Ghetto Wannabes

This weekend was the second (or third, I lost count) annual Career Impact Fall retreat. I mean, if you want to get technical, it's like the fourth, but the old fall retreat moved to the winter and the new fall retreat is something entirely different....right, you don't care.

So the new fall retreat is a day of worship, teaching lessons, and outdoor games. The young married folks who "graduated" from (or skipped) the Career Impact singles class are also invited, mixing and mingling the group rather nicely. We're trying to show the singles that marriage isn't that bad, so go for it.

You'll recognize most of the faces if you are a loyal reader. But we also had some terrific guests from down yonder I-74. Four ladies and one dude from Calvary Baptist (we're not picky, they just happen to be Baptist too :-) joined in the retreat experience. Ryan, Melissa, Becky, Brooke and Becca (pictured below).


"Ice Breaker" games are standard at our retreats to get people interacting and talking with those they might not otherwise get to know. You had to have brains for this year's ice breaker, thanks to II Peter. They were so easy for Becky that she almost fell asleep.




Kelli, Josh, Sarah and Becky led us in worship. I don't remember them whistling a song...but whatever.




Pastor Fred spoke for a session in the morning about what it means to be a part of the body of Christ, His church. How the body cannot function without it's member's using the gifts he has given them. The church is not here for our entertainment. If the church has encouraged anyone, brought anyone to a saving knowledge of our Lord and savior, eventually the time comes when they no longer are simply ministered to in encouragement and help as a spiritual newborn, but become a vital part of the work of Christ, as a spiritual adult.





And then the Red Baron showed up.





Let the games begin. The afternoon was filled with outdoor team-based games and fun. Before the race, teams went head to head at Detweiller park. The day's winner would be picked on a points basis. Four point-winning games were played at the park and got the team standings kicked off.


Can't Touch This
Relay race where singles and pairs of team members transport a dodge ball back and forth using only the body parts specified in the rules for each trip.
I I think I almost broke Sarah's arms. Sorry about that!



Bull's Eye
To be honest, I have no idea why it's called Bull's Eye. Team members pair up again. The crawling and blindfolded one is guided by a hands-off member to plates of marshmallows. Fitted with a special sticky mask, the blindfolded one gathers as many mallows as he/she can without hands, and returns to the team for another pair to go for it. Blue Team's first crawler brought back an entire plate of sticky melted marshmallows. That made us a little over confident and cost us first place in Bull's Eye.

Sponge Toss
Nothing special about this game, except that you pass the sponge behind you without looking and without taking a step. The teams lined up over a significant distance, spaced in whatever fashion they choose getting a soaked sponge from the water to the empty container and repeating until the container was full.


Gladiator


Josh and Viv had to throw a weird one in there. Just look at the pictures and don't ask questions.











With directions to our first location in hand, the teams split on a six stop adventure for the rest of the afternoon. We'll highlight the exploits of Blue Team (aka the Ghetto Wannabes) here, but all the pictures from the entire day will be available online soon.

Nursery
Blue Team's first stop was Greenview nursery, where Nancy had prepared a plant search challenge. We were given a list of 40 or 50 scientific names of plants to find, and had to prove it by recording the common name. They were well labeled, but spread out all over the place. It sounds tedious, but once you find a way to split up the list, and then further divvy responsibility (Melissa and I split the letters of the alphabet!) You can get pretty far in 12 minutes. Thanks Nancy! We failed to get a picture at this stop...sorry.

Dunlap
Next, Lisa manned, er womanned, the Village of Dunlap station. Blue team started off on foot in search of facts sprinkled around the town to prove that we had found them. It was quickly realized that we needed wheels for this, so after swinging back to get the vehicle, we then tested the limits of Ted and Lisa's family van. Hope it still runs alright guys. :-)

HornB Farm
Becky's family was very generous to us that day. It was a stop on our race, and the location of that evening's cookout. First we had to wait for Yellow Team to hurry up. It looked like they were being served little cups of ice cream or something, but I couldn't figure out why they seemed so disgusted by it.


Judge Joe monitored the shooting station where teams had to paintball a target blindfolded, using the help of one teammate's eyes.

But that wasn't enough, oh no. The station organizers (conveniently out of town) challenged the teams to finish off three containers of baby food, giving extra points if everyone tried all of them. Beef and Gravy...mmm mmm good.



Judge Joe added a couple surprises at this stop. He awarded points to each team for retrieving a soft drink (shady), and for taking a shot at the female members of their team. I'm told that it looked like I enjoyed shooting the ladies...I don't see it.














Thanks for takin' one for the team Becky.









The Pond
Doug was minding his own business, working on some machine from his shed most likely, when we acquired his guidance at the next station.
Jed and I were provided a paddle boat with which to navigate and gather items thrown from the shore by our team mates. This would have been ALOT easier if Doug had just turned a blind eye for a few minutes. We finished with a couple seconds to spare.


Rock Island
At the Rock Island Trail, some hippies made us stand on a tiny little mat and flip it over without stepping off. "HOT LAVA HOT LAVA" they said if we came close to the edge. Which brings me to my next point children...don't do drugs.







Northtrail
At Northtrail park, Yellow team held us up again (sheesh people). When it was finally our turn, Tom and Bev explained that one of us would be a caller to the rest of the blindfolded team. The blindfolded members had to navigate the 50ish yard park area picking up large green letters from the ground. The only help they get is the person yelling directions at them. I'll give you one guess which team got them the fastest, but Blue team is still pretty proud of retrieving all letters with a minute to spare. Even if Melissa did almost make it to the state border before I yelled "Stop!"





After all that, here are the final standings.



1st Place - Yellow Team

2nd Place - Purple Team

3rd Place - Blue Team

4th Place - Red Team

5th Place - Orange Team


Wannabes, don't forget. Once a blue...


...always a blue.



After another session with Pastor Fred and a review of the days pictures, we headed to HornB farm for some wieners and s'mores.


And I'm totally spent on this post. Behind again....