Youth Retreat

Last weekend was Kayla's eighteen birthday. One of the things that Kayla had requested was "if at all possible bring the youth group up for the weekend." We made it a youth retreat weekend and surprised her by showing up with everyone Friday afternoon. The closer we got the more we started talking about Amish people. We passed several Amish homes, several Amish buggies, and even saw some Amish kids playing in their front yard!

 Once we got there, Kayla and her roommate, Julia, took our group on a tour of the campus. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and after being cooped up in the van all day, it was nice to stretch our legs. After the tour we grabbed Kayla's stuff and left campus. We stopped at Walmart to grab a few groceries and headed to the house where we were going to be staying for the weekend. We explored the house and yard a little bit, got our stuff set up and then the pizza showed up. We ate dinner, sang happy birthday to Kayla, then we had our first service of the weekend. After the service we played games, chatted, and got ready for bed. Lights out was at 11pm.

Saturday morning we had breakfast, did our service...and then was interrupted by something moving in the yard! Upon closer inspection it appeared to be a groundhog. I won't say which young adults ran into the yard (one barefoot), trying to investigate further. Nor will I say which one grabbed a stick and started poking the hole that the groundhog had disappeared in. All I could see was visions of that thing coming out of its hole and having to take some young adults to the hospital from an angry groundhog attack! After that we went out to explore The New Testament stone garden. Once we were done there we headed over to Ariel park. We were going to explore the whole park, but after most of us attempted to climb the 224 steps up to the tower, we were pretty wiped out. We did a quick exploration and then headed back to the house for lunch and some downtime. The afternoon consisted of games, naps for those who wanted them, homework for those that needed to do it, and exploring the graveyard beside the house. After dinner we had another service, followed by a movie, showers and bed. Sunday morning we got up, had a quick breakfast, did another service, dropped Kayla back at school and then headed home. It was a really great weekend, lots of fun, lots of laughter, a time of connecting as a group, but also a time of studying God's word and letting go of all our distractions for a weekend. I am thankful we had the opportunity to do this. I think the thing that surprised me the most is that we ended up having too much food!!! That is something that I NEVER thought I would say of a group of 9 adults/young adult!!