The week of the 15th I had the pleasure of driving 2 hours to a Girls' Retreat held at a friend's church. The Lord worked all the details out so that I could attend it this year, after being invited by several friends. Mom, Anna, Leah, Levi and I headed out Sunday morning and stopped at a mall on the way just for fun. :) We arrived at the church in high excitement and I was ready to have an awesome experience.
First things first, I got all checked in, greeted all my peeps, and set up my bag and cup for the week.
I was a designated member of Team China, and found my table and the rest of my team. :)
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| Wasn't our table amazing? :) |
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| GO TEAM CHINA!!! :) |
Some of the other girls were in teams Ireland, Israel, Thailand, Mexico, and a few others.
One of the many uplifting and encouraging sessions during those 3 long days. :)
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| Amber sharing her thoughts on Courage. |
Our worship team was terrific. Meredith, Bethany, Amber, Josie, Amy, Michelle, and others-- you all were such a huge blessing and added a neat level to my experience.
Praising Jesus! :)
Some of the favorite songs of the week:
Meredith helped us to understand more about the persecuted church in a very powerful way. Check out this video. And after the session we had the opportunity to write a note of encouragement to Christians in prison in several different countries. :) It was really neat to be able to do that.
Along with all this wonderful stuff, there were so many fun games to be had! Here's just a sneak peek into all the craziness there was. ;)
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Give six blind-folded girls makeup, and this is what you get. |
\\WARNING\\ **This is a very disturbing image** ;P
Told ya. ;)
On Tuesday Josie had done a wonderful job of setting all us girls up with a jewelry making session. :)
And there was........
NINJA!!!!
I actually did a pretty decent job and came in 2nd of all the girls. :)
One of the climaxes of the week was the notorious shaving cream war! This was the most insane, mayhem of a game, but it was well worth the mess. :) I was armed with two cans of Barbasol and went out there to be turned white. :D
The ante-bellum picture. ;)
After you were thoroughly slathered up, you got to go jump into the farm pond!
And then there was the waterslide......
Bethany, Amber, Amy and I went out on the paddle boat......until we realized that it was "kaput". We had to be pushed back to the edge due to having no steering and only one paddle. :P
Monday and Tuesday zoomed by and we all were looking forward to the special evening prepared by the leaders. :)
All those ladies had totally done a make over to the church and transformed it to a banquet hall. :)
I felt so overwhelmed by all the love and effort put into this night, and will remember it always.
Each team's leader prayed for their group and presented each girl with a pretty scarf. :)
There was a really great time of worship and prayer and then some icecream cake concocted by the awesome Tina! :)
The rest of the night (til 2 o clock) was a blur of dancing, music, laughing, smiles, and altogether a very happy time!
This retreat was a HUGE blessing and I really enjoyed how all the young women and ladies led us girls to our Lord and the AMAZING love He has for us. :) It definitely was a refresher and rejuvenated my spirit. I think it's terribly impossible to throw a bunch of fun-loving godly young women together and expect them to not have an awesome time. ;)
It was so good to meet all those sweet girls and I look forward to all the friendships that will blossom from this week. (and it was also fun to finally put faces to all these names I'd heard around. :D
Thank you Jesus, for the blessing of this retreat and how you've used it to draw all of us closer to your heart.
And to this ^ crazy-wonderful-awesome-group of girls:
I miss you all a lot and hope to see you again next year! :)
"I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer....For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." -Isaiah 56:7
{{{{All photos Copyright Krissy Hinton 2012}}}}}
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