Pastor Laurel's messages
We spent the whole weekend going through the Jewish wedding customs and rituals. They paint such a beautiful and amazing picture of what Jesus has done for us! If you've never looked into that image (which gets used all over the Bible), here a few places to start: Isaiah 61:10; Matthew 25:1-13; John 3:29
Unexpected Friends
As I was walking down the hallway on the 1st night, I ran into one of my former college roommates. She was a part of the group of women that had come to the retreat from another town. I hadn't talked with her since she moved out of our house 6 years ago and I can't say that our relationship was left in a great place. Turns out, I had one of the richest and deepest conversations with her during the retreat. What an amazing experience!
Activities
I was basically coerced into this job, although, I happily agreed. This was the first big ministry event I had been involved in since my ministry sabbatical in the spring and it was a little rough to get into the swing of things again. However, everything turned out great! Here's the rundown of some of the things we did:
Friday Night:
We started out with taking the bridal theme of the weekend and planning a bridal shower to start out our weekend. This plan was quickly abandoned for multiple reasons and we ended up playing just one game which was bridal shower-inspired. We took the classic shower game of dressing someone up as a bride with toilet paper to a whole new level. We assigned each group a celebrity (and provided them with some pictures) that they would have to emulate. I was blown away with the creativity of these women (see pictures below)!
Saturday Afternoon: We brought back the Zumba, prayer time and massages they had done in the past, but we added some other activities this year:
- One of my team members, Tonya, spearheaded the bookmark making operation. She brought more craft supplies than I could count and helped woman make really cool bookmarks they could take away as a reminder of the weekend.
- Another team member, Sue, hung out with ladies and showed them how to make sugar scrubs. We had made this at a previous women's event and they were a hit for the second time!
- We also set up a DIY nail salon, this was my personal favorite! We supplied nail polish and Pinterest tutorials. It was so fun to watch ladies paint each other's nails and hear lots of laughter!
Saturday Evening:
This was the big event of the weekend - a wedding reception! Amber's hospitality team did a stellar job putting all the decorations and refreshments together for this! They also supplied the super fun props for our photo booth.
My Activities Team
I worked with two ladies I had never met before and they were awesome! Without them, nothing would have gone smoothly. It was great to get to know people out of my usual church circle who were better at my job than I was!
My Cabin
For the first time in my life I was not in charge of a cabin full of teenagers and it was a wonderful change of pace! Although, we did have a certain member of our cabin (cough*Meg*cough) who was a major prankster. I think there was maybe an hour of the whole weekend that she was not concocting a plan. One of them involved her dumping cold water on me while I was in the shower. It's good to know that I'm good humored enough that my response (after the quick yelp I let out) was hysterical laughter followed by a "That was awesome!" comment.
Dance Party Time!
Activites Team
Have you had a chance to retreat lately? Either with a group or solo?
