And a FABULOUS year it was! The 2011 NCF Steadfast Love Girls retreat was a smashing success! As the leadership team continues to grow and change, each year presents a new opportunity for us to fall on our knees and pray that God would do the work He loves to do and use us as His instruments of love in the lives of the girls He brings to our doors. For various reasons, this year was different than past years. But as the retreat unfolded before us, we watched God answer many, many prayers. The Steadfast Love Retreat was exactly that: a time of true, deep rest and renewal of confidence in God's steadfast love for each one of us. We set the stage for the retreat using the idea of a mountain fortress to give the girls a visual picture of how God's steadfast love surrounds us and protects us and provides a safe haven for us as His children. Each team leader chose a verse about God's steadfast love and decorated their team table with the ideas from that verse.
The retreat started out, as is our custom, with a session to lay the foundation - salvation from our sinfulness through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus! Without this foundation, the rest of what we share and teach and why we worship doesn't make sense. Shaina & Mackenzie Smith invested time and energy putting together a video to share this message of God's steadfast love in salvation with the girls on Sunday night. It was incredibly powerful as it combined the words of truth with captivating visual elements. It stirred many hearts and set the tone for the rest of our time together. Over the course of the retreat (with not a single altar call ;) we saw 4 girls give their hearts to the King of Kings and begin new relationships with Jesus, and watched many others find renewal in their relationships with Him! As leaders, it was a joy and privilege to see God use the time we had planned to draw the girls hearts close to Him in repentance and forgiveness, and to see the joy and confidence in their faces as they began to walk in the new love they had found.
Our days were filled with times of deep and joyful worship led by talented musicians, morning dance exercises with Amber, fun and CRAZY games with the Jessicas (including, but not limited to, teams racing to see who could finish a half gallon of ice cream the fastest, and unbelievable amounts of shaving cream :), making flower pens to send as gifts with the Thailand girls retreat team and creating awesome headbands during our craft time with Sheneka, swimming and playing and catching naps during free time, daily showers at the Smith's, Montanye's, and Murphy's (Thank you!!), and all sorts of yummy food that Tina & Lydia set out for us! (not to mention the 7 bajillion kinds of junk food that girls brought to share :)
At retreat, Tuesday night is "Special Night", where we have all the girls take their stuff out of the sanctuary, and head off for games and showers. When they come back, they are dressed and ready for a special theme, and the sanctuary has been transformed into a beautiful masterpiece with an equally beautiful dinner awaiting them. This is our unique opportunity to pray for and bless the girls and remind them that they are beautiful and loved. Alyce Loeser shared with us that night from her life experience a beautiful story of God's endless grace and steadfast love that will never let us go and always pursues us, no matter what. God couldn't have planned a better ending to bring us full circle in the theme of His steadfast love! We gave each of the girls a necklace made with leather and a river rock - a small gift to remind them that God's love is steadfast and immovable like a rock. We ended the night celebrating His love for us with more worship, dancing and brownies and ice cream!
Wednesday morning, after packing up and cleaning the church, we give the girls a chance to share with us and each other what they learned or how their lives were affected through the retreat. As parents come to pick up their girls, they get the chance to hear a little bit of the big and beautiful work that God has done. They get to see their daughters worship with their whole hearts. And we, the leaders, watch and pray that God will continue to raise up new leaders from these precious girls to continue on this work in the future. We used to be those girls, and we are eternally grateful for the way God has used the NCF girls retreats in our own lives. We have seen God open doors to minister to girls in Guatemala and now Thailand. And we know that God will continue to glorify Himself in the work of the NCF girls retreats! We are blessed beyond measure by the prayers and support of the body of Christ at NCF. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a part of making this ministry possible.
