Winter Retreat

Trip blogging always gets me backed up, but today's snow day should make up for it! This last weekend was a treat for me as I had to dump my usual fun but over-booked plans and got away with some folks from Living Hope Community Church. Living hope is a church plant and close relative of Bethany Baptist. The Living Hope Youth were looking for a bus driver for the weekend, and I had a new CDL just waiting to be used! They were also short on chaperons, so I got to try to participate in the weekend with these new friends as much as possible.

Meet Bruce the Moose a.k.a Frank. Yes, while Joe was leading worship, I was taking pictures of the stuffed mount.
Another youth leader, Jon, proved to be more than energetic enough for this fun group. Exhibit A - his never ending supply of snowballs.

Fight, fight, snowball fight!!!

The weather was not cool on the way up, confirmed by the unanimous "I'm glad I'm not driving" comments. But the bright sun on thick snow was beautiful, though slightly blinding. Note to self, bring sunglasses. What does this have to do with a sweet well shaded grove of pine trees? No clue.

Fight, fight...just fight. Who knew Joe knew so much about wrestling?

Canceled one sledding afternoon for another one. Kinda unique on this one. Sled is optional, but lots faster.

The sign says one per sled, not per tube. These guys were good too.

The camp staff made a mean meal. The saying all weekend was that if you weren't hungry, you would be when you saw the food. True dat. There was one exception. For Taco night, the campers found every edible item in the cafeteria and put together this taco of doom. Joe barely burped, but Dane might have said hello to his bite multiple times later that evening.

Lots of fun, but the most important part of the weekend was spending time reading God's word together, Learning what Jesus teaches about relationships and remembering His sacrifice for our pitiful lives.


It occurred to me shortly into the trip that it's been along time since I remembered what it was like being in my old youth group. We had some great people, but I also remember alot of issues. You know what the worst problem was though? Being late for breakfast :-) I got to be around alot of fun people including leaders WAY more capable and energetic than I, and kids great at helping each other out.

The return trip had it's own problem. On the way up we heard a huge bang. We got out and checked to see what happened, but didn't notice anything, including on the tires. Visually inspecting but not thoroughly testing the inside duals. Noticing a low tire before the return trip led to some work trying to fill it which then led to noting the lack of tire-road contact of a tire that had apparently exploded on the way up. Continuing the ignorance would have made the last two and a half hours alot less white knuckled.