Monday, March 08, 2004

Retreat
Wow, it was a pretty great time. KC and I took 5 8th graders to help with workcrew and just serve the high schoolers. It was weird being there but not having the usual responsibility of a small group, cabin, group time, etc. But it was fun nontheless. Workcrew was loads of work, we had to serve, bus tables, clean tables and then setup for the next meal. If you've ever worked workcrew at a Young Life camp, you know how anal they are about place settings, table layout, etc. Wow, really anal. But I didn't mind. I thought it kind of strange, but you know, it was ok.
Our eight graders were awesome. They never once complained, and they got along with each other so well. Very cool. You can see some pictures of them here.
A few things that I thought could have been improved:
1 - They ran those kids out of the dining hall as soon as they could. at past retreats, I remember just hanging out talking with students after the meal was over. That bothered me.
2 - Working on workcrew gave me a new sense about how much food they waste. They really should set up some kind of distribution to the community for all this left over food they just throw away. Granted, I'm not sure how practical that is, since they are pretty far in the sticks. But maybe neighbors?

I did get a chance to talk to a few kids in depth. KD and KS both said they were interested in either full time ministry or missions so I gave them the usual missions blurb:
- what is a people group and how the Bible means that when it says 'nations'
- definition of unreached, and an unreached people group
- Matt 24:14
- 80% of American missions is going towards reached people groups
- there are over 800 churches in the US for every one unreached people group
I hope I don't sound like a broken record. But one of the kids said that she was trying to find out more info about missions and no one could tell her any real information. And that's what I've said for a while, we aren't telling students this kind of stuff and it contributes to the gap the American Church is not meeting with regard to missions, especially for engaging students.

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