A Day Outdoors

Monday morning was the perfect time to explore a new walking path behind my AirBnb. I’d seen the pond in passing, but didn’t realize the sidewalk made a complete circuit around the body of water. Along the path, I encountered a coffee truck, so naturally I purchased some coffee and enjoyed it as I continued the walk, stopping to observe birds and local plants.

The messages at church services discussed the probable personality types of various biblical characters (and how they impacted their lives) and detailed what it will be like to comfort and teach people in the Millennium.

After services, I drove early to the beach where the young adult activity would be held. As I had extra time, I explored the area on foot, purchased a light appetizer from an Italian restaurant, and inflated a pool float to use on the beach. As the young adults arrived and began to set up for the event, I shared conversation with several people until the games began.

After dividing into six teams, the groups went through a series of team-building activities. My team began with a three-legged race. We paired up in twos of relatively similar height, and although we didn’t win, we still made fairly good time considering the difficulty of trying to run on sand. Next was an egg and spoon race. Again, we didn’t win, but had a lot of fun with it. Finally, we had the opportunity to build a sandcastle. We had time to make a city of sandcastles, but were outdone by the others, as we didn’t budget the time as well as we should have, and aspects of our creation were incomplete. That said, it was more about having fun with the process than necessarily winning.

Pizza of various flavors was a highlight of the evening. Afterwards, we broke into small groups for conversation or played games. I played volleyball with a rotating group of people for most of the time until it got too dark to play effectively and our numbers had sufficiently dwindled.

Since Daylight Savings Time is not used in this part of Australia, it was too dark outside, so a few of us continued the evening social by spending time at one of the couples’ rental homes. We played a version of Jenga that included discussion questions written onto each of the blocks that had to be answered when removed from the tower. We also got takeout from Guzman y Gomez Mexican Kitchen, which is a popular restaurant chain in Australia, probably most comparable to Chipotle in the U.S. Filled with good food and laughter, the day came to a satisfying close.