Hidenwood Presbyterian Church Youth Retreat
Event Location: Newport News, Virginia
Using this grant we were able to offer a youth retreat for our small (but growing) group of middle school girls. We went to Great Wolf Lodge for a weekend retreat. Using the PYT “When Did We See you?” curriculum, we had 3 sessions where we gathered for study and conversation, each one after we had shared a meal together. I was able to use most of the lessons as they were written, adapting only for the small size of our group. I appreciated the flow of the curriculum and the easy activities that were suggested – they generated a lot of wonderful conversation on what it really means to be seen and to see others and how it feels to be overlooked or invisible. We also discussed ways that we could learn to be more intentional in “seeing” those folks around us that we and others often overlook or take for granted. I had been able to use several of the recreation ideas in the month leading up to our retreat – I think that this introduced our retreat topic and potentially helped them with the conversations around the table. We had worship after our sessions were completed using the worship resources included in the packet.
We are a small but growing group – we have 6 girls (only 4 were able to come) and without the additional resources from this grant I would not have been able to take them off campus for their retreat.
