Just got back from the National Fatherhood Initiative annual retreat yesterday afternoon.
Tamika and I had a really nice time. It was held at the Hershey Lodge this year, a sprawling complex with hundreds of rooms. Some of you may recall Messiah College’s Christmas Tradition… it was often held at the Hershey Lodge. I had photos from then lying about in dusty places; if I find them I’ll put them up.
The retreat, as usual, consisted of a series of lectures and short ice-breaker games. I thought Roland’s lecture on the book Made to Stick was the best. I’ve been reading the book for the past month (no, I’m not that slow, I’ve also been reading 4 or 5 other books for the past month too), and I really recommend it for anyone involved in Marketing, Graphic Design, or just interested in telling better stories. It goes into depth of why stories like “flashing your headlights triggers a gang member killing” stick in people’s minds, and why dry business meetings don’t.
Monday night, I awoke at 3am and felt really really sick. I spent the next couple hours dashing to the suite’s bathroom and emptying my lunch and dinner into the toilet.
The next morning, I got up and was doubled over in pain. I’m not sure if it was something I ate, or a virus, or what, but the pain was excruciating. I felt dizzy and lightheaded too. I knew people would expect me to be down at the seminars, so despite Tamika’s protests, I took a quick shower and shuffled my way down to the Cocoa Room where the rest of the staff were gathered.
A couple hours into it, I began to feel really really sick, and finally Sherron (the new Resource Center Manager) got permission for me to go lay down outside. Right before that, though, they threw a surprise baby shower for Tamika and Elaine (who runs our Events department and is also expecting)! We were both very surprised as everyone got up and literally showered us with gifts.
God has really taken care of our every need. To be honest, I’ve been getting worried over the past couple months about how we were going to financially support having another mouth to feed. But now I (yet again) see that my worrying has been in vain.
This past weekend, Tamika and I drove up to her parent’s house in Perkasie under the guise of her mom taking her out for a pedicure and surprised her with a baby shower there as well! There were at least 30 or 40 people jammed into the house, and the family room was so full of gifts that they had to ferry them into the living room for Tamika to open them. I wanted to be a part, but they took a while to get to the gifts part (there was also a lot of food), and I had fallen asleep in the basement. I had helped move the stuff from where it was hidden in the neighbor’s garage, and after a long week at work I was pretty beat.
We got all kinds of very cool stuff, including a stroller, a crib, thousands of clothes, and even a beautiful gliding rocking chair for Tamika (my mom and her mom got together to get it).