Back from the Sponsor Retreat

The sponsor retreat last weekend was interesting. I drove to Dogwood Valley with Jeremy, Natasha, and Bethany. It was poring rain and getting dark so the lines on the road were hard to see and driving was scary at times. We had a session not long after we got there. Phil and Andrew (a Velocity sponsor) played guitar for the singing part. Phil and Colin gave away quite a few Starbucks card for answering trivia about Phil and Colin. Then we played "Gorilla, Man, Gun" for two American Eagle gift cards. Then Colin talked about spiritual health. Are we keeping each other accountable? Do we need to rest in God's presence, recharge our spiritual batteries, renew our purpose and calling? I can't remember the rest. Then we had a snack and played games until we felt like going to bed. For Natasha, Bethany, Heidi, and I, that was arond 11:30. For everyone else, especially the guys, it was later.

We had breakfast at nine the next morning and then some time alone with God. Then we split into two groups and participated in some team building activities. We had to get across an acid river using stepping stones and three long 4x4 beams. We had to lay the beams on the stones, pile half our team onto two of the 4x4's and pass the third one to the front so we could lay it to a new stepping stone. If we touched the acid, our whole team had to start over. When we were two stepping stones from getting the second half of our team across, the person in front accidently touched the acid. Colin was nice and only made the second half of the team start over. For the second team building activity, there we large pieces of paper laid randomly to form and filled in circle on the floor. We had to send on team member at a time to touch the numbers in sequence. The next person could only cross the start line after the last person had crossed back over. If we touched a number out of order, we had to start over. We had to try to figure out strategies for how to do it as fast as possible. Things we learned through the activity, sometimes we have to encourage the less vocal people to talk because they have good ideas too. We have to be willing to admit our weaknesses and let other people shine for the good of the team (we let the fast runners go first because they went twice and also let fast runners go to the farther numbers). We encountered difficulty (the first person touched the acid and half the team had to start over) we didn't blame him or make a big deal out of it. We did, however, complain about the wobbly beam. I thought it was an interesting experience.

After lunch some of the team went paintballing and some of us just hung around and did homework. Natasha and I took a short break to see how paintballing was going and watched for a little while. After supper, we had another team session and Phil spoke. He gave some examples about how we are effective in youth ministry even when we don't realize it. He emphasized that God had us there for a purpose even if we didn't see it. After that we played games and went to be.

The next day was a little disappointing for me. We had breakfast, packed, hung around, ate lunch, took a group picture, and went home. I wished we had done some sort of session that morning. If I had been in Abbotsford, I would gone to church so it was disappointing to miss that. Back it Abbotsford, I prepared my presentation for the next day, then took the evening off.

My presentation Monday went relatively well. I ended up with two more people in my group than I was expecting but that was okay. I was one paper short though. I was nervous but I was a little excited to see how it would all work out so that helped.

Wednesday I had my tennis midterm, which was a sinch. It was twenty multiple choice questions and they weren't even very tricky. My Educ. Psyc. midterm today wasn't as easy. There was way more information to learn both from class and from the textbook. I don't think I did as well as I had hoped. I guess I'll find out when I get the exam back. It's a shame 'cause I really like my Educ. Psyc. prof and he gives the impression that he really wants us to succeed. That doesn't necessary mean he's an easy marker.