Words from A Confirmand

Recently, we came back from our confirmation retreat. This is the first year that I have led the students at CTS in the retreat. I made some tweaks in their standard program and I was a little nervous. I changed up the location and I changed the format of the curriculum. When we got back, our communication director asked me to get a student to write a summary of the weekend. I want to share it with you. These words are from a 8th grade girl who is on a wonderful spiritual journey:

March 4th through 6th was one of the most meaningful weekends of my life. Cliché, I know, but it's true. The retreat that us 8th grade youth took that weekend changed me and the way I view God. I learned so much about myself and my faith and so did 25 of my peers, peers of mine that I have been with for –what seems like- my whole life. Some of the kids that joined me on this trip played in the nursery with me when I was just a baby, but until that weekend I was never this close with any of these people, even the one who I call some my best friends. For example my small group and I stayed up all hours of the night and told each other our secrets and all about our lives then went on to talk about how our small group and our weekend at Lake Luther had impacted our lives in such tremendous ways. Over the weekend we played games in our “fruit groups”, we took long walks in Narnia-what we named the woods of Lake Luther for its remarkable resemblance to the fictional land-, we played games like screaming toes and ninja for what seemed like hours, we spent time puddle jumping and playing in the rain-turn-snow, everyone there loved playing with baby Paige, we watched hilarious skits put on by our peer guides and even just hung around in our cabins during our free time but our fun is besides the point.

I know that I personally grew so much in my faith and learned more about myself and my walk in one weekend then I have in weeks of church camp, two weekends at Springhill, and in all 14 years of going to church. It seemed like this retreat made it all just clicks. I owe that to so many things: Jeff’s lessons, our seemingly endless quizzes, the songs we all sang, the prayers we all prayed, the communion we took part in Sunday, the time by the fire with my small group, watching my peers give their banner presentations and the beautiful landscape God provided to us, among some of top things that attributed to such growth. This retreat provided me with a jump start to the rest of my walk with the Lord and a weekend of fun that I will never forget.