Vineyard Winter Youth Retreat

Lake Arrowhead in Winter
Originally uploaded by jacobgaines.

I've been out of the blogging loop for awhile. On sabattical if you wish due to a full plate the past few weeks. Part of that plate was emptied this weekend as Abigial and I were a part of our youth retreat up in Lake Arrowhead (elev. 5,600ft).

The rest of the SoCal clan can vouch for the fact that we have had about zero percipitation this year. That all changed about 6:00pm Friday night which happened to be the exact time our caravan of 10 packed cars with 43 teens and youth staff got to the base of the San Bernadino Mountains. No sooner had we begun our ascent up to camp than the heavens opened up and began to dumb rain, then thick fog at about 3,000ft, then a blizzard at 4,000ft. We meandered up the steep hills, slipping and sliding until we mirculously made it to the camp (4 hours later).

It snowed all weekend, which the kids just loved (typical SoCal youth...only a few brought gloves and boots). The retreat went great and we all had a blast. Abigail led another amazing time with all the girls, and I spoke at the main sessions. We ended up taking quite a few non-Christian friends of kids in our group, which was cool because some of them made commitments to Christ!

Yesterday, we were scheduled to leave at 2:00pm, but awoke to about another foot of snow overnight. All of our cars were buried and we spent the morning digging them out and putting chains on some of the cars. We were saved by a snow plow at noon, and were able to head down the mountain on time. An hour later we were in the warm, sun soaked valley below giving the kids back to their parents. And now I sit looking at the snow capped mountains in the distance, quite thankful to have had our snow fix for the year. Now on to Colina next month with twenty-one 8th graders from FCS.

And all of this is distracting me from the reality of turning 30 in a week. I will be in the gym every night this week and the SoCal Gaines boys will be riding 30 miles next weekend (from Azuas to the Beach). And I will challenge any Lampi or Gaines guy in the mile run, on the court, or on the weight bench (ok, Steve excluded in everything, and Ben excluded on the bench). 6 days and counting!