I need to start by saying that I am not a fan of event based Chirstianity. The measure of kids' faith grows over 18 years of childhood, not two days at a center without parental supervision. The faith of young adults' grows over four years of college, not four days at a poor man's religious Burning Man in the hills on New Hampshire (just sayin'). So the thought of going on our annual two day retreat with my middle school students had me less than thrilled this week.

I have been back home for four hours now, and I have to say it wasn't that bad. At the start of the last chapel service, I asked if anyone had a 'testimony' of what they had learned or how the encountered Christ during the retreat. Only two students had anything to say. The first young lady actually talked about how her faith and trust in God has grown over a several month period. One young guy did talk about a specific conversation he had with the guest speaker and how that helped him understand a few things. 22 kids, and only one had anything specific to say about the serious side of the retreat.

But there was a third person to speak. Me. Here's what I said:

"Before we came on retreat, I really didn't want to come at all" (Shocked looks from my students as they tried to understand how anyone would prefer to stay home with his family than spend two days with 22 adolescents in the woods).  "I could list 20 reasons I thought coming here now was a bad idea: Rose has been sick, LOL has a show tomorrow... I came here in a really bad mood.  But God poured out His Grace on me.  My goal was to just survive these two days, and that would have been grace in itself.  My attitude didn't even deserve that.  But He did more.  By yesterday afternoon, I was laughing with a group of you.  We tried new diabolo tricks.  The student musicians did a great job with worship.  God gave me blessings that I did not deserve.  That's grace.  And He used you guys to do it.  I really like this class."

Maybe that was why I went on retreat.  Well, that and the administration required me to!