Freshmen Retreat – “Draw Near”

This past Monday was a great day for the Freshman Retreat. It was an amazing time of fun, community, and meaningful spiritual growth. We started with breakfast at Parkview Student Life Building and then headed to Camp Istrouma in Greenwell Springs, LA to hear from our main session speaker, Micah Cating and dive into our small groups discussions. We had our teachers, faculty and the Parkview’s youth pastor Rich Mayfield help out with our small group sessions and leading the groups through the outdoor activities and team building challenges.

Our focus for this retreat was about learning to hitting PAUSE from the frantic pace of your life and learning to “Be still and Draw Near” to the Lord. The students were challenged to dig into scripture in their small group discussions to see the importance Jesus put on spending time with the Father.  They were also given an opportunity to spend time alone in nature with the Lord and their devotional books during their quiet times. In addition, the students saw how their busy lives can cause them to be blind to the hurt and pain that other people and their peers experience. Each student filled out an anonymous “If you really knew me…” card and were given the option to have it read aloud or not, in our closing group session. Many of the students found this to be one of their favorite parts of the retreat to understand some of the hurt and insecurities that their peers fight every day. It allowed those to see that they were not alone in their struggles and that they have to watch their words and actions and encourage one another in their pursuit of Christ.

There were several activities that our students did to help foster community, fun and team building. The students participated in four outdoor activities at Camp Istrouma: rock climbing, archery, human foosball and low ropes course. During our small group time we did several team building activities, such as building a human pyramid, back to back and blindfolded challenge. The kids and their teachers had so much fun and lots of laughter on this day. We really believe that this class grew closer to the Lord and also closer to each other.

CLICK HERE TO ENJOY A FRESHMEN RETREAT RECAP VIDEO