Retreat

Last weekend I took the high school youth group guys camping for a retreat. It was sweet. Sam's family blessed us by letting us stay on the 19 acres of land they own along the Des Moines River about 15 miles southeast of Fort Dodge. They're living in Kansas City right now, so they let us stay on their land for the weekend. It was a PERFECT place! (By the way, Sam took some girls on a retreat to Omaha, too. She'll post on that soon on her blog.)

We got there Saturday around 11:00am and did some exploring. The property is in the heavily-wooded river valley-- beautiful. Our goal for the day was to build a shelter that would last until next spring. We really were roughing it-- no tents, bonfire cooking, and 40's-50's temperatures. I can't praise God enough for how He did provide for the weather, though. It was supposed to be a nasty weekend, but there was almost no wind and we had a total of 10 minutes of rain (which stopped 5 minutes after we prayed as a group that the God of the universe would dry the clouds over our campsite).

The food was amazing. A big thanks to the Martens who put together menus for our four meals (including steak on Saturday night!). We ate well.

Our shelter was pretty hardcore, too. I meant to have pictures to show, but the batteries in my camera died. Bummer. Our campsite is on the side of a hill. We made our shelter by using twine to lash long logs together like an upside down "V"and leaning them up against a tree. We then added a third log in the middle for added support and lashed the whole thing to the tree with barbed wire-- it's not going anywhere (remember I said it is supposed to last until we come back next spring?). Then we took tarps and tied them over the logs with twine making a rainproof shelter. Throw a tarp on the ground to sleep on, and it's pretty darn homey! I got a little cold in the middle of the night, but everyone else said they slept good. We just had to take off the tarps when we left, and it's ready for when we come back in the spring when I'm shooting for having a paintball retreat and we'll come back and expand our campsite/shelter.

On Sunday afternoon we studied Titus. We looked at it specifically from a leadership perspective, since Paul has a lot to say about what makes a good leader. Some of the qualities of a Biblical leader that we came up with from the text were:

• they are held to a higher standard
  
• not addicted to alcohol
  
• only have 1 wife
  
• not overbearing
  
• wise
• not quick tempered
  
• not violent
• not dishonest
• self-controlled
  
• not rebellious
• not self-centered
  
• good role model
• sound speech (no gossip, no swearing, truthful)
• respectable
  
• submit to authority

We talked about the fact that all of us men are leaders. Even the high schoolers are to lead their sisters in Christ. How can the high school guys be leading more effectively? How can I help foster their growth as leaders in the youth group, in the church, and in the relationships? I've been challenged by this over the past few weeks. We also talked about which quality of Biblical leadership from Titus we are best at and which quality we are most challenged by. I think I'm best at being a good role model and I need the most improvement at not being self-centered... is that a contradiction?

The only mishap of the weekend was that our Suburban's battery went dead. We found out just before we left, so we were delayed over an hour before Sam's uncle from Fort Dodge came to give us a jump (thanks, Mr. Lowrey!). Can't complain, though. No serious injuries, nearly perfect weather, a hardcore shelter, time in the Word, and two days in God's Creation.

Not a bad weekend at all!

Here we are returning from our epic voyage: (Evan, Jared, Greg, Lance, me)