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.