had separate on-campus Bible studies, which met in dorm rooms on campus.  With the people in my small group only coming from my off-campus Bible study, there would be zero chance that my girl crazy self would be in a small group with any of the cute girls from this year’s freshman class, like Brianna Johns or Chelsea Robbins.  Of course, I may find opportunities to connect with people outside of my small group, but the small group provided a natural way to connect with someone new, and now there would be no one new in my group.

 As I heard the music begin, I went to find a seat, and I saw an unexpected trio sitting together: Taylor Santiago, Pete Green, and Noah Snyder.  These three had not been to JCF at all this school year.  For that matter, I could not ever remember having seen Noah at JCF, at least not since I started going sophomore year.  I knew all three of them from our church, Jeromeville Covenant, and even before that, I knew Taylor and Pete from my freshman dorm.  Taylor and Pete had regularly attended JCF their first couple years at the University of Jeromeville, but they had become more involved at J-Cov instead as time went on.  I met Noah through mutual friends shortly before I started going to J-Cov, but Taylor and Noah had gone to the same high school and been best friends since their early teens.

Caroline Pearson, who had also been in our dorm, sat next to Pete; I found out a few months ago that they were dating now.  Interesting how some couples know each other for years before they realize that there is mutual romantic interest, while others, such as Liz Williams and Ramon Quintero, get together almost immediately.  In that freshman dorm, Liz and Ramon were in a serious relationship by the end of our first month; they were together for two years, broke up for about a year, and were now back together.

“Hey, Greg,” Taylor said, reaching his hand out to give me five sideways.  I lightly slapped his hand.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.

“We had to turn in our money for the retreat next week,” Pete explained.

“You guys are going?  That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Noah said.  “We figured it’s our last year, so we may as well go to one last retreat with JCF.”

“Nice.”

Shortly after that, the worship team began playing.  During the opening song, my mind began to wander back to the thought of the small groups on the retreat being people from the same Bible study.  Whose small group would Taylor, Pete, and Noah be in?  They were not in a Bible study with JCF.  And since my Bible study was so big, big enough to split into three smaller groups every week, would my group be much bigger than the others at the retreat?  And what of Bible studies where few people were able to come on the retreat?  This plan just did not seem ideal, even for reasons that do not involve myself being secretly girl crazy.

The retreat center at Muddy Springs was built around an old building from the early 20th century that was once a resort hotel.  The building fell into disrepair decades later and was purchased by a Christian organization, with the intent to remodel it into a retreat center.  We began the night meeting together in a medium-sized meeting room attached to the hotel building.  Cheryl from the JCF staff team acted out a skit along with a few students which incorporated all of the important announcements for the weekend.

At one point, Cheryl told a student character played by Tabitha Sasaki, “So after this we’re going to meet in small groups.”

“I don’t know who’s in my small group,” Tabitha explained.

“Oh.  Your small group is your small group.  The people from your Bible study back in Jeromeville are your small group for the retreat.”

“Oh!” Tabitha exclaimed enthusiastically as I grumbled to myself at this arrangement.

After the skit, we met in small groups for the first time.  I noticed that both of the logistical problems I had thought of last week had also been considered by whomever assigned the small group.  My very large Bible study had been split into two groups; with each of the two leaders, Joe Fox and Lydia Tyler, taking one group.  I was with Lydia, along with Courtney Kohl, Colin Bowman, and Kendra Burns.  Taylor, Pete, and Noah were also in our small group.  That worked out perfectly.  Someone probably knew that those three guys knew me and Courtney from volunteering with the youth group at J-Cov, so they put them in the same group as me and Courtney.  Smart.

Janet McAllen, half of the couple who was the head staff of JCF, made an announcement as soon as we had all broken into small groups.  “We’re going to do an icebreaker,” she said.  I was unclear on the need for icebreakers since all of us knew the people in our small groups, but whatever.  This could be fun.  Janet continued, “I’m going to say a word, and all of you are going to think of a song with that word in it, and then you’re going to sing a little bit of the song.”  Okay, I thought, slightly less fun.  Although I had been in chorus for part of my time at UJ, the idea of singing unrehearsed with a small group of people was slightly less appealing.  But I would just go with it.

For the first round, the word was “love.”  That was an easy one; every group quickly thought of a song with the word “love.”  After we finished that, Janet said, “Your next word is ‘blue.’” This seemed more difficult.  A song immediately came to mind, and I sat contemplating for about ten seconds whether or not it was too silly and embarrassing to share with my group.  I eventually decided to share.  “‘The Water Buffalo Song’ from VeggieTales,” I said.  I sang, “‘Everybody’s got a baby kangaroo, yours is pink but mine is blue…’”

“That’s great,” said Noah, who was responsible for the fact that I knew that song in the first place.  VeggieTales was a series of computer-animated videos, sold in Christian bookstores on VHS tapes, with a cast of anthropomorphic vegetables acting out stories with morals from the Bible and singing silly songs.  The kids from church loved VeggieTales, and I had borrowed many of those videos from the youth media library.  Noah hosted a five hour Sunday afternoon VeggieTales marathon in the church youth room a few months ago.  While watching all of the videos, I noticed that only about a third of the attendees of this movie marathon were children in the target market of VeggieTales; the rest were high school students and young adults.

“Wait, what is this?” Colin asked, looking confused.  Noah explained VeggieTales to him, and I added the part about the silly songs.  “I’ve never heard of that,” Colin said.  Fortunately, the song was simple enough that he picked it up quickly.

After everyone had had five minutes to choose their song, the small groups took turns singing brief snippets of the songs they chose.  Groups sang “Blue Christmas,” “Behind Blue Eyes” by the Who, and “Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla (which surprised me at a Christian retreat because of the slightly blasphemous lyrics) before our turn came.  We all stood up and sang, “‘Everybody’s got a baby kangaroo, yours is pink but mine is blue…”  About half the room laughed and cheered, and the other half looked confused, like Colin had.  Clearly not everyone on this retreat was familiar with VeggieTales, but I smiled at the sight of my group using my silly idea.

The serious part of the retreat focused on the beginning of the Old Testament book of Joshua.  In this book, Moses has recently died, and the time has arrived for Joshua to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land.  As the guest speaker talked about these verses, I kept thinking how timely this was for my life.  In a little over a month, I would graduate from the University of Jeromeville.  Although I would still be enrolled at UJ next year for the teacher certification program, my life would look considerably different.  I would spend mornings in classrooms somewhere at a school that had not yet been determined.  I was hoping for Jeromeville High; I was familiar with that campus from interning in classrooms there before, and I knew some kids there from church.  But this was unlikely.  The UJ Department of Education typically sent its student teachers to Woodville, Silvey, Nueces, or across the Drawbridge to Capital County, since the highly educated upper middle class families of Jeromeville were demographically atypical for this state.

Late Saturday morning, I sat outside thinking about this as I admired the beauty of the hills across the stream, with puffy white clouds slowly sailing across the blue sky.  I would still have classes on the UJ campus in the afternoons, and I would still have Friday nights free to attend Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, so I would still see my friends around.  But many of my friends were also graduating, so I would not see them.  I would still see my younger friends, and some from my year were not leaving Jeromeville right away.  Taylor, for example, needed one more quarter before he finished his degree, and Eddie would be joining the staff of Jeromeville Christian Fellowship.  But many others, including Liz and Ramon, and Sarah Winters, all of whom I had known since the beginning of freshman year in Building C, were moving on.

Next year would be a transition for me; I would take on some of the responsibilities of a teacher, but I would still be in Jeromeville.  Life after I completed the teacher certification program was far more uncertain.  If all went according to plan, in August of 1999, just sixteen short months away, I would be working full time as a teacher somewhere unknown.  I would have no day-to-day connection to the UJ campus anymore, and it was likely I would not even be living in Jeromeville.  I would certainly be living somewhere else if I took a job more than thirty miles away.

But I had no need to be fearful of the future.  As God’s people prepared to enter the Promised Land thousands of years earlier, Joshua spoke the word of the Lord to them: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you… Be strong and courageous.  Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”  I would grow apart from friends, I may have to leave Jeromeville, but God will still be there.  I could trust God to lead me to a new church and a new group of friends, and maybe a wife and a family of my own someday.

By the time I finished going through the reflection questions that we had all been given, it was time for lunch.  I was one of the first ones in the cafeteria, and when I was about halfway through my meal, Sarah came and sat next to me.  “Hey, Greg,” she said, smiling.  “What’s up?”

“Just thinking,” I replied.  “About how we’re about to graduate, and life is going to look totally different.”

“I know!  I move home the last week of June, and my boyfriend and I are going to start looking at rings.  I feel so grown up.”

“Nice,” I said.  I knew that Sarah had a boyfriend back home, and I had been good friends with her for long enough that I did not think of her as a potential romantic interest.  But it still made me sad to know that she was off the market, another woman whom I would not ever end up with.

“So I was thinking at the group meeting this morning,” Sarah said, “there are seven of us here this weekend who were all in the IHP in Building C as freshmen.  We should all get a picture together before we leave.”

“That’s a great idea!”

“If you see the others, tell them.  I will too.”

“Yeah.  I will.”

In our small group time Saturday night,  I told Taylor and Pete about Sarah’s idea to take a group picture; they were on board.  Caroline came over to join Pete at some point, and she was excited about the picture idea as well.

We had one more study on the first chapter of Joshua Sunday morning.  When our group finished discussing the assigned question, I mentioned my thoughts about the future, how the next few years would look very different.  “This has been a good reminder that God will still be there, no matter what changes,” I said.  “He will show me where he wants me next, and he will be there.”

“I think it’s important to remember, though, that God sometimes gives you choices,” Taylor replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, for example, what if you’re applying for jobs next year, and you get two good offers.  What if God isn’t clearly leading you to one instead of the other?  There isn’t always one clear path that God will lay out for you.  Sometimes God will give you a choice.  And whichever one you choose, he will be there.  Just like the verse said tonight, God will be with you wherever you go.”

“Hmm,” I replied.  “That actually makes sense.  I like that.”

“That’s not to say you shouldn’t pray about the decision when you’re in a situation like that.  Just that sometimes it isn’t so clear cut, and that’s okay.  It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“Yeah.  I get it.”

A couple hours later, after I had packed and loaded the car, and made sure that the rest of my carpool had done the same, I walked around, looking for the others who had been in the Interdisciplinary Honors Program with me as freshmen.  Near the building was a flagpole, flying the United States flag, with a few other countries’ flags around it, to symbolize that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was for all nations.  Taylor, Pete, and Caroline stood near the flagpole at the front of the building.  “Hey, Greg,” Taylor said.  “We thought this would be a good place to take our picture.”

“Sounds good,” I replied.

“We’re still missing Liz, Ramon, and Sarah.”

“There’s Sarah,” Caroline said, pointing at Sarah walking toward us.  “I’ll go find Liz and Ramon.”

Sarah joined us as Caroline walked off to find Liz and Ramon.  Group pictures were a great source of priceless memories, but they sure were a hassle to organize sometimes.  “Did anyone tell Liz and Ramon about the group picture?” I asked.

“Caroline and I did,” Pete replied.

I saw Liz and Ramon walk across the parking lot about a minute later.  I made eye contact and waved them over to us, but by the time they arrived, ready to be photographed, Caroline had not come back yet.

“Who’s gonna take the picture?” Taylor asked.

Eddie and Tabitha walked past a minute later.  “Eddie? Tabitha?” Sarah asked.  “Can you take our picture?  We were going to get a group picture of all of us who came from Building C freshman year.”

“That’s a great idea!” Tabitha said.  “Six of you from Building C, all on this retreat?”  

“Seven,” Pete corrected.  “Caroline went to find Liz and Ramon, but they found us first.”

“There’s Caroline,” Eddie said, waving her over as all of us who brought cameras handed them to Eddie and Tabitha.

“I’m back,” Caroline announced.  “How are we doing this?”  She and Pete stood in front of the flagpole.  Taylor got behind Pete, with Sarah to Pete and Caroline’s left.  I stood behind Taylor and Pete, being significantly taller than each of them, and Ramon stood behind Sarah.  Liz climbed onto the pedestal at the bottom of the flagpole and held the pole with one hand.  Just as Eddie and Tabitha began to take the pictures, Taylor awkwardly tied his arms around Pete’s head, causing both of them to start laughing.  We held our smiles and poses as Eddie and Tabitha took photographs with all of our cameras.

“Perfect,” Taylor said.

“This is going to be a great picture,” Liz mused, smiling.  “All of us still together after four years at Jeromeville.”

“We’re almost done!” Sarah exclaimed.  “We’re graduating soon! We did it!”

“Some of us not as soon as others,” Taylor replied, laughing.

“I need to hurry up and finish this roll of film,” I said.  “I really want to see this picture.”

As I drove home, with the rest of my car napping and the group picture fresh in my mind, I thought back to that February morning, now over four years ago, when I got up early to drive to Jeromeville with Mom and Dad to learn about the Interdisciplinary Honors Program.  At that presentation, a hippie-looking guy named Crunchy had spoken about the lasting friendships he had made as a student in the IHP.  My lasting friendships had been captured in that group photo.  These people had also shown me what it really meant to follow Jesus, and we had lasting memories that would stay with us for decades to come.

Of course, we are not as close now in our 40s as we once were.  Taylor is still a close friend, and we communicate fairly often, mostly because he is active on social media.  Pete and Caroline ended up getting married about two years after we took that group picture.  They live far away now with their two teenage children, but I see them every few years when they visit their friends and family in the western states.  I am occasionally in touch with Liz and Ramon through Facebook comments, but neither of them is on Facebook often.  Sadly, I completely lost touch with Sarah in our early 30s.  By then, she and the guy who would soon be taking her to look at rings were raising a child, and life just got in the way, as it tends to so often.

Life moves on.  Memories fade.  One cannot always return to where one was before.  I realized that in a very real way in 2014 while walking around campus at the Spring Picnic, when I saw that Building C had been torn down.  A new building with a completely different name, appearance, and floor plan was under construction in its place.  But the people and events in these memories have lasting effects in the present and the future, and maybe my memories can become stories that inspire others.

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Readers: Do you have anyone whom you’ve been friends with for a very long time? Tell me about them in the comments.

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