Winter Retreat 2015

Love Your Neighbor

We are back! Our Winter Retreat was a lot of fun and we spent the weekend learning a lot about how to love our neighbors. We went up to camp on Friday and by the time we got to Camp Calumet in Ossippee, NH, we were ready to run around! And we got the chance to do just that with an indoor snowball fight. We joined youth groups from around New England and everyone had to write down two interesting facts about themselves. Once everyone did this, we crinkled our paper into paper snowballs and began the battle. Our fearless program director Adam told us to stop and then we all had to pick up one snowball and find the original owner. It was a great way to get to know the folks we would be learning and playing with all weekend. After the snowball fight, we learned about and discussed what Jesus meant when he told us to love our neighbors. The rest of the weekend was focused on exploring these principles of  loving others and doing for them, what we wish for ourselves.

Saturday was by far our busiest day. The morning was spent outside playing games like elbow tag, wizard-dwarf-giant, and capture the flag. And if you thought running around playing capture the flag was tiring in the summer, ask us about running around in knee deep snow. After about an hour of heroic jail breaks and flag capturing, we needed a rest. Our cabin was perfect for doing just that. It had two large bunk rooms, a kitchen, 3 bathrooms, and a common area for us to gather and play games in. Once we were recharged, the afternoon was spent skiing, tubing and ice skating at King Pine Ski Resort. No one broke anything and we all had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather. So it was a total success!

And the evening was filled with activities too! After dinner, we braved the cold and went to a campfire by the lake. We sang songs, laughed at skits and even performed a few of our own. If you hear some of our youth singing weird songs about Abraham and Issac fishing, the McCavish brothers, or Boom-Chicka-Boom, you shouldn't judge, they are some catchy tunes!

We warmed up after the camp fire in the conference center with an ice cream social (because it is never too cold for ice cream). And we continued our lessons about loving our neighbors. The entire camp was split into groups and asked to perform skits that showed how one can go about loving their neighbor. Whether it was a Mr. Rodgers sing-a-long, a snapshot of life in a gym class, neighbors feuding over silly disagreements, or a game of charades, all the skits were fun and inspiring to watch. Before we went to bed, each youth was asked to spend a five minutes reflecting on what it means to love your neighbor and think about everything that we discussed.  Seconds after the lights went out, everyone was asleep.

On Sunday morning, we all met together in the conference center chapel for worship. The sermon was about the Ten Commandments and we got to walk around and write our thoughts about each commandment on a sticky note. Then we shared our thoughts with each other. The Pastor highlighted the idea that we all have knowledge and wisdom to share with each other. We can love our neighbors by sharing it. After the service, we retreated to the upstairs lounge as a group to discuss what we learned throughout the weekend. We also played a modified version of "Bowl of Nouns" called "Puzzle box full of words and other phrases from our weekend." It was a great way to say goodbye to camp. All in all, it was a great weekend and one we are not going to forget any time soon. Thanks to everyone who helped make it possible!