Muskoka Retreat

Just for a heads up I am exhausted....trying to stay awake for a bit longer though so please bear with my spelling and or sentences making any sense.

It is currently 6:30 and even though I as well as every other person on the bus coming home from Muskoka feel asleep I think it will take me a few days to catch up on sleep.

The last four days have been one of the best experiences of my life. This past year working with Urban Promise has taught, stretched and grown me so much but in the past four days I was able to experience all these things as well as amazing intimate relationships with my kids.

There is something about taking people outside of their comfort zone that results in a lot of change, both in myself as person and leader but for the kids as well.

They are used to and comfortable with concrete and buildings reaching into the sky and when they our taken three hours away from that to a place that is dark, unknown and quiet some really amazing things are able to happen.

This weekend for me was challenging as leader leading fellow leaders as well as a group of 47 youth, 30 of them which I didn't really even know until this weekend. Running program, getting up in front of them all and pretty well preaching the gospel to them is defiantly outside of my comfort zone. Unexpected problems and frustrations arose which need to be dealt with on top and doing everything else I just listed. But God really used these times to teach me to find my strength in Him as well as following His agenda and not my own. 

Watching the and experiencing news things with my kids was defiantly the highlight!

Just being out in the snow and quiet winter north or sleeping in a cabin was a new and exciting experience. Comforting them when they are scared of the dark, tucking them into bed at night and waking them up in the morning. Just being with them for 37 hours straight was really neat. Simple things build relationships such as brushing your teeth together and eating meals together. 

Muskoka Woods provided some really exciting activities for us to do such as wall climbing, snow tubing, skateboarding, snowshoeing and rollerskating. New, scary and yet exciting things for us to do, one of my boys went wall climbing and got to the top very quickly only to freak out at the top and refused to let go of the wall to be lowed. Skate boarding and roller skated kept me busy dressing kids in elbow and knee protection and lots of laughter as they fell all over the place. Another part of camp was our survivor theme with games and activities for the tribes to compete in that finished off in a final tribal council around a huge bonfire, I can still hear the chanting of the tribes as we marched along the path to tribal council! 

There are so many moments from this weekend and I could go on forever about the pranks in the cabins or the silly things the kids said, the serious conversation we had, the things that made us laugh, the way my girls refused to sleep (which is why i'm tired). 

But to finish this off it was an amazing weekend filled with good things and a great big God who worked powerfully through all of His little instruments here on earth.

The trip was finished with a bus full of the sounds of sleeping kids and leaders!