Continuing the medical theme from summer camp, enter the 2012 4th and 5th grade winter retreat held right at our church. The older kids get to go all the way to the camp in Michigan for two days, but as a cost-saving measure for the parents I am sure, this crowd gets one night with no travel necessary outside of being brought to church. That suits me just fine and allows more to come who otherwise would not. I know of one family for sure whose junior-higher wasn’t going to be able to go to his retreat though his younger brother was at ours.
I arrived Friday night just a smidgen late and check-in was well underway. In fact, most of my cabin was already settled in and watching the opening movie which entertained them while waiting for the official start. I joined my colleagues upstairs and helped settle in the stragglers. Did I mention that Friday was the day of a major snowstorm? After driving on snow-packed roads from Algonquin to Elgin and back home, I and a hundred moms, dads, and other leaders slogged down the roads to make this event, the only one not canceled. But I am sure parents would brave even more to be rid of their young-uns give their brood an opportunity to draw closer to our Lord and Savior. Though there was one cabin that had several boys missing by the time the main event started, mine was complete (at least it was by dinner time when the last trooper arrived). I even had a couple of repeat campers from summer, one of which I hadn’t seen since then as he attended the church’s school, but not regular church on the weekends- at least the one I serve at. Even my junior leader was the same. Yep, Mad Cow Disease was represented in full. What? Oh, yes. Remember the medical theme I mentioned? Well, all the cabins were named after diseases and cures. Most girls would never go for a cabin labeled SARS or mad cow disease, so they naturally got the cures while the boys proudly represented their diseases.
Once the movie was shut off in the middle (sorry for those who may not have seen it before…) and rules had been gone over, it was time to get into things with a game of course. That game was Duck Hunt.
No, no, no, not THAT Duck Hunt. This was a game where the kids hunted for little rubber ducks invading the church. By little, I mean they were only about two square inches in size each meaning not that easy to find. But there were several hundred of them. All through, well not the church this year though that was the original intent. Thanks to the fresh snow, the venue was changed and the ducks were strewn all over the parking lot instead. Think a hundred kids mining for ducks in the still-falling snow. They had to find the ducks and bring them back to their team buckets. Sounds tedious? Well, add in dodgeballs thrown by zealous leaders (they had to drop any ducks they were carrying if hit, to be thrown by the leader to be buried once again, waiting on another miner) and it made for a fun time. There were also big balls the teams had to get to their buckets for big points.
The game eventually had to end and we went in for pizza and then our first session. As per the norm, we started off with an up-front game (we lost- I don’t think we won any of the up-front games in fact) then moved into a couple worship songs before getting into the teaching. The theme this year was Jonah, session one was about rebellion. As many know, Jonah rebelled against God in chapter one, not only refusing to do what Got told him, but actively going the opposite way, as far away from his responsibility as possible. The session ended with Jonah being thrown overboard for being the cause of the storm God sent. All sessions ended in small group time, so we went back to our cabins to discuss the application to their own lives.
Lights out and the kids were asleep instantly dreaming of peaceful things like rainbows and unicorns. Yeah, in your dre- hey, wait a minute… I remember a winter retreat where a couple kids ran up and down the length of the building we were in all night (or much of it). Things weren’t that bad but we still had talking, fake flatulence, complaints about the talking and the fake flatulence… I had to get up more than once and just stand over someone to deter further noise. I did sleep fairly well once I nodded off, at least until 6AM, but I’ll save that for the next post. It’s getting late. Talking of sleeping is making me want to be there…
zzz
fake flatulence… say “fake flatulence” 3 times fast. I always liked Duck Hunt (the NES game but yours sounded fun). Interesting… we had a sermon on Jonah a few weekends ago. Our as our priest presented it… “The rest of the story” or more than his whale tale.
To be technical, Jonah wasn’t swallowed by a whale. Apparently ancient Israel did have a word for whale, and that word was not used in Jonah. We are still left wondering then what sort of fish God used to swallow Jonah. A tuna perhaps…? 😀
And the kids didn’t get “the rest of the story” as we stopped after chapter 3, so that will have to be reserved for a future date. Not that chapter 4 finishes the story or anything. 😉
Can you guess the R words that represent the other two sessions, chapters 2 and 3?
Yes, the duck hunt sounded like fun. How long did it take? That would have been fun craziness to witness! I would be so frustrated if I had to “babysit” instead of sleep… then again, it’s not like I would have a chance for uninterrupted sleep waiting for me to catch up when I got home! Glad you had fun and thanks for sharing!!
I think the game lasted about a half-hour or so. Fortunately I wasn’t required to hover for too long. The kids eventually dropped off to dreamland.