retreat recap

the summer retreat has now come and gone, and shanna and i feel pretty much back to normal. it's funny - a typical retreat takes us away for almost 3 entire days but takes only 1 day to recover, whereas an all-nighter takes us away for only about 12 hours but takes about 2 weeks to recover. hmmm...i vote for retreats. :)

the theme for this year's retreat was URGENT! - all about living a lifestyle with the understanding that Christ could return any day now. overall it was a FANTASTIC weekend for our ministry with lots of postives all around! it was awesome to just casually "hang out" with our leaders and develop community among them, especially saturday night while the teens played games in the dark (yeah...lol), to discover where our students are really at in their spiritual journeys, create an environment that was very "safe"...especially for some, and to just build trust and remind ourselves why we're here.

here's our music team leading the praise time for one of the sessions. they did a really great job and had been working all summer for this opportunity...

playing volleyball...in a little unconventional way (gotta help the middle schoolers out)...

tubing on the lake in 30 degree water...


the guy on the left is one of our newest ISM leaders - he and his wife have been a HUGE blessing to the ministry and were absolutely wonderful on the retreat. this pic brings back a HILARIOUS memory as he was singing "yellow submarine" and "lean on me"...HILARIOUS!

one of the biggest, hottest campfires i've ever seen...i have no more hair on my legs...