I'm on Top of A Mountain!

The Sycamore House went on an incredibly fun and somewhat adventurous adventure this weekend! We joined 3 other Episcopal Service Corps groups from around the East Coast and went to the Poconos for a weekend retreat! The groups that were at this retreat were from Baltimore, New York, and Virginia, all together that equaled about 30 people spending 4 days and 3 nights at Kirkridge Retreat Center in Bangor, PA. Kirkridge is on 170 acres of land overlooking Delaware Valley and Pocono Mountains. The retreat center is actually at the top of the mountain and gives an incredible view! We arrived at the location on Thursday around 6pm and we hit very dense fog and some scattered showers when we arrived so we had no idea what kind of view we had when we got there. We could barely see 5 feet in front of the van that my program director, Emmy, was driving. When we got to Kirkridge, we were the 3rd of 4 groups to arrive and went to get rooms to sleep in and then got ready for dinner. There are rooms on the first floor and in the basement, I slept in the

basement, as did most of the others, the rooms were small but had a simple, rustic charm and was fairly cozy! There is a large dining room, living room, worship/lecture room, and kitchen. We spent most of our time in the worship/lecture room because it is the biggest and has the most room as well as a huge fireplace that was going the whole time we were there. The group from Virginia arrived 3 hours later than the suggested arrival time because of major traffic in DC, but when we all got to Kirkridge, we did interdictions played a few games, did a short goodnight worship session, and then went to bed. On Friday, the Sycamore House went on an adventure and went to the ledge of the Poconos to see the view of the mountain. It was absolutely beautiful! It's higher than I thought it would be, but not overly high. I enjoyed just looking at it and taking deep breaths. I sat on a rock and just looked at everything for about 15 or 20 minutes. There was a small farm with a tractor running and every once in awhile you would see a flock of birds leave a tree. I was very relaxing and the colors were pretty, I can imagine how gorgeous it looked a couple weeks ago when the colors were more vivid. You definitely do not see views like that in Iowa since it is mostly flat land! The weather had been pretty chilly all weekend, in the 40's most of the time,  I was bundled up and broke out my Love Your Melon hat. We did not spend as much time on the trails as I would have liked, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.


Poconos Moutains

I met some pretty neat people this weekend and learned a lot about the different programs and it definitely made me reflect on how I feel in Harrisburg. The group from New York strictly works on disaster relief efforts, mostly Hurricane Sandy rebuilding that happened recently. There are 4 people in that program and 2 of them are male. When they rebuild, they do everything from working power saws to painting to installing doors, and not all of them had construction experience before doing ESC New York. They all seem like a very close-knit group and we will be seeing them again in February in Philadelphia since they are going to be attending a retreat that we are also!


Some of my housemates and I

The group from Baltimore seems like the most eclectic group of the bunch, they have 7 members, 3 of them guys and they all have different jobs and situations then our house. We have a community dinner on Tuesdays, that is intended for anyone in the community to join us, and a house dinner on Sundays. Baltimore had a house dinner 4 nights a week and is much more structured than our house. They have jobs that very from working in the Parish to working in schools and their hours are different except for the intentional dinners. They are also located on a not-so-great part of Baltimore, it is much like Harrisburg in the sense that there are a lot of empty and abandoned buildings and it is not doing the greatest economically.
The last group from Virginia seems like they have a lot of fun together. They surprised everyone when they came into breakfast on Friday wearing matching sweatpants that they made. They have 6 people and 2 males and they actually live in a renovated duplex, so they have 2 of everything, which I thought was very interesting! They also work with the community but they do homeless persons laundry instead of feeding them. They, too, have varying jobs and my house can relate to them the most because they often have a hard time finding time for multiple dinners a week as well as bonding because all of our schedules are so different.

View from dining room deck

I definitely have more of an appreciation of the Sycamore House program, not all the groups have to be involved with the church that sponsors them, but we do. I think because we have a strong partnership with our church we know the people of the church community better. I am definitely not the most religious person in the world, but I feel support from the members of the church in so many ways. I have received many invites for Thanksgiving because they know I will not be going home for the holiday. The house receives fresh eggs almost every week because a woman on vestry has chickens. I get so many hugs from different people of the church every week and it definitely makes me feel like I belong, even if I am not very religious. I am also able to appreciate the girls of the house and having them as housemates and roommates. I was able to meet a lot of people and learned about their situations and stressors and we aren't that bad, we are also growing much closer than we were almost 3 months ago. I think the house dynamic would change if we had males in the house, but I think our house would have done fine. All the other houses have men, we are the only house that does not, so its interesting to see their perspective and ours when it comes to that situation.
I had so much fun getting to know everyone! I truly felt like I made friends this weekend, I have some really great talks and deep conversations with some of them and I was able to have fun with people I've never met before playing new and fun games like Taboo, 4 cushions, Never ever have I ever, and Apples to Apples.
I am thankful that I had an opportunity to go to this retreat and I have made connections with different people and will be in touch with some of them as well, which I am excited for! I have wanted to go to Baltimore and now I could potentially have some place to stay if I make it a weekend trip, and that is all the same if anyone wants to go to Harrisburg. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, I am hoping that everyone takes up the offers and travels to see everyone again.
This week at work, I am just continuing working on the coffee fundraiser through the organization Grounds for Change. Grounds for Change has been absolutely wonderful and so helpful throughout this whole experience and I am excited to start selling coffee to be able to raise money for the Service Trips at Dickinson College (Advertisement- If you want to buy any coffee let me know, they are 10 dollars per 8oz).
Till next week,
Katie