Last Friday through Saturday, we went on a retreat with our student leaders. After the excitement of Thursday night, Mario gave us Friday morning off to get some rest and pack. We reported to the Chi Alpha building at 12:30 to go over some last minute details and make sure we packed everything we needed for the retreat. Staff left around 2pm to head out to St. George Island; the students met and followed at 3:30.
I drove and two interns rode with me. The drive there was beautiful; most of the way, the road followed the shoreline of the St. George Bay, a bay of the Gulf of Mexico. We arrived at the Christian center, unloaded the food, and set up the dinning area. After Rhia arrived, she set up room assignments and we unloaded all of our stuff. A few of us went to the bay, took pictures, and waded in. The water was calm and warm, unlike the last time I was at the beach. We met in the dinning room to plan out the schedule for the rest of the weekend and the students began arriving. The group was broken up into different shifts to help prepare or clean up the meals and the dinner crew got started making spaghetti.
After dinner, we went to the building on the "point" for a time of worship and prayer. It was an awesome time that bonded us all together. After the prayer, we hung out, ate nachos, and played games before heading to bed.
Saturday morning, we got up and ate pancakes for breakfast. The students were given time to spend with God. Another intern and I set up the laptop and projector for the next session. After some technical difficulties, we got everything up and running. The students came in and we talked about leadership and training others. We looked at how Moses trained Joshua, but Joshua didn't train anyone to take his place and the result. We also talked about why it's important to train someone to take your place as a small group leader. We also talked about some students that are involved, but not connected with XA and ways that they can become better connected. We took a break for lunch and ate sandwiches and leftover spaghetti. I was on the clean-up crew and helped wash dishes and pack the food for the trip home. We were given a few hours off; I went to the bay for a little while and waded and looked for shells. After a little while, some of us went to the beach across the road and waded in the Gulf of Mexico. It was overcast and windy and the waves seemed a little rough, but the rain held off. We went back and had a final meeting about small groups. We broke up into our small groups and talked about what we were going to study over the course of the semester and shared any hesitations the students had about leading. The interns prayed over the group we are working with and commissioned them. We went back to our rooms to pack, make sure they were clean, and pack up the vehicles. We also walked back down to the bay and took a group picture with all the student leaders (minus Pastor Mario) and a picture with just the interns (again, minus Mario).
After we left the Christian center, most of us decided to drive down to Apalachicola, about 15 minutes away. A group of about 7 of us decided to go to the local seafood restaurant. We were able to get a table on the porch, right by the water. I got lemon-pepper grilled shrimp with corn fritters and curly fries...it was all very good. After we ate, we decided to walk along one of the main streets and look in the shops. We found only one that was open, but we had a lot of fun with the different things we found there, such as the blow fish, shark jaws, and the "oyster hunter" hats. Since it was getting late and there weren't many places open, we decided to head back to Tallahassee. We got back to the church, unloaded the food and put it away, before going to the Castrova's house for ice cream before going home.
I had a great time on the retreat getting to spend time with the student leaders and getting to know them better. I also took some pictures while we were there and put them in an album on Facebook. This is an album where I will be adding Chi Alpha pictures throughout the year. The link for the album is: Florida State Chi Alpha 2010-11.
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