"John is naked!"/Spelunking

Okay, you can all put your minds at ease. He isn’t naked. Or at least he wasn’t when that was said during team hangout time this afternoon. After a fantastic time at the banquet last night, we got together for our weekly team prayer/worship/development time this morning. It was cool to reflect on everything God has done this year and especially the last 1-2 months, and to get excited together about what He will do next.

After our meeting was over, it was time for “team hangout time,” or, perhaps more appropriately (and definitely more popularly),”mandatory fun time.” In the past, we have struggled to make this work for our team. I mean, we all get along, and any time 2 or more Rijeka Tigers are gathered together, there is bound to be some laughter and memorable moments in our midst. But often when we have scheduled bonding time, it falls a little flat and we inevitably resort to watching a movie and playing games. Which can be fun sometimes, but we’ve overdone it this year.



So anyway, we decided to change things up a bit and switch the time to middle-of-the-day rather than evening, and instead of leaving the activity up to fate and convenience, we assigned a rotation of planners- this way everyone will have a chance to pick something they really want to do and nobody else will (be allowed to) complain. And the new daytime slot also forces some creativity.



Today was the first on the new schedule and it was Pete’s job to direct us. He asked us all to wear clothes we could go adventuring in and bring a flashlight. We grabbed some sandwiches before getting on a bus that would take us down the coast about 10 minutes or so- we were going cave exploring! There are a handful of random caves tucked away in rocky hills on the way down to various swimming spots along the coast. Before you get too many grand ideas of stalactites and stalagmites, you should know that they are man-made caves, and inside, the ground is strewn with garbage, broken bottles, and other unmentionables. Even so, they are very, very dark inside, and have cave-ish walls with icky condensation (I’ve termed it ‘cave juice’), and- best of all- bats!!! In one of the caves there was a type of ladder leading to an upper level, but the top rungs were removed, and the middle rungs were rusted out and unstable. We tried to get Tim to climb up to the next level and pull the rest of us up (he was the only one tall enough), but he was worried he would end up stuck with some dead bodies or something all alone so he refused. Oh, well, maybe next time.



After caving it for a while, Sara and Taylor went down and put their feet in the water. Up above them, and out of sight, Pete was trying to convince Tim to jump off the small cliff above them into the water below and surprise and splash them. This took a lot of inspection and persuasion, and Sara and Taylor, sensing something was going on, got suspicious. In an effort to keep them from investigating further, Pete told them, “Don’t look, John is naked up there!” John, Tim, and I (all fully clothed, I might add) could hardly contain ourselves, but this ploy worked wonderfully as Sara and Taylor (fearing the worst, I’m sure) focused their eyes firmly down and out to sea. Eventually Tim jumped, and of course the water was shallower than expected so he cut his foot, but thankfully didn’t have to get stitches this time.


You can see one of the caves in the background on the left in this picture.

That was team hangout time today. Next Friday we’re leaving to go to Dubrovnik for about a week, and that is guaranteed to produce plenty of stories and pictures.