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February 29, 2004 /
9:28 P.M. Winter Retreat Friday I went to school and that wasn't too bad. I, yet again, was pretending "happy" and man it was working wonders. Nothing too exciting happened though. I left at 12:30 so I could come home and get ready. Mike had the youth group meet at the church at 4. We finally left at 5. The van was full and we were all wide awake. The ride was mad long (5 or 6 hours). We stopped at our "traditional" fast food place... lol. During the ride we made up this hot beat and rap to go with it. Lol. Mish recorded it all.. it was crazy. There were times when we slept though but we were mostly awake and cracking up. We was laughing SO hard. We brought up all the old jokes and then Mindy, Emily, Katie, Ephrana, and I all started singing these wack songs. It was insane. I think Adler got real scared.. haha... Mike told us if Adler never comes on a retreat or trip with us again he'll blame us. This year we again got lost on the way there so of course we were late getting there too. Service was good though. We all went up to the front for worship... amazing songs!! God was just moving. Then Pastor Rudy spoke... it was anointed. He spoke on so much that I was going through. It was real tough.. I kept trying not to cry. He called people up to the altar but as usual I felt like I didn't need to go up.. and I was scared. But finally I couldn't stand there anymore... I felt so lead to go to the altar that I just did. I feel down on my knees and just wept. Then Suzanne came up and started praying for me. It just made me cry more because someone was actually caring... and then after she just gave me a big hug and told me if I needed to talk she would be there. After the service we went up to the cabins and got ready for bed. We shared the cabin with Glad Tidings church. They are some amazing girls... like April, who is such a sweetie, and Danielle, who won the Fear Factor last year. Oh yeah.... at the service this year they had the "Ultimate Youth Pastor Challenge". The first episode was just the briefing etc. It was cool though... so all weekend we were all held in suspense of what would happen next. So yeah anyway we all went to bed at 2:30 am. Saturday morning we were up at 4:30 to take showers... and some of us went back to sleep. I did cornrows in Amy's hair instead. That was interesting but I found out that no one came to the showers until 6 am. We could have waited! lol. But anyway we went to breakfast... and of course Calvary was called practically last to get food... not that it was amazing or anything. Then we went to service. Yet again Pastor Rudy spoke to me... it was so weird that everything he spoke of dealt with things I was going through. God just kept trying to talk to me.. but I was shutting everything out by then. (sigh) I dunno why I do that. But worship was great yet again.. this time we had good seats so we didn't have to go down to the front. The "show" continued with an episode of the youth pastors doing American Idol... lol. It was hilarious! I met some girl.. who was such a sweetie named Rachel... although I don't know what church she was from. And I saw Naomi from Monmouth Worship Center... she is so cool. She is one of the people who came to help out at the Sweetheart Banquet we had last weekend. It's so hard to believe I had only seen her a week ago. It felt so much longer than that. After service we had lunch... which was the same as breakfast.. only we went up a little earlier because I knew the song they were playing. Then we had free time. I slept while everyone else went snoubing... (snow tubing). Mindy was suppose to do my hair but that never happened cuz she was talking to Tommie the whole time. I was kinda hurt about that. Later she asked why I didn't get my hair done. Well, I wasn't about to tell her how I really felt. I guess that's when I really shut down at the retreat cuz she made me feel exactly like what Pastor Rudy had spoken about the nite before and I had just gotten rid of some of that stuff and it just started coming back. (sigh) We headed off to dinner where we were called last again. Then came service. Mish and I went up to the front for worship. Yet again amazing. The show this time was an episode of Survivor... it was hilarious.. and a couple more people got booted out. For the message Pastor Rudy made a human pyramid for the sermon. It was great... his message yet again was great. His theme the whole weekend was becoming whole in Christ... which I know I'm not. And when I say he touched on every aspect of my struggles right now I'm completely serious. The only thing he touched on that didn't was relationships w/ boyfriend/girlfriend. Since I don't have a boyfriend I didn't have to worry about that one. When service was over we had nachos and some other stuff. People went snoubing again when they were done and the rest of us went back to the cabin. I talked with Sandra a lot afterwards and it's so interesting to see how much we have in common. I miss not seeing her smiling face at school but she seems so happy to be at the Academy. Oh and randomly a Spanish teacher from my school was at the retreat.. that was weird. Anyway we all went to bed at 2 ish. This morning we all woke up around 9 and started to pack. When went to breakfast after which was pretty decent. At service we had good worship that was more intimate then the other services. Then we had communion, which was weird after seeing the Passion this past week. Communion won't ever be the same after seeing that movie. Pastor Jason spoke for a bit and then we watched the last part of the show. They did an Apprentice episode. And then there was a "mole" ("moley, moley, moley"... lol Josh!) in the group and so the remaining youth leaders had to figure out who the "mole" was. It was funny. Then it was over... the weekend seemed long... I guess it was because I was missing everyone who didn't come and people back home. Plus the weekend's theme hit a little too close to home for me. It just really scared me to think that God was reaching out to me more than I normally see. On the way home everyone slept. It was crazy! We woke up when we ate at Taco Bell... the rest of the car ride we were all awake except Mindy. Greg called me which was cool. And oh man our jokes this year at retreat! "It's 'snot' cold!!" And Tim was definitely hating on our cool rap! The scary man at Taco Bell...Shofar!!! lol. This weekend wasn't what I expected but when you chill with God and a bunch of people who love God you never know what to expect. It was definitely something to add to my memories. The songs this weekend were great. My favorite was "My Glorious"... I could sing that forever. I also bought a CD of the songs from youth convention '02. The songs are great... I miss the people I met and the environment there already. We actually had snow and ice there. It was mighty darn cold. I got to hang out with Mish a lot. And poor Emily got sick again. =( Danielle yet again ate some pretty gross stuff... every year is something new but she's a pretty amazing girl of God. Suzanne never found out what was really bothering me this weekend... and I don't think I'll ever tell her. Maybe one day.. I really needed Mama to be there. But for some reason I'm feeling this huge barrier between me and Mama... maybe I caused it. I dunno.. I'm beginning to doubt people a lot right now and if they really care. And even after Pastor Rudy said all that... I'm still not ready to trust people or God with my whole heart and life yet. This week should be interesting though. I don't have to come in on time Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday because of HSPAs. Me and Addie might skip Tuesday though to go look at prom dresses. WooHoo! Then this weekend I go on the Women's Retreat... so it should be interesting. I'm gonna be overloaded on God. I don't know if I'm ready for that. I need to go find CDs that have some of the songs we did this weekend. There are so many that I like never hear and I love them so much! I need to step up and get up to date with all the new worship songs! I need to go catch up on stuff. God bless! |
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