Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Behold 2010

Behold is one of my favorite trips to chaperone. It is the only over night trip where our church takes both the junior high and senior high together, and it is typically a very laid back, easy going weekend. Basically, its a huge retreat at Camp Sumatanga where several churches gather for a weekend. They have five different worship services which consist of a speaker, some sort of entertainment, and a band/musician. The rest of the time the youth are randomly split up into groups where they meet with people selected from each of the other churches and a SWAT team leader to have small group lessons.

Anyway, this year they said there were about 1000 people at Behold! I have been going ever since I was in the 8th grade, and have only missed one year since! (That one year, I went to New Orleans with Ben for a formal.) As a chaperone, we spend most of the time sitting in rocking chairs by the fireplace hanging out and we attend the big worship services. The music and speakers are usually pretty good, and I usually get just as much (if not more!) out of it as the youth. Our church usually takes about 100 people each year, but this year we only took about 80. Several college kids that were in the youth group when I was there also come along as chaperones, so its great getting to hang out with them and catch up on everything.


An added bonus is that I got to hang out with these two lovely girls!!
For anyone that may not know, those two girls are Sally and Meg. They are my two AWESOME sister-in-laws! I absolutely love getting to hang out with them. When Ben and I were dating, he use to say "You're just dating me to get to my sisters." (I always wanted to go over to his house to hang out with them, and he just didn't understand!) I would usually respond to his comment by saying "That's halfway true!" haha Anyway, Meg is a sophomore at the University of Alabama, and Sally is a senior in high school. Although they are a bit younger than me, I really feel like we are the same age, and I love spending time with them. I am really thankful to have them as part of my family now, and it was great getting to see them last weekend at Behold.

Anyway, back to Behold. This year Peder Eide was our singer/worship leader. He is unbelievable. They usually get him to come every other year because he is so good. He is really good at getting the crowd involved, and his songs are awesome. He has made up motions to a lot of the songs that make them really fun to sing. People are usually jumping up and down and dancing if he is playing! He has a great voice and is awesome at what he does. If you haven't ever heard him before, I highly recommend you download some of his songs off itunes or look him up on Youtube.
The entertainment this year was from a group of three comedians known as "321 Improv." I have seen them at Behold before. Usually they are pretty funny, but I wasn't as impressed this year...I think that was mostly because I felt like they did the exact same kinds of stuff as they did the last time they were there, so it was kind of old. There were definitely some funny moments though. The speaker this year was Travis Crim. He was pretty good. He had a lot of energy, and told several stories to help tie his lessons in with something many of us could relate to which I really like. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of 321 improve or Travis!

Over the last few years, our church has started having a big camp fire on the second night of Behold in order to honor the seniors and give them a chance to express what the youth group has meant to them in order to inspire those in the grades below them. Each senior also talks about what their plans are for after graduation and gives specific prayer requests that they would like for others to pray for. The entire youth group then prays over each senior. It is really such a powerful moment. This year it was even more special because Sally is a senior.


Overall, it was a great weekend at Behold this year! To end, heres a picture of me, Meg, and Sally with our matching shoes on that we got for Christmas! (Remember my post about my favorite things? This was on of them!) We were all so glad to have had these shoes. It rained a lot at Behold which caused the ground to be VERY wet, muddy and gross. Luckily, we had the perfect shoes to wear!

I feel like this post is very scatter brained and poorly written. That seems to be how my brain is functioning this week. haha So, I apoligize!


Christen

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