Winter Retreat 2003
Snowbound

By Anna J.

Two-thirty Friday afternoon, February 14^th, 13 youth and 5 great leaders packed up and headed to Holland, Michigan for the weekend. We arrived in Michigan at 7:30 that evening to hot pizza, provided by Tom and Sandy's friends. After dinner we unpacked the cars, put stuff away, and then went tubing on a hill in the back of the camp. About an hour and a half later we went back to the cabins, got warm, and then went to our first lesson.

We were led in singing by Sandy and then Tom gave us a lesson. Since it was Valentine's Day weekend our theme was "ROSE", so our first lesson was on the letter "R". The R word for that evening's talk was Repentance. Tom talked about our need to repent of our sins because God hates sin so much. After he was done we headed back to our cabins for some sleep.

Saturday morning we woke up and got to breakfast by 8:30. Afterward each of us went our separate ways to have a time of personal devotions. This was an awesome time for each of us to spend time one on one with God. When we were finished with our devotions, we had 45 minutes to play games or hang out. Then at 10:30 we had another lesson with singing, words of wisdom from Matt Heinze, and the letter "O". The O word for that morning's talk was Obedience. Tom talked about how we should have a desire to obey God and all those he sets in authority over us. By the time he was done it was noon and time for lunch.

After lunch we had free time until 5:30, so we decided to all load into the van and head out to Lake Michigan where we walked on the frozen waves. We got back to the camp grounds around 2:45 and went our separate ways. Some went tubing again, some played games and some just hung around and talked until we went to dinner.

After dinner we had our 3^rd lesson, more singing, words of wisdom from Caroline Shrieve, and the letter "S". The S word for that evening's talk was Savior. Tom talked about how we need our Savior to be in all of the relationships that we have in our lives. It was about 9:15 when we were finished and we had till 11:30 to play games. At 11:30 we headed to our cabins, got ready for bed and the girls stayed up for awhile and talked.

Sunday morning started out with breakfast, devotions and packing. We had our 4^th and final lesson at 10:45, with singing, words of wisdom from Doug Shrieve, and the letter "E". The E word for the morning's talk was Encouragement. Tom talked about how we need to encourage one another in love and lift each other up. After the lesson, we went to lunch and then finished packing, loaded up, and headed home. We left about 1:30 and arrived back at the church by 5:30, just in time for choir and youth group. We were very blessed this weekend to have such wonderful leaders, safe trips there and back, and time to spend with God and each other.

My favorite part of this weekend had to be the personal devotion time we had by ourselves with God each morning and the fun bonding times we had with each other on the hill, tubing, sledding and falling all over each other. I am very thankful that I was fortunate enough to be one of the 13 youth that got to go on this retreat.