Juniors Retreat Reflection

After camp and youth ministry class I have come to appreciate the amount of work that goes into planning a retreat and the energy and planning it takes to be sure every detail is covered and planned for in the case of certain things occurring! For instance it takes a lot of pre prep to know he materials that are needed for every aspect of the retreat: for games, for activities, for chapel and for cabins. Until camp and youth ministry class hen planning a retreat I didn't realize how much planning actually must go into a retreat to make sure It flows smoothly and everything works according to plan. Another thing that I've come to appreciate is serving in aspects such as counselling or dishes because when learning I learned a lot about how every part of the team I super important for a retreat or camp to work successfully because without people to serve in any or specific areas camp wouldn't be able to run smoothly and therefore even jobs such as maintenance and dishes have come to be viewed as important in my perspective.
Throughout the juniors retreat what stood out to me the most was how every part of the team was needed! Whether that was counsellor staff, games crew. Games assistance. Dish crew, or maintenance crew in order for the juniors retreat to run smoothly every position needed to be filled. Another thing that stood out to me from the juniors retreat was the busyness of the weekend and how late the kids stayed up! Most kids go to bed between 7 and 9 and they were going to bed around 12 and 11. To me this seems really late however they did get a bit of a sleep in on the Sunday morning which was good! Finally another thing that stood out to me was the order in which things occurred for the retreat, whether that was upbeat fun music, then games then music and a slow song which led into the message because it was interesting to see how that encouraged children to release their energy then engage in the teaching moment.
During the retreat it was cool to see God at work firstly in my cabin, our first cabin devotional I had a girl who started asking deep questions about god, who he is and why he loves us and as I got the opportunity to explain and answer some of the question it was really cool to etch some of my girls deeply think about what I was saying and truly analyze it to figure out what that means for themselves. After this I could tell one girl was confused about it a lot so I connected with her after and we were able to talk about it on a more deeper level an I think she was able to begin to understand a bit more about how much god loves you! The second way I saw god working at this retreat was in my cabin after that first devotional I was able to explain what it truly means to be a part of gods family and then was able to pray a prayer with some of my girls! Which was really encouraging and some girls even asked me for bibles. Finally the final way I saw god working this retreat was trough the things he has taught me this year and the things I've learned through the retreat serving as a counsellor I was able to use those things in sharing gods truth and new it was f him and not myself with the main purpose of glorifying him. I was really cool to be able to see what e has taught me this year and I know he was able to use what he's taught me this year to teach others so that was really encouraging.