Regeneration 2011, Day #1

Hey everybody!

I think I'm going to try and get as many posts up about Regeneration as I can today, because it's one of the only days I don't have to work this week (wisdom teeth appointment--yea!) :).  So, without further ado, here's day #1.

At 2 P.M. on Monday we all met at the church to leave for Glorieta, which is only an hour and a half away from where we all live (which is unbelievably awesome--no six hour car rides!).  Registration for Regen was at 4 P.M., so we didn't need to leave any earlier.

We all piled into the cars and were off!  It rained a little bit on our way there, but once we got there it was clear.  We were greeted very enthusiastically by the volunteers from Grace Community Church, the church heading up Regeneration.  At the gate they asked what church we were from, and then radioed it ahead so that on one of the hills we drove over they held up a banner that said "Welcome Covenant of Grace" and we drove through it!  It was SO much fun!

Once we actually got inside the camp our leader, Russ, went to check us in while we all played games with some of the other teens that were already there.  We did that for awhile before heading over to our dorms and unpacking all our stuff.  All us girls stayed in the Oklahoma dorm, which was basically like a hotel.  We were on the first floor and had four rooms to our group.  While each room was only made to hold four, mine had five because we had one extra girl.  That worked out alright, though; it was fun to be all crammed together for five days!  We also had our own bathrom and shower (!!!) which was beyond thrilling.

Once we had unpacked we all went to the dining hall for dinner.  This was our first taste of what the week would be like because we had to walk everywhere.  The dining hall was about a quarter of a mile from the dorms, and we had to walk there and back three times a day, plus most of the fields where our games were at were at least half a mile away.  We ended up walking four or five miles a day, easily, and it got to be very tiring!  I am very thankful for cars now. :)

Anyway, after dinner we went to have our first session.  This was our first taste of what the rest of the week would look like.  The worship was amazing all week, as well as the teaching.  Monday night was the only time we were able to here Austin Duncan teach, and it was very good.  He taught mostly about the definition of regeneration, why we need it, how it happens, and how it should change our lives.  After that we had small groups together on the dock by the lake.  It was really nice to be out there, even if it felt like the dock was going to be detached from land and sink with all of us on it, and then it started raining. :)

After small groups we had our first rally session, which is basically where all the teams got together and screamed as loud as they could so as to support team spirit.  I wouldn't exactly call it fun, but most people seemed to enjoy it.  We were able to meet the rest of our team then when we broke off from the other teams and learned each others' names.  Our youth group wasn't big enough to be its own team, so we were joined by about thirty people from other churches, including Grace Community Church.  Our team was Sandman.  We came up with the greatest cheer that first night, and won points for the cheer throughout the week, but sadly no one recorded it.  Just know it was amazing!  After our rally session and some team games we went to bed.

And that was pretty much it for the first day!  Here's some pictures.  Since there's so many of them I'm not going to make them x-large like I usually do, but you can click on them if you want to see them bigger.

Fun on the car ride to Glorieta!

Our faithful driver, Mrs. Langley

And me, the co-pilot.  Had I known this picture was being taken, I would have smiled for it. :)

You can barely see the banner that our first car drove through in this picture.

We're here!

The absolutely gorgeous chapel.

Getting ready to play some games.

Listening to our room assignments.

On our way to dinner.

We had to put handprints on our faces for team spirit.  The red paint is actually "Spidey's blood", as Spiderman was our archenemy for the week.