This past week I had the opportunity to head to Florida for a whole week. I went with my youth group from Lutheran Church of Hope. I left on June 10 at 5:30 in the morning. We took two buses down to Florida. The buses were very nice it had 5 T.V's inside. So on the way down we watched a couple of movies. We arrived at a church in Tennessee and we stayed for one night only. The next morning we ate breakfast and we continued to our next destination which of course is Panama City Beach in Florida.
We got to Florida safely and we unloaded the buses and headed to our rooms to get settled. Then we went down to the ballroom where we would have our first session. We started out the session with a video of what Bigstuf was going to be like. It felt like I was in an I-Max theater. It was very loud in that room. The band started playing and two of my favorite guys came on stage. They are known as the Skit guys. There names are Tommy Woodard and Eddy James. They do different skits that Christian based. They turn your ha-ha's into ah ha's. In the beginning of each session they would throw out Bigstuf frisbees.
I never got one. I tried standing on a chair to get one, but I never did. Anyways, after that we would have a speaker come in and talk with us. They did such a great job and one of the speakers said something that really amazed me. This is a quote I wrote down: "You are far more worse then you can imagine, but you are far more loved then you can ever hope for" I thought that was an awesome quote.
So every day we had a morning session and a night session. After every night session we would go on the beach for small group time. At that time it would be dark and we would have to bring flashlights. Well I had the brightest one of all in my group. So I placed mine in the middle of the circle and my group was glad I brought it. So in the afternoon after the morning session we would have lunch and then we would hangout on the beach from 1:00 till 5:00 which was amazing! I fell asleep which was so relaxing.
Then after we had dinner we had quiet time. We usually just sit or walk on the beach reading and reflecting. Our first night we did that there was this most beautiful sunset. Then one night my group saw a crab laying in the sand it was white. But it was cool.
The ocean was not cold it was warm. For the first couple days we couldn't swim in the ocean because the waves were to rough. Finally Wednesday one of the skit guys said we could go in the ocean. We were all so excited. Then after the session they made an announcement saying we couldn't go in. We were not happy. But finally we were allowed to go in.
Then one day at the beach we had a sand building contest and we had volleyball tournaments. Some girls and guys from hope played volleyball and I cheered on the sidelines. Then Brent asked me if I could lead them in the Interlude dance. I said "yes" in a heart beat! So we did the Interlude twice on the beach. I had a blast. Its hard to do that dance in the sand though.
On Thursday we went to Peer Park its a town that has many stores. Its like a strip mall. Anyways we hung around there for a while. I got a Twilight shirt and some of my friends got cool dresses. Then at six we had to load the bus to go back to the resort. Brent made an announcement that 6 kids were going to get baptized that night. Isn't our God amazing or what? Well it started raining so we had to wait till after our night session. Well it was dark out at the time but we were going to do it anyway. People with cellphone flashlights had to stand in the front so people could watch. So after the baptisms we went to our rooms and we talked for a while.
My group wanted to stay up all night and then we were going to go down to the beach at 4:30 in the morning. Well we fell asleep and we sent four alarms to wake us up and none of them went off. We woke up at 6 AM. One of our friends Brennan waited for us at the beach for 45 minutes. That morning we were tired and we had to go to one more session and then afterwards we loaded the bus to head home.
On the bus ride home we had a dance off on the bus. Which was cool. Even the leaders danced. Then we ate dinner and then we fell asleep on the bus. We slept on the bus. The next morning we woke up at 7:30 and we were an hour and a half away from Hope in West Des Moine. Our time in Florida was over :( But we have all learned so much and I could see God at work in so many students including myself. I got to know my youth group girls a little better and I met some new people on the trip as well. Overall this trip was amazing. I am going back next year no doubt about it. I hope you enjoy reading about my trip to Florida. If you want to know more just send me an email and I will be glad to tell you more
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