anti-freeze

Anti-freeze ’07.
It’s amazing how much I’ve come to love the group of people we call our “youth group” at the Summit Church. They’re amazing kids! Not only do I love the people, but I love what they’re doing. I love what they are doing as individuals. I love what Troy and his amazing team of small group leaders are doing. The latest awesome experience was called Anti-Freeze. It’s just a little weekend retreat thing where we all go hang out at this campsite not far from here. It started Friday when we all met at the church, packed our bags into a U-haul and pilled onto a bus and into a few cars. We drove around the parking lot for a bit, then stopped, got out, went back in the church and had dinner – pizza! Next we pilled back into our vehicles and drove the hour to the camp. We all chose a cabin, unpacked a bit, then went to the chapel for the evening program. BJ, our worship leader, his wife, and Hannah Hodges, one of the girls that sing in our church worship band, led worship. All I can say is, incandiffamous (my newest favorite word…it means whatever I feel like it should mean…in this case it mean awesome!).They really did a great job. We didn’t have a “speaker.” Yep, instead they had prepared a bunch of “stations.” These were usually simple little places with a piece of paper to read, possibly a task to do, or an altar to kneel at. One by one during worship, Troy dismissed us all individually and we walked to each station and did whatever it said to do. The last station was going back inside and continuing worshiping. The first night the stations went through the life of Christ: His birth, growing up, ministry, death, rising from the dead…
That night everyone in my cabin stayed up waiting for some more girls to come in who had had a basketball game that night. So we all played a bunch of Mafia, much fun!
Saturday morning we had breakfast from eight to ten. Next we had a bible study time, some worship and then lunch. After lunch we had games. The good kind! It was fun. We wee split up into seven teams and there were seven stations. At each one there was a different task or game we had to finish in the time limit of five minutes. I had a great team! It was fun. The first station was the classic A-frame, which we finished with no problems in about a minute. The second game was a first for me, but very fun. We all had to line up and when time started one by one we ran to this bag about twenty feet away, reached our hand in the bag and pulled out a piece of fruit (apples, oranges, grapefruit, lemons…). Then we ran back to where the line was. There there were there wooden mallets with which we were to smash the fruit. We had to keep smashing it until the station leader there said it was smashed enough. Everyone had to do it. We barely made it, but we did…it was much fun. The next station was the hardest for our group. We each had to shoot this target with a slingshot and paintballs. We didn’t get this one done within the time limit but it was still quite entertaining! Stations number four was interesting. Our team leader stood in a square painted on the grass. We stood in circles spread out in front of him. He had to throw hula-hoops and try to get each of us. Once you were hoped, you could go get in his box and help him throw. The next station was an enormous go-cart type thing. We had to push it up this hill then ride back down it without ever going off the road and using only one foot to steer and push! The next was giant puzzle (this one reminded me of you, Gavin – I know you’re reading this – not exactly sure why, it just reminded me of you, hehe) . We each took a piece and when the time started we had to put it together without saying anything and without ever letting go of our piece. We got this one done pretty fast as well. The last one took a lot of team effort. First we were split up into groups of four and each of us had a leg wrapped up in saran wrap with one of the other three’s legs. (wow that’s probably confusing) Then once that was done, they saran wrapped all of us together. We had to then walk this course as a team (wrapped up together) without breaking any of the wrap. This was hard, and a bit painful at times, but we got it done and it was fun as well. After accomplishing each task, we were given an envelope with a clue to the grand prize. So after we’d finished them all, we all went to these cones, where we opened our clues and tried to figure out where the prize was. We didn’t get it, but we had so much fun!
After games we had free time. First a bunch of us (Kailey, Kari, Seth, Hudson, Jason Lewis, and I) just hung out in the chapel being weird and crazy, taking pictures, and playing piano. Then when we got bored with that we went outside and took a bunch of gay pictures of the guys (hilarious) and pictures of Hudson pretending to be a Nazi and picture of Jason and Heath climbing this tree and pictures of us all being trolls under this bridge and lots of other pictures… Then the guys went and played soccer or something so Kailey and I went and watched Troy grill hamburgers on this humongous grill! Dinner came next and then the Saturday night evening program. It was very much like the night before…only there were different stations. It really was amazing especially for me because it reminded me so much of our youth group back in SK and of Kecy Club. Those of you from Slovakia and that were there are probably thinking of the Kecy Club weekend we had a couple years ago and the 3 hours alone with God thing that Bekah and I set up…that was amazing. One of the things I love about this youth group is that it is so much like ours in SK: very similar dreams and goals, very similar thinking and philosophy, similar activities…It makes me happy!
Anyway, back to Anti-Freeze. That night we once again played mafia and talked and looked at the stars…I love nights like that!
Sunday morning we got up, packed, and went to the closing bible study thing and worship. We left at about eleven fifteen or so, getting back to the church at around twelve. It was an amazing weekend. In a way I wish it could have lasted longer, but I seem to always wish that when they’re over.Well, this has turned into a long post, so I’ll go, but I’m going to try my best to keep you posted on what’s going on over here! And hopefully I'll have some pictures for you soon!