Winter Retreat Recap...

Well, we are home now, recovering from another weekend retreat with our junior highers. It always amazes me just how EXHAUSTED we are the day after one of our retreats! When we got home last night, we didn't feel that badly, but today we are dragging to say the least. But, we are totally grateful to each have the day off today so that we can re-group and get ready for another week. Our retreat began on Friday night with the obligatory 3 hour bus ride north, to camp, where upon arrival all students seem to get a burst of energy and excitement that they can hardly contain. It's as if they realize, as a group, that it's Friday night, school is over, they're away from home, and Mom and Dad are nowhere around! The bliss that overtakes them must be tremendous because all of the sudden we have tons of hyper, wild students raring to go at midnight! Our poor cabin leaders seem to get virtually no sleep that first night because they all have students that just can't calm down and go to sleeep! We see lots of tired eyes on Saturday morning...

This year, I avoided the Friday night chaos and I came up early Saturday morning to join the group. We had a student who was unable to make it to the registration on Friday night, so I met her early Saturday morning and drove her up myself. I kind of hated to miss Friday night, but then I remembered what I was missing and I had no problem getting a great night of sleep in my own bed instead! We had gorgeous weather all weekend and the camp went very well. We had a speaker who was great and our staff did a fantastic job of putting everything together. Our theme was "dirty jobs" after the popular tv show on the discovery channel with Mike Rowe. Scott challenged the kids to recognize how the Lord can clean us up from all the dirtiness around us and how we have countless opportunities to do some "dirty jobs" by serving others around us. It was a timely challenge that helped kick of our service month in March and it seemed to really grip alot of kids. It's such a blessing to do these retreats with both a paid and volunteer staff. We could not do it without them! And this weekend, we REALLY needed them...

One of the things offered at this camp was an indoor skate park, which I admit, did make me nervous. Naturally, there was a good reason for that, as we had one of our students take a good fall and break his leg! A first for us...we've had other hospital trips for ear infections, nasty bites, etc., but this was the first broken bone we've had and the first surgery as well. After calling his Mom and looking at his leg, Travis and I took him to the hospital and stayed with him as we learned that he broke his tibia and that he would need surgery, that night! So Saturday, we were in the ER for 5 hours, trying to keep him calm and waiting for his Mom to get there so they could transfer him to a bigger hospital and move him into surgery. We felt so bad for him, as he was in obvious pain, but he was one brave kid and he did great with all the info and trauma being thrown at him. Needless to say, we were very thankful for our staff to keep everything running without the other kids really missing a beat. But God was also so good to David. As we returned to camp, we prayed for David as a large group around 9:20 Saturday night, as we knew he was facing surgery in a few minutes with the prospect of 2-4 pins being placed in his left leg. At 9:30, he went into surgery and at 10:15 his doctor came out and told his Mom that they were done and they never had to even do the surgery as they were able to just manipulate the bone back into place and cast him while he was under. Praise the Lord! We were thrilled for him and so glad for a great picture to share with our group about the Lord's grace for David and the importance of our role as prayer warriors for him! So, all that drama aside, it was great weekend and we were very happy with how everything went. Praise God! Here are some pictures...evidence of another action-packed retreat under our belt!

Travis was happy to see me when I got there on Saturday...this is in our room at the cabin we shared with some of the other staff...don't ya love the "woods motif" in the background?

I thought this little chapel was so cute and especially on this morning...it was so beautiful with the snow kissed trees around it.

One of many gross crowd breakers...these kids were trying to push the banana they ate out of their mouths, through the nylon over their head! Totally gross and impossible to do...they loved it!!