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!