Youth Retreat

Not too long ago, we had an over night retreat for the youth.  The youth really enjoyed it, though it was exhausting.  I slept for about 30 minutes the whole night.  We started out the event by going to a local university, where we had swimming, ping-pong, volleyball, and other activities for the youth.  They don’t get the opportunity to do these activities often, so the had a lot of fun.  The swimming was interesting though, as only about three of the 38 youth knew how to swim.  Nicole and I thus were lifeguards for the day.  We then returned to the church in the evening.  Of course the vans that we booked showed up late.  The first arrived about an hour after we were supposed to leave the university.  The second about an hour after that, and we had to send that van back to get the rest of the youth as the third van just didn’t show up.  Anyways, we finally made it back to the church and had a short video and discussion afterwards.  Later we had a great discussion on relationships, led by our senior pastor.  The youth really opened up and I was very excited about the impact of the discussion.  The rest of the night we had movies, video games, and other card games for the youth.  The youth that wanted to sleep went to the senior pastor and our apartments while the others and I remained at the church.  The girls slept in our apartment, which was quite the experience.  They were supposed to bring sleeping bags and lay on the floor, but half way through the night, my wife discovers a few visitors sleeping in bed with her.  All in all, she had about 17 girls on the floor and 2 that just showed up in her bed with her.  In the morning, I lead a  devotional while half asleep and the youth went home.  It is safe to say that though I think the retreat had a great impact, Nicole and I  were glad when it was over.  It took me about three days to recover.  I guess I can’t stay up all night like my college years. ~Jeremy