(no subject)
I'm sitting here at school, and we have this pretty nice cbyer cafe. Only problem is that I'm not allowed to use AIM on my own computer. They have some sort of firewall in their system agaisnt any type of peer to peer activity. That part kind of sucks but, with a two hour break between classes, I have no excuse not to update this. So with Jeremy Camp coming through my earphones and since I just finished my delicious Chicken Pesto BLT; I'm going to talk about Ocean City weekend.
First of all, I got ridiculously lucky when it came to Ocean City this year for several reasons. First of all I'm to old to go as a youth. But Paris wanted me there so she upgraded me to leader status. With Leader status she also informed me that the church would be covering my costs when it comes to the conference and board, which saved me like 120 bucks. We had dicussed the possibility that I may have to drive down, which would of been about 20-25 bucks in gas. I had no problem with this since they were paying my way down otherwise. Paris asked me to give her a ring on the day before we left to go over a few final things, one of which was the fact that I didn't have to drive. So the weekend already started wonderfully with conference, board and transportation costs all covered for me. Also I found out that Paris and Elaine had bought a crap load of sandwhich and breakfast food stuff, which means I didn't have to spend much on food.
I got to the church at about 4:30 and it was only Ryan there, so that was interesting. Shortly there after, Elaine came with Julie, Joe and his son, and Paris arrived at the church. Eventually the rest of the youth came and we packed up and headed out. The trip consisted of Myself, Ryan, Elaine, Carol Jo and Paris. The youth had The Soulliards (who are actually older than me), Steve, Tom, Chris, Dan, Walt, Julie, Rose, Steph and Jess. I drove down with Paris and we had Rose, Steve and Walt in the car as well. On the way down I entertained a bit with the G.I. Story among others.
We got to the hotel and settled in. We stayed at the Watson Regency Hotel. Our rooms had an outside porch, full living room, Full Dining Room, full kitchen, master bedroom and a huge full bathroom. I, of course, got the master bedroom. DDK (John Soulliard) wanted in so I finally gave in and let him sleep there too. Why every freakin' time I'm on retreat I end up sharing a bed with DDK!? This is the second straight time, he's not even allowed in my room at Keswick. Dan, Walt, and Snuggles also slept in my room...they took the living room. I told a few of them that I was going to the boards to get some "provisions" from the dollar store. We came back with five jugs of bubbles, a little suction-cup dart gun, a little bow and arrow and one of those basketball nets that hang on a door. I soon found out that Haddonfield was staying on the same floor as me. Which meant that Mon, Kate and Samantha were two doors down from me. That was cool.
Soon after getting all settled in to the room it was time for night service. Kate registered us, and I saw Max in line. We were chatting and he was trying to mess with me by saying Paris, "Oh, what is he like your guy leader?" Paris totally stood up for me, "Yeah, atlease tonight until Joe gets down, I totally trust him." Paris rocks. Max said he'd trust me aswell for the most part. I asked what the "for the most part" was. And he told me he wouldn't trust me to lead the females in his group by themselves and by myself. I was accepting of this answer. Monica checked my wrist band. And by check my wrist band I really mean gave me a running hug.
We sat in our normal place which is front row on the far right (left if looking out from the stage), much to Elaine's dismay. She didn't understand why we didn't move to the middle. You have to respect tradition. It's the same place wether be at Keswick or OC. The worship was amazing, their song list was excellent. The two songs that I think highlighted first nights music has to be "Trading My Sorrows," "Prince of Peace" and "Sanctuary." Trading speaks for itself at this point, everyone knows it. Prince of Peace is an awesome song, and I totally taught the youth group the hand motions that go along with it. To make Sanctuary a serious personal prayer can be quite scary. The lyrics are amazing, and they entail a huge commitment to the Lord. There wasn't a speaker the first night, instead a group called One Time Blind (OTB) performed. Their opening was incredible, and I can't do it justice describing it. They then went into skits. They were all very good, but there were defiantely two that stood out to me. The rope one and the Pepsi one. If anyone wants to know what happened, ask and I shall tell you, it would take to much space to say it here (and we all know I'm going to type alot regardless).
After service I took some of the youth to the boards, and ended up sitting in the food court with a few of them talking. I told them my "College kid in the stuffy/formal church with the visiting bishop" story. As we snacked on fries. The conference curfew is midnight so we had to be back in the room by then.
When we got back to the room, we ordered pizza and chowed down again. After the food, seven of us headed back to my room to start a poker tourney. Since we were on retreat we couldn't play for money. But we wanted there to be some sort of wager. We decided that once you were elimanted you had to become the servant for the remaining players until someone else was elimanted. This created one of the funniest scenes when Snuggles was the first one out. "Snuggles pour my drink," "Snuggles put my chips in the pot," "Snuggles put easy cheese on my cheeseitz" (that was one of my orders) and on and on. After a few people the servant thing lost a bit of it's flavor, but it was worth it with Snuggles being the first. The tournament ended at about 3 and it was time for bed.
We got up the next morning grabbed some breakfast and went to the church for seminars and such. The first seminar was "Piercings, Tattoos and body enhancements." The guy running the seminar began by saying "I'm not going to give you any of my own opinions, I'm just going to ask the questions and play Devil's advocate." Translation "I didn't do any research into God's Word to properly run this seminar at a christian youth retreat, so what do you guys think." Only myself and this one other leader who attended the seminar actually had a tat. But the general feeling was, "God gave us our body to do what we want with." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Now, it's true that I do have a tattoo. But my reason for getting one was to honor God with my tattoo. I have been, in a way, branded for Christ, phyiscally. It's a constant reminder, which keeps me accountable, makes it easier to share my faith (cause it's hard to), and when I'm feeling faithless it's a reminder that I have a God who is faithful. But back to this seminar, the other feeling was that it's not whats on the outside that counts it's what on the inside. To make my point I say to this kid, "pretend you have lent me your car. The outside, I didn't like it all that much. So I slabbed some purple paint on it and put pink stars down the sides of it. But, the interior...where you'll be, I didn't touch that. Are you ok with that?" His response, "well people paint their houses all the time." Then this kid says a tattoo can't be a reflection of who you are, what reflects who you are is what's on the inside, your character and such. I raise my hand and say, "I disagree, what's on the inside, the content of your character and the status of your heart determines who you are. A tattoo can most certainley be a represntation of that. For example my tattoo represents my faith." Most people seemed to be taking this in, and then two girls raise their hands and one says, "Well, I'm a blonde. Does that make me dumb?" Every ounce of the strength I have stopped me from telling her "no, that comment does." I hope some of the other kids who weren't talking got it, because most of the ones that were had this secular me first attitude. Afterwards I ran into Max again, and some of his kids had been in the seminar and they we were joking around about it. So Max wanted to know what was up. After I told him, he said "Yeah, I'm not surprised. The group this year doesn't seemed to be all that spirtually mature." Which is sad.
The second seminar was "chat with the bishop" which didn't happen. He brought up someone to talk about Taize, which is cool, but I'd like to hear the bishop speak about something else rather then Taize. It's the only thing I've ever heard him talk about. I then went to a seminar on connecting faith and pop culture. It was pretty good, but the guy didn't have enough time to make the points he wanted to. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel for lunch, and to get ready for the beach.
The beach was packed! I haven't ever seen so many people on the beach, there was no room to swim or throw a ball around. so we didn't stay there for very long. We ended up going to the pool in the hotel. It was actually the first time I had been in a pool the entire summer. I had been in a lake many times and the ocean, but not a pool. That was pretty cool. There was also a hot tub, so we chilled in there for a bit, and chatted with this guy named Eric who was a leader from Vorhees UMC. Afterwards we showered up and got ready for dinner.
For dinner we went to The Chatterbox, which I suppose at this point is a tradition. I got a chicken parm sandwhich, I was happy with it. Then it was time for service.
Service was fantastic. The worhship was exceptional. The guy stuck in there an Ode To Cheese, incredible. The speaker was a guy named Jay Williams. His message was remarkable. He talked about answering the call of God and going where we're called to be. Helping God's children. The only thing was that he wasn't all that exciting, his message didn't really have much energy or funny stories. He was pretty stationary and somewhat monotone. So although I got quite a bit from his message, I don't think much of the youth were able to stay with him enough to get the full power of the message. They opened up the alters and there was quite a reaction. I went to the alter to pray, and a lady approached me. She introduced herself as Terri (I believe) and she was a pastor from some church. She wanted to pray with me, and asked what to pray for. So that was cool. But then she tried to walk away. I wasn't having that. So I say, "hold on....now I want to pray for you." So that's always something that means quite a bit to me. Someone who would be a perfect stranger to me, except that these people are my brothers/sisters in Christ and we share a special bond from a moment like this. Afterwards I say to my group, "hey group prayer." So that was nice. After service I was talking to Jessica. She was telling me that she had been brought up in this catholic church, but this was a unique expierence because it's the first time she had been in a sercive and thought "There's no way God can't be here." That was really awesome to hear.
We went back to the hotel to hang out for the night. When we got back me and Paris talked about ideas for the youth group. She wants to get together with a bunch of us soon and talk about what's going to happen. Although, the idea to get some Integrity worship DVDs, so hopefully that happens. Afterwards, Steph wanted to have "girl talk" with Paris. Jessica and Julie joined them. So in a room it left me with Steve and Rose. And somehow premarital sex came up, and they wanted to know my thoughts on the subject. I wanted to go into the bible so they could see what my opinions on based on. I ended leading an hour long bible study with them on the subject. That was pretty cool.
I got up at Sunday morning bright and early at 6 a.m. and myself and a few of my boys headed down to the beach to throw the football around. We got off the beach and grabbed some coffee from The Ocean City Coffee Company. We then headed back to the hotel for some breakfast.
We then had to clean up and pack up to check out before service. Service was great, with the Deal's leading worship. It was nice to receive communion. Afterwards we hung out on the boards and got Mac and Manco's. Afterwards for the second time that weekend I was told I was engaged to Monica. It was funny to recieve a lesson from Max about how me and Monica should be careful in procreating because we'd produce such an attractive baby with blonde hair and blue eyes that he/she would become snobby and stuck up. That was funny. The second time I heard this was from the Deals (all of them), but it's cool because I now know they actually know who I am.
On the way home I rode with Paris again. It was really nice to get to know Paris a bit better then before. I was amazed to see how little I knew Paris before that car ride.
I suppose that's all I have for that trip. It was a good time and what I needed. I can't wait till Keswick, I'll be a leader there again.
Update on times that aren't Ocean City to come soon
First of all, I got ridiculously lucky when it came to Ocean City this year for several reasons. First of all I'm to old to go as a youth. But Paris wanted me there so she upgraded me to leader status. With Leader status she also informed me that the church would be covering my costs when it comes to the conference and board, which saved me like 120 bucks. We had dicussed the possibility that I may have to drive down, which would of been about 20-25 bucks in gas. I had no problem with this since they were paying my way down otherwise. Paris asked me to give her a ring on the day before we left to go over a few final things, one of which was the fact that I didn't have to drive. So the weekend already started wonderfully with conference, board and transportation costs all covered for me. Also I found out that Paris and Elaine had bought a crap load of sandwhich and breakfast food stuff, which means I didn't have to spend much on food.
I got to the church at about 4:30 and it was only Ryan there, so that was interesting. Shortly there after, Elaine came with Julie, Joe and his son, and Paris arrived at the church. Eventually the rest of the youth came and we packed up and headed out. The trip consisted of Myself, Ryan, Elaine, Carol Jo and Paris. The youth had The Soulliards (who are actually older than me), Steve, Tom, Chris, Dan, Walt, Julie, Rose, Steph and Jess. I drove down with Paris and we had Rose, Steve and Walt in the car as well. On the way down I entertained a bit with the G.I. Story among others.
We got to the hotel and settled in. We stayed at the Watson Regency Hotel. Our rooms had an outside porch, full living room, Full Dining Room, full kitchen, master bedroom and a huge full bathroom. I, of course, got the master bedroom. DDK (John Soulliard) wanted in so I finally gave in and let him sleep there too. Why every freakin' time I'm on retreat I end up sharing a bed with DDK!? This is the second straight time, he's not even allowed in my room at Keswick. Dan, Walt, and Snuggles also slept in my room...they took the living room. I told a few of them that I was going to the boards to get some "provisions" from the dollar store. We came back with five jugs of bubbles, a little suction-cup dart gun, a little bow and arrow and one of those basketball nets that hang on a door. I soon found out that Haddonfield was staying on the same floor as me. Which meant that Mon, Kate and Samantha were two doors down from me. That was cool.
Soon after getting all settled in to the room it was time for night service. Kate registered us, and I saw Max in line. We were chatting and he was trying to mess with me by saying Paris, "Oh, what is he like your guy leader?" Paris totally stood up for me, "Yeah, atlease tonight until Joe gets down, I totally trust him." Paris rocks. Max said he'd trust me aswell for the most part. I asked what the "for the most part" was. And he told me he wouldn't trust me to lead the females in his group by themselves and by myself. I was accepting of this answer. Monica checked my wrist band. And by check my wrist band I really mean gave me a running hug.
We sat in our normal place which is front row on the far right (left if looking out from the stage), much to Elaine's dismay. She didn't understand why we didn't move to the middle. You have to respect tradition. It's the same place wether be at Keswick or OC. The worship was amazing, their song list was excellent. The two songs that I think highlighted first nights music has to be "Trading My Sorrows," "Prince of Peace" and "Sanctuary." Trading speaks for itself at this point, everyone knows it. Prince of Peace is an awesome song, and I totally taught the youth group the hand motions that go along with it. To make Sanctuary a serious personal prayer can be quite scary. The lyrics are amazing, and they entail a huge commitment to the Lord. There wasn't a speaker the first night, instead a group called One Time Blind (OTB) performed. Their opening was incredible, and I can't do it justice describing it. They then went into skits. They were all very good, but there were defiantely two that stood out to me. The rope one and the Pepsi one. If anyone wants to know what happened, ask and I shall tell you, it would take to much space to say it here (and we all know I'm going to type alot regardless).
After service I took some of the youth to the boards, and ended up sitting in the food court with a few of them talking. I told them my "College kid in the stuffy/formal church with the visiting bishop" story. As we snacked on fries. The conference curfew is midnight so we had to be back in the room by then.
When we got back to the room, we ordered pizza and chowed down again. After the food, seven of us headed back to my room to start a poker tourney. Since we were on retreat we couldn't play for money. But we wanted there to be some sort of wager. We decided that once you were elimanted you had to become the servant for the remaining players until someone else was elimanted. This created one of the funniest scenes when Snuggles was the first one out. "Snuggles pour my drink," "Snuggles put my chips in the pot," "Snuggles put easy cheese on my cheeseitz" (that was one of my orders) and on and on. After a few people the servant thing lost a bit of it's flavor, but it was worth it with Snuggles being the first. The tournament ended at about 3 and it was time for bed.
We got up the next morning grabbed some breakfast and went to the church for seminars and such. The first seminar was "Piercings, Tattoos and body enhancements." The guy running the seminar began by saying "I'm not going to give you any of my own opinions, I'm just going to ask the questions and play Devil's advocate." Translation "I didn't do any research into God's Word to properly run this seminar at a christian youth retreat, so what do you guys think." Only myself and this one other leader who attended the seminar actually had a tat. But the general feeling was, "God gave us our body to do what we want with." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Now, it's true that I do have a tattoo. But my reason for getting one was to honor God with my tattoo. I have been, in a way, branded for Christ, phyiscally. It's a constant reminder, which keeps me accountable, makes it easier to share my faith (cause it's hard to), and when I'm feeling faithless it's a reminder that I have a God who is faithful. But back to this seminar, the other feeling was that it's not whats on the outside that counts it's what on the inside. To make my point I say to this kid, "pretend you have lent me your car. The outside, I didn't like it all that much. So I slabbed some purple paint on it and put pink stars down the sides of it. But, the interior...where you'll be, I didn't touch that. Are you ok with that?" His response, "well people paint their houses all the time." Then this kid says a tattoo can't be a reflection of who you are, what reflects who you are is what's on the inside, your character and such. I raise my hand and say, "I disagree, what's on the inside, the content of your character and the status of your heart determines who you are. A tattoo can most certainley be a represntation of that. For example my tattoo represents my faith." Most people seemed to be taking this in, and then two girls raise their hands and one says, "Well, I'm a blonde. Does that make me dumb?" Every ounce of the strength I have stopped me from telling her "no, that comment does." I hope some of the other kids who weren't talking got it, because most of the ones that were had this secular me first attitude. Afterwards I ran into Max again, and some of his kids had been in the seminar and they we were joking around about it. So Max wanted to know what was up. After I told him, he said "Yeah, I'm not surprised. The group this year doesn't seemed to be all that spirtually mature." Which is sad.
The second seminar was "chat with the bishop" which didn't happen. He brought up someone to talk about Taize, which is cool, but I'd like to hear the bishop speak about something else rather then Taize. It's the only thing I've ever heard him talk about. I then went to a seminar on connecting faith and pop culture. It was pretty good, but the guy didn't have enough time to make the points he wanted to. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel for lunch, and to get ready for the beach.
The beach was packed! I haven't ever seen so many people on the beach, there was no room to swim or throw a ball around. so we didn't stay there for very long. We ended up going to the pool in the hotel. It was actually the first time I had been in a pool the entire summer. I had been in a lake many times and the ocean, but not a pool. That was pretty cool. There was also a hot tub, so we chilled in there for a bit, and chatted with this guy named Eric who was a leader from Vorhees UMC. Afterwards we showered up and got ready for dinner.
For dinner we went to The Chatterbox, which I suppose at this point is a tradition. I got a chicken parm sandwhich, I was happy with it. Then it was time for service.
Service was fantastic. The worhship was exceptional. The guy stuck in there an Ode To Cheese, incredible. The speaker was a guy named Jay Williams. His message was remarkable. He talked about answering the call of God and going where we're called to be. Helping God's children. The only thing was that he wasn't all that exciting, his message didn't really have much energy or funny stories. He was pretty stationary and somewhat monotone. So although I got quite a bit from his message, I don't think much of the youth were able to stay with him enough to get the full power of the message. They opened up the alters and there was quite a reaction. I went to the alter to pray, and a lady approached me. She introduced herself as Terri (I believe) and she was a pastor from some church. She wanted to pray with me, and asked what to pray for. So that was cool. But then she tried to walk away. I wasn't having that. So I say, "hold on....now I want to pray for you." So that's always something that means quite a bit to me. Someone who would be a perfect stranger to me, except that these people are my brothers/sisters in Christ and we share a special bond from a moment like this. Afterwards I say to my group, "hey group prayer." So that was nice. After service I was talking to Jessica. She was telling me that she had been brought up in this catholic church, but this was a unique expierence because it's the first time she had been in a sercive and thought "There's no way God can't be here." That was really awesome to hear.
We went back to the hotel to hang out for the night. When we got back me and Paris talked about ideas for the youth group. She wants to get together with a bunch of us soon and talk about what's going to happen. Although, the idea to get some Integrity worship DVDs, so hopefully that happens. Afterwards, Steph wanted to have "girl talk" with Paris. Jessica and Julie joined them. So in a room it left me with Steve and Rose. And somehow premarital sex came up, and they wanted to know my thoughts on the subject. I wanted to go into the bible so they could see what my opinions on based on. I ended leading an hour long bible study with them on the subject. That was pretty cool.
I got up at Sunday morning bright and early at 6 a.m. and myself and a few of my boys headed down to the beach to throw the football around. We got off the beach and grabbed some coffee from The Ocean City Coffee Company. We then headed back to the hotel for some breakfast.
We then had to clean up and pack up to check out before service. Service was great, with the Deal's leading worship. It was nice to receive communion. Afterwards we hung out on the boards and got Mac and Manco's. Afterwards for the second time that weekend I was told I was engaged to Monica. It was funny to recieve a lesson from Max about how me and Monica should be careful in procreating because we'd produce such an attractive baby with blonde hair and blue eyes that he/she would become snobby and stuck up. That was funny. The second time I heard this was from the Deals (all of them), but it's cool because I now know they actually know who I am.
On the way home I rode with Paris again. It was really nice to get to know Paris a bit better then before. I was amazed to see how little I knew Paris before that car ride.
I suppose that's all I have for that trip. It was a good time and what I needed. I can't wait till Keswick, I'll be a leader there again.
Update on times that aren't Ocean City to come soon