Press On to Know: Regeneration 2011, Day #5

My last day at Regeneration began with meeting a girl from Canada for breakfast, and then going with her to the prayer garden for our devotions. I had enough time to actually explore the prayer garden that morning, and it is just incredible! I chose a different spot for my devotions that morning, next to the fountain and the gazebo.

That morning's session was our last real session, and the speaker was Andrew Gutierrez. His sermon was on how to take home with us what we learned at camp. He based it off of 2 Peter 1:8-9, and it was excellent.

After lunch was our final team game, which was the relay race. Next to X-Treme Steal the Bacon, this was definitely the hardest and most intense game at Regeneration. There were thirteen different obstacles that included eating weird food, toilet paper throwing, a guys' only game where they had to pull a dead squid attached to a rope through their shirts, the smallest person on our team being wrapped in plastic wrap and being carried around the field as our human baton, finding $1.73 in coins using only your mouth in a kiddie pool filled with onions and limes, etc. The last obstacle contains the story of this picture:

I posted this picture about a week ago with a promise to tell how it happened, and I'm finally going to tell the story!

Our final obstacle for the relay race was a girls' only challenge. Running through the middle of the field where we had the relay race was trench full of mud. All the girls on our team had to army crawl thirty or forty (I'm a terrible judge of distances) feet through this mud. The last ten feet were crawled not just through mud, but mud mixed with ketchup, mustard, dog food, onions, and who knows what else. It was disgusting. To top all that off, the game crew told us that we had to dunk our faces in the mud somewhere along the way, or "the boys would pay". I'm not sure how the boys would have paid, but we all obeyed and got our faces dirty. I think I went a little too all-out with that one. I dunked my entire face in the goopy, gross mud at the end, and as a result got mud inside of my eyes. I put eye drops in that night and the next morning couldn't open one of my eyes because there was so much mud that had been brought to the surface and was sealing it shut. It was painful! Pretty fun, but definitely the most painful part of the week. That's where I got the cuts on my arms. Apparently I haven't yet mastered the army crawl--one isn't usually an expert on one's first try--and dragged myself on my arms instead of my hands. My cuts are all healed up now, but they certainly weren't pretty at first, were they?

During free time that day we went zip lining!

After dinner that night we gathered for our final rally session. It wasn't really a rally session, though; it was more like a regular session with music and preaching. Sandman ended up in 6th place out of sixteen teams. We expected to be in 15th place or somewhere around there, so 6th was pretty good!

After announcing who had won for that week, we were led in worship and then heard a final sermon by Austin Duncan that tied in very well to Andrew's sermon that morning. After Austin's sermon we had our final mail call and lost and found time. This was where those who had been sent mail had it called out and went up to get it, and the lost and found items were held up and whoever owned it came up to claim it. Now, you see, my parents had come up to visit us at Regeneration a couple days earlier and apparently Chloe had forgotten her purse somewhere on the Glorieta grounds. I didn't know this until that night, so you can imagine my shock and dismay when Austin Duncan holds up Chloe's purse--a very distinctive purse with a dachsund on it--and says someone found it. At first I was in denial that it was hers, but then he started pulling out the items contained in the purse: Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, etc., and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was hers. So guess who had to go up and get it? Yes, it was me. It was all very embarrassing and hilarious, but I got through it in the end. :)

Directly after the final rally session most of the Regeneration people packed up, loaded up in their buses, and headed off for an eighteen-hour drive back to their homes. Since we only had an hour to drive, we had decided to stay that extra night and then leave the next morning. We got to stand by the road and wave as everybody drove away, and then went to get some ice cream before going to bed.