Fall Retreat

At one point, it seemed like I wouldn't ever have fall were at least one weekend wasn't spent away with students on Fall Retreat. Sometimes, more than one weekend, depending on if we had a leadership and or women's retreat. Starting my freshman year, I quickly learned, its a part of campus ministry.

I spent the next 4 years either away at the beach in Hilton Head with the students of UGA or even one year down in Pass Christian MS doing hurricane relief work for our Fall Retreat. Each one is uniquely different yet still somewhat the same--you stay up late, meet new friends, hear Gospel centered talks, experience the Lord through P&W and likely are in some beautiful location. I love Fall Retreat.

Upon joining staff, the pattern didn't seem to slow down. I even attended Fall Retreat the semester I was raising support, as a way to gain vision for Bama. 4 years later, I took an office role. One of my first thoughts was jumbled into a lot of things was 'will I miss weekly meetings and late night hang outs and 2 am text messages and fall retreats and bible studies' You see, this is the life of campus ministry. You get totally involved with the students and I think sometimes they forget that your not a student!! Fall Retreat was always a stable of the first semester. It was something that we spent time leading up to and weeks following up. And I loved every second of it. Then I gave that up to take an office role and haven't looked.

I missed last year all together. Weird. Freeing. Healthy. Sad. Growth. It was a lot of things to not be a fall retreat, when after all, I came on staff for students. But this year, I'm returning to the scene! On Friday I fly to Tampa to be a part of a Fall Retreat for three campuses: UCF, USF, & UNF. I couldn't be more humbled at the opportunity to communicate God's word to college students. I still remember sitting in the hotel meeting room in Hilton Head when "Salt" talked about the Kingdom of God. It was a shifting point for me to begin to believe that I could actually believe the truth of Jesus Christ. My prayer is the same would happen this weekend.


To God be the glory--here's to late nights, camp fires w/ s'mores, lots of guitars, ultimate frisbee, and students knowing Jesus.

Blessings