Seaside Retreat 2010

(Click here to view)

The album is now posted on the Facebook page with pictures from our

Seaside Retreat.

Seacrest & Videos

Well, last week finished strong (even though I failed to post Thursday through Saturday). Seacrest was an incredible community. Residents in the community would often swing by one of our events to check out what we were doing--offering to pull their grills out and cook for the entire crowd or even just handing us checks.

The retreat families were incredible, and I think they had a very refreshing and enjoyable week. Check out the Lighthouse fan page later today to see some pictures from the week.

In the meantime, here are four videos I've put together for a church that is partnering with us for their Vacation Bible School. We'll shoot one more for this church over the next couple days to give them 5 total--one for each day. I'll upload it as soon as it's finished. We have had some amazing kids come through here--I think you'll get a taste for that in the videos. Video 1 is pretty straight forward... the rest vary up a little more.

I hope the videos gave you a good taste for what we're doing here. Thanks for following the blog. I appreciate all the prayer and support!

New Fan Page

Today I went to the staff meeting at 7:30 am, helped get the retreat underway, filled water balloons for the "Game Day", and have spent much of the rest of the day tackling our social marketing media. To this point, our online presence has been scattered, and so I've been consolidating different facebook pages, twitter accounts, etc. and weaving it all together into a usable, navigable collection of tools.

Anyway, here's the new Facebook Page. Check it out and click "like". You can check the page to get updates, pics, and video from our weekly retreats.

Tonight, I'm going to wrap up 3 videos from last week, and tomorrow Powell and I will tackle 2 new marketing videos for a new partnership church. It's a challenging task to try and encapsulate the experience here in 2 minute videos, but it's also great to get to share with others a taste of what I get to see and do every single day.

A Lighthouse Thank You

As part of my job on summer staff, I am taking and editing video for Lighthouse to use in marketing and communicating with its donors. Here's a message I captured from Powell that we sent to our supporters today.

Seacrest Beach - Day #1

Volunteers started to arrive Saturday and we spent the weekend gearing up for this retreat. Today, the families just arrived as we kick off day one of Retreat #4 at Lighthouse.

Soon we will have the first family dinner and all of the families will be introduced. It's a cool sight to see all the kids pouring out of a mini vans with huge smiles. Although if I drove as far as many of them did to get here stuck in a mini van, I would be pretty happy to.

So what will a typical day this week look like? I'll go ahead and post a basic daily schedule to give you a feel for it.

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A Typical Lighthouse Day:

8:00 am: Breakfast

Volunteers prepare a great breakfast with parent and kid friendly foods. Volunteers make sure all retreat children and parents are served and waited on before they begin eating.

9:00 am: Morning Watch

A Christian-based devotional to help find hope in God. The faith and belief statement of Lighthouse: “God is good; God is in control; God cares; and God wants you to know Him!” is shared through a conversational message.

9:30 am: Common Grounds

Common Grounds offers retreat parents the opportunity to share their stories with other parents who are facing similar challenges. Strong friendships are developed and many times they form support networks that last well beyond the retreat.

9:30 am: Flip-Flop

Fun and friendship for the kids. While parents attend Common Grounds, the children and Family Partners attend Flip-Flop – a time of fun where kids play all kinds of games, make cool crafts, swim in the pools, and fine tune their talent show skills.

12:00 pm: Lunch

Volunteers prepare a great lunch with parent and kid friendly foods. Volunteers make sure all retreat children and parents are served and waited on before they begin eating.

1:00 pm: “Conched” Out

A little R & R for retreat families and volunteers. Families are free to do as they wish. This is a great time for families to reconnect relationally. Many nap and relax, others watch movies together while others spend the day on the beach. There really isn’t a wrong way to “Conch” Out.

6:00 pm: Dinner

Volunteers prepare a great dinner with parent and kid friendly foods. Volunteers make sure all retreat children and parents are served and waited on before they begin eating.

7:00 pm: Evening Activities

Fun-filled festivities where everyone enjoys the community of family and friends in a carefree environment. Activities include a *Game Day, a special night-out for the parents, a beach party, a low country boil, a talent show and more.

*Game Day

One of the highlights of the week is Game Day. On this day, everyone is filled with team spirit and high energy. Families “go for the gold” as they participate in fun beach games like sponge relays, sand castle building, egg tosses, and more! It’s a fun time to laugh together and cheer one another on.

Lighthouse in Seagrove Beach, FL

So what does a retreat look like? I put together a short 2:00 minute video I took with a Flip of some clips from the week. I hope you enjoy it.

Lighthouse Family Retreat

This summer I am working with a ministry called Lighthouse Family Retreat. Lighthouse gives children who have cancer and their families the opportunity to experience a week at a 30-A beach free of charge, with volunteers who look after their every need, and an environment created to give them the week of a lifetime.

For the last couple weeks of May, I worked in the main office in Atlanta, GA, helping the existing staff to get the retreat logistics nailed down. For the last two weeks, I have been down on 30-A (in between Panama City and Destin) helping to run the retreats, working with the volunteers, and capturing the retreats in video form so that we can better share with others the work we are doing here.

So, what are we trying to do for these families? It boils down to 3 things:

(1) Make them laugh. These families have had long, hard battles. We love to give them the chance to just have a fun time. This is their escape--their chance to leave the hospitals and doctor's appointments for a week and to enter an amazingly positive atmosphere.

(2) Help them reconnect as a family. Cancer, as you might guess, is extremely hard to deal with. It comes with a huge emotional and time price tag, and it wears on the relationships in the families. Siblings start to feel left out. We seek to highlight the siblings of those without cancer as well as those with it to help them feel special too. When battling cancer, parents grow distant as they often have hardly any time at all to spend with each other--especially not alone. There is a very high divorce rate among families with a child who has cancer. Lighthouse gives the parents a chance to connect alone during environments that are parent only during the day, and a date night during the week. We take such good care of their kids, they are able (many times for the first time in years) to leave their children.

(3) Help them find hope in God. We don't want to shove a religion down their throat or make them feel uncomfortable. However, we do know that real peace in situations like this only comes from our Father. We want to give these families many things, but if they walk away with a stronger connection with the Creator, then they really have something of eternal value that will aid them invaluably in the fight ahead.

As a staff person-

We work all day, every day, and it is exhausting. Each day we're up before 7:00 and probably not in bed until midnight, with plenty of heavy lifting and children tossing in between. Ironically though, lighthouse is probably the most refreshing experience I have ever had in my life. Constantly serving other people wears on the body, but the smiles and laughter that comes from the families we serve is energizing. The knowledge that what you are doing is effecting people's lives in an amazingly positive way is tremendously motivating. Seeing children that have battled cancer--some for years--race on the beach or wrestle you in the pool makes your troubles seem small and your heart feel full.

What volunteers at Lighthouse soon find to be the case is that though they are physically exhausted at the end of their week with us, they are emotionally restored and spiritually encouraged.

As I'm down here continuing to work, I will continue to update this blog with my experiences with the kids and Lighthouse.

You can also follow Lighthouse on twitter at @LightouseFR or on Facebook.