This past weekend, over 500 young adults from the Mill at New Life (the Friday night service geared towards college age and twenty-somethings) headed up to Crooked Creek Ranch in Winter Park, CO to run around in the snow and cold for a couple of days. The rules? No alcohol, drugs, or girls talking about sports to get guys to like them. :o) It was a beautiful weekend.
There aren't many things more enjoyable to me these days than being set loose to meet so many new people....and having crossovers with people I've met randomly before. Clay, the guy to my left, I met mid-september at one of my wednesday night dinners on Tuesday nights... We remet the previous Sunday at New Life's night service and then hung out a bit here!
I love smores...but in taking the picture, my marshmallows fell in the fire and then when Bradley (the collegiate looking one) went to help me put my second attempt all together...he "claimed" the smoke got in his eyes...oh well, it was still salvageable. Tyler is not wearing a santa clause hat, but we did have to argue over whether I needed to even like sports and he went even more below the belt to say that Virginia wasn't part of the south.... the unclaimed state. We were friends after I set him back to right.
I didn't see much of the other school of worship kids, but we did hang out occasionally...like Saturday night in the game room eating nachos!
Throughout the weekend I was reminded yet again of my love for people's stories. Like hearing from a girl that stayed in our room, she was roping in a rodeo like atmosphere, fell, landed in a coma for six weeks, and miraculously woke up and is almost at a full recovery. She only got out of the hospital at the end of August! The only reason I even talked to her was because I was straightening my hair and she came in to look at her eye... which had just had a ping pong ball slammed into it! Slightly ironic....
The whole theme of the retreat was LIFE. The wrestling with questions like am I where I'm supposed to be, or where should I be going next. We had extended spirit filled times of worship and even when the band stopped playing we kept singing most times. To be in the midst of a community that so passionately and deeply loves God...well, it gets intense fast!
A couple of hours on a bus Sunday afternoon watching Madagascar 2 and taking a nap landed me back in the Springs. A good time with good folks...loved it! (sidenote: I actually met my first legit person from Virginia, harrisonburg to be exact and when I said I was from NOVA....he called me uppity! Of all the nerve!)
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