Painting, Spa, and Beach Time - Day 3, Tuesday at Rosemary

On Tuesday, everyone gathered bright and early at Town Hall for breakfast and a thing called Morning Watch. In Morning Watch, our worship leader for the week--Mitchell McGhee--shared one of the "truths" for the day, and then led everyone in a short time of worship (That is essentially what every Morning Watch looks like). The first truth was introduced today, so Mitchell talked about how "God is Good". This truth might be something we accept at face value, but when we stop and think about it's implications and try to apply it to our realities, it can be hard even for us--imagine what it must be like for parents who used to live "normal" lives but now spend all their time battling to keep their kid alive.

Annnd, surprise, I actually have this Morning Watch on video. I hope it gives you a good feel for what these look like. Often, Morning Watch will be done on the beach overlooking the water, but this week we did it in Town Hall.

After Morning Watch, the parents leave their children with the volunteers and make their way over to what we call "Common Grounds". Common Grounds is probably one of the coolest things we do. It gives the parents a chance to actually talk about what they're going through--and to talk about it with people who are in similar situations. It is amazingly therapeutic, and is probably one of the greatest boons to healing and finding the ability to persevere through a world of childhood cancer.

While the parents are at Common Grounds, the kids enter into an environment we call "Flip Flop", where they are broken up into teams by age and gender, and are watched and played with by the volunteers. For Flip Flop today, we had the opportunity to take the kids to the studio of Justin Gaffrey. He gave the kids all painting supplies and helped them create their own pieces of work. It was an incredible experience for the kids, and we're really thankful to Justin. His works sell for tens of thousands of dollars, so for him to open up his space and time for us is simply amazing.

Here's two of his works:

And here's some pictures of the kids at the studio:

After Flip Flop, everyone gathered back together for lunch in Town Hall. At 1:30, we did a "lady's spa" for all the retreat moms. This was a time when they were able to get pedicures, manicures, and foot massages from the female volunteers, and basically just get loved on.

Here's a picture:

After that, the families were free for the rest of the night until the volunteers picked up their kids and gave the parents the chance to have the night off. Lighthouse pays for the parents to have a free dinner on Tuesday nights so that the parents can have a "date night" and the chance to have some alone time together. We hang out with the kids, eat pizza, watch a movie, and have an ice cream party. The kids have a blast, and the parents have a chance to reconnect. The stress of having a kid with cancer is huge, so giving the parents the night to bond is HUGE.

Well, after that is "night cap" for the volunteers, and that concludes the day! Tuesdays are always long, but they are really important days.

Day 2 in Rosemary

On Monday, the families we will be serving arrive between 2:00 and 4:00 pm. We call them the "retreat families", and each is distinct--coming with different backgrounds, standing in different places in their life journeys.

We checked the families in, and the volunteer family partners met them and took them to their houses. We gave them a while to settle in before meeting back together in Town Hall. The families each filled out a Lighthouse "mad libs" and the Host read their answers, poked fun at them, and introduced them to the rest of the crowd.

After the introductions and the teaching of the Lighthouse Song, everyone made their way across the street to Summer Kitchen, who very generously closed their restaurant for the night and fed everyone from Lighthouse. Here's a picture with me in it from outside the restaurant:

(I'm the one in the middle wearing a gray, sleeveless Lighthouse shirt)

After dinner, the volunteers headed over to Wiggle (the staff house) and assembled in the living room area for Night Cap. Night Cap is the nightly environment where we cover announcements for the next day, share some experiences from the day, focus in on the devotional thought we will be sharing with the families the next day, and worship together in song. It's one of my favorite parts of the retreat. At the end of a long day, it's good to come together before God and really be refreshed. It helps remind me of the purpose of everything. After that concludes the days activities.

Day 1 in Rosemary

Working on staff during a retreat is an amazing experience. It is also--as you might expect--an extremely hectic and busy one. My job isn't just getting to serve the families and partner with them like so many of our volunteers get to do, but I also have to work with the wonderful people from the office to make sure that the events and structure of the retreats are in place, and that everything in the big picture that I'm responsible for is flowing as it should. After three weeks of straight retreats, our fourth retreat in Rosemary felt like a bit of a blur.

That being said, I'm going to provide you now with the daily notes that I never had a chance to post online day-to-day as they were happening. Let's start off easy--Day 1 in Rosemary:

Sunday is when all of the volunteers arrive and check in to find the retreat set up and awaiting them as if we had a permanent location in that exact point on the beach. For all they know, we have lived in Rosemary Beach, FL for months. On this particular day, however, I was fortunate to get most of the day off. The only bit of work I did on this day was to finish off the VBS Dublin video #2 you can find posted below.

In Rosemary, we are fortunate enough to have use of their Town Hall (pictured below).

Since we had this magnificent facility to use, we were able to eat all of the meals indoors, which was quite a nice change from the typical mode of things. We spent Saturday unloading everything here and at a few of the houses, and by Sunday when the volunteers started rolling in, everyone was ready to roll.

Lighthouse was also given the chance to speak at the church service they have on Sunday mornings at town hall. It's always a good chance to help spread the word in the community and bond with them in a unique way.

As far as my day off, it was very much needed. I had a chance to go down to the beach and read... it's amazing how little beach time staff can get at these retreats if the retreat happens in a community that isn't directly on the sand. Anywho, that was Sunday!

FUMC Dublin Video 4

As promised, here is the last video I put together for a church's Vacation Bible School and our partnership with them. I thought it turned out pretty well.