By Alyssa Rosenbaum
Staff Writer
Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Cold, brisk air rushes into your nostrils. Feel the warmth of bright sunlight on your face. Gaze at the majestic beauty of the Northern Italian Alps around you.
The forested mountain peaks and streams of clear, blue water dominate the landscape. You are on top of a mountain completely isolated from the rest of the world. The amazing scenery excites you, but the anticipation of what will transpire in the next two days is much greater.
This was the state of mind of overseas programs students last Friday as they arrived in Clusone, Italy, for the first International Programs spiritual retreat in a decade. More than 120 students from Florence, Heidelberg, London and Lyon gathered at a gorgeous mountainside hotel for a time to get away from their daily lives and join in fellowship.
It was the first overseas spiritual retreat of this magnitude ever, according to Heidelberg Residential Advisor Travis Weber. Weber and the other overseas RAs began planning the retreat when they met for training in August.
Excitement filled the air on Friday as the different programs arrived at the hotel, which the group essentially had to themselves. Friends who had not seen each other for months embraced and talked.
More than 40 students came from both Heidelberg and Florence, which was on a forced extra-curricular field trip because of a protest in their city, and about 20 students each came from London and Lyon.
The retreat was sponsored by the Pepperdine Voyage Program, Freunde von Heidelberg, Housing and Community Living, Campus Ministry, International Programs and anonymous private donors.
One donor even helped pay for the London students’ plane tickets to the mountaintop experience.
Students paid roughly $150 each to participate, including traveling and retreat expenses.
The retreat began Friday evening with an Italian meal where students shared stories with one another from their past two months in Europe.
After socializing, the spiritual tone was set by a night filled with student-led worship, two sessions from keynote speaker Ezra Plank, director of the Spiritual Life Advisor Program at Malibu, and small group discussions. Plank’s wife Emily, a Seaver senior, also helped with the retreat.
“To see 120 Pepperdine students in one place worshipping the same Creator was a great experience,” Heidelberger Jon Eric Schmidt said.
Titled “Spiritual Summit,” the theme of the retreat was “Image is Everything: A Search for Identity.” During his four sessions on Friday and Saturday, Ezra Plank spoke about God’s identity, our identity as created in his image, hearing the call of vocation and how gender influences identity.
He concluded with a session about responding to the deeper call of serving the world.
“I think also that sometimes Pepperdine students are under a stereotype that they are at Pepperdine for an education in order to become wealthy and serve themselves,” Ezra Plank said. “I think they have been brought to a point where purpose now has a different meaning. We have all been called to re-examine our purpose in the world.”
The engaging topics of identity, vocation and service were relevant to each student and sparked deep thought.
Students discussed these thoughts and prayed together after each session in small groups. Students then gathered Saturday to share how the weekend affected them.
On Saturday night students witnessed how impacting the retreat was when dozens of students came forward to share what God had put on their hearts.
Many shared what they had gained from the weekend and what action they would take to change their lifestyles.
It was overwhelmingly apparent that the weekend was much more than a social gathering. It was a time of looking deeply into the Lord and into themselves.
But the Spiritual Summit was not only a time of personal reflection and spiritual growth. Gathering more than a 100 excited and talented Pepperdine students in one hotel also created memories. They stepped outside their tightly bonded programs to laugh together during mixers, games and a digital camera scavenger hunt. The programs came back together to create entertaining skits about the unique characteristics of their program.
“I knew our house was close, but I had no idea how close we truly were until I saw the other groups and realized that what we have is unique and special,” Florentine Craig Ries said. “I feel that the weekend has encouraged our house to strive for a sense of spirituality that has not yet been experienced and I’m excited to see where we go from here.”
The retreat was, to say the very least, a memorable experience. For many it was even a life-changing one.
“I think it went extremely well,” Ezra Plank said. “When you talk about purpose, vocation and God’s design for your life, I don’t know how you can avoid people being impacted.
“I’m really happy with how it went and I think that God moved because people were willing to be honest and think about what God wants for them,” Plank continued.
“I feel like everybody just took it very seriously and knew that it was beyond just hearing the information and that they needed to process it in terms of their individual self. Emily and I just talked about it, and we feel that God really, really blessed it.”
November 14, 2002