...Down In my Heart!

Well As I've told some of you out there the Friday and Saturday of the 7th and 8th (of April) I went to a Men's retreat down in a camp named Camp Joy. It was a fun Two day vacation just to be able to get away from the world and get refocused on God. I'll talk about it in my typical chronological way.

Wednesday--After Prayer meeting that night I was asked by one of the men in my church (Mr. Calverley) if I would go with him on a men's retreat down to Camp Joy. I said that I'd be glad to But I advised him to make sure that there wasn't an Age limit. So he said he would check into it and Call me once he found out

Thursday-- I got a call saying I could go along to the retreat, so we started packing.

Friday--I was picked up by another guy who was going and we drove to the Calverley's house. We loaded up a single van with all our stuff, picked up a few guys (In total there were 5--including me) and headed out for Camp Joy.

The way down was quite fun. We got to spend four hours together swapping stories, sharing testimonies, and just having fun (Oh yeah and deciphering directions) We made it to Camp Joy right on time, settled in, then ate a wonderful dinner.

The food was awesome--for dinner we had Crab legs and Chicken--they had the best Crab I've ever had! The meal was great and so was who we ate with--we were able to have the Speaker, Mr Phelps, come and eat with us. He is a great guy. Mr. Calverly used to be in His church so they knew eachother.

After the meal we has a little free time to play some games like ping-pong and fooseball then we had our first Session. Pastor Phelps is a great preacher--convicting too. He spoke from Luke 6--the "Sermon on the Plane"--a message similar to th e beatitudes in Matthew.

After the preaching we had some more freetime-we used that to go to the Gym mad play some Basket ball--that was a fun (and tiring) game. At 12 we had to go off to bed.
Saturday--We got up did out Devotions and had a little snack (some doughnuts and orange juice) then we had our second session.

This time it was about Anger. Once again it was convicting. We saw from the life of Moses (When he his the rock instead of speaking to it) how anger can effect your life--it cost Moses the promised Land...

After that we had a real Breakfast--bacon, eggs, sausage, French toast, salmon. It was a great breakfast. Right after it we has another session.

This one was for Dads. He talked about how it is a big responsibility to be a father--I learned a lot from this message--no I'm not a dad an that won't be for a while but I am the oldest kid in my church. I am the pastor's oldest son. I am a big brother to three brothers and two sisters. I learned (more of re-learned) that kids will copy those who they look up to--and kids look up to me weather I like it or not! It was a blessing to be encouraged to be a Christ-like example.

After the message we had some freetime. So I went on the Zipline that they had there. It was really fun but standing in line took quite a while.

After that we had out last session. Pastor Phelps spoke using the example of Elisha to show how we need to be sold out for Christ--how we need to decide to impact our family's security, make financial sacrifice, leave familiar surroundings, and Ignore some friendly suggestions. We have to be willing to give it all for God.

After the convicting message ended we got to do something really fun. We all signed up for it--all but Mr. Calverley--he didn't want to hurt himself. Anyways one of the Camp workers took all of us that signed up (Me and the three other guys I rode down with and one other kid) And we drove to a little prepared field. Once there we were each given a Gun and then we decide teams then we started shooting--fortunately the ammo was only Paint!
Yes, it was a paintball game--we all had fun playing a few rounds of Paintball--I only got shot (and had it explode on me) once. That was my first game of Paintball ever and I like it a lot.

After we tired ourselves out and covered ourselves in Paint and bruises we went back for dinner. Once again we had a great meal. After the food we packed up our things and headed home.

The ride home probably was more fun then the ride there--we shared what the Lord taught us in the messages and Mr. Calverly told us all the crazy things he did as a kid. It was really fun to get to know him a little better. We arrived home safe and sound.

That weekend was great. Sorry I took so long to tell you all about it, but I hope you enjoyed it.

~Joey