November 23, 2003
Wow
the nkmb youth retreat was amazing
I'm so glad that I went
and as sad as I am that I missed small group and Alayna's bday party
I'm really glad that I picked the retreat
b/c it was amazing
friday night we went to the hotel and walked around a bit downtown handing out hot chocolate/coffee
then we went back to the hotel and swam for quite a while
we played keep away(guys against girls) with a pair of penguin socks
it was hilarious
except most of the girls wouldn't tackle the guys
i did though, and it was hilarious
saturday morning we had breakfast at the pancake house in the forks at...9 i think
we had a session in the pancake house too
it was very cool
we were there untill 12
then we went to an inner city church and helped clean out an apartment building
they were cleaning it up and fixing it so that people without good housing/or no housing, could live there
we also cleaned up a recently boarded up crack house
it was pretty scary
but it was good to be exposed to situations like that
the house was absolutly gross
we didn't see it cause we came a bit later
but apparantly there was used condoms and thongs
and needles and stuff laying around
it was horrible, the place was a mess
and there was some baby stuff, a car seat and stuffed animals and stuff
it looked like a baby had been living there
so sad
after that we went to the old spaghetti factory for dinner
which was really really fun
except steve, steve and armen were telling jokes that were totally demeaning to women
well mostly steve and armen
but poor armen got put on steve's "list" so many times i just felt bad for him
I really liked the group though
everybody was awesome
I want to start going to more nkmb things
except it may conflict with my youth
but i can try to go to it sometimes
after dinner we went to hear the music
which i actually didn't really enjoy
but thats alright
then we went back to the hotel and swam some more in the pool
i have bruises from the guys, lol
I'd like to go out for coffee with some of those guys
they seem really cool, it would be neat to get to know them better
today we went to the vineyard for church
it was interesting
the worship was amazing, it was all very free
the serman type thing was good too, it was very interesting
just the "healing" stuff at the end totally freaked me out
not that i'm saying God can't heal people, b/c i totally believe that he can and does
but it was really wierd.
steve got healed though, which was very neat
and he was really moved and touched by it
so that was awesome
a lot of the people in our group seemed really touched by the service
I was mainly just scared
but you could definitly tell that God was in that church
it was just a little to "new age" for me
after that we went to kp and got some lunch
and then i came home
and i just did the preview thing and realized that this is incredibly long
so this is where it shall end :)