THE EDGE!

This weekend Josh and I took the youth on the last big trip of the summer. School starts this week, so we thought we would take them away for a weekend of team building. We headed to Camp Windermere for their team-building/high-ropes courses. It's a really neat day. You spend the morning working on what they call the "low course" doing different team building activities. Then there's one huge team building activity called The Rescue, where you have to get a person in a gurney from one end of an obstacle course to another. Then the evening is spent doing the high ropes course, which is climbing rock walls and poles and walking on wires and such, then doing a zip-line down. It was an amazing day, really, and I didn't get to do any of the activities! My job was to run back and forth between groups (they had the girls and boys split up for the low course) and take pictures of everyone. Which was exhausting, but we ended up with 450 pictures, so I guess I did my job! :) I thought I might as well share the pictures, so here they are...

The Low Course/Team Building:

The girls work on their first challenge: Mountain Tops. There were 3 platforms, and they had to get everyone from the first one to the last one using only two boards. If anyone fell off they had to start over again, so it took several times! But they all got across safely!

The boys on their first challenge: The Skateboard. They were all standing on one board, and then had to rearrange themselves from tallest to shortest without getting off. They had to get a lot closer than guys are typically comfortable with! (See James and Charlie below) And if they fell off, they had "consequences"- notice Charlie is blind, and James only has one arm. Josh lost his speech in this activity, and nearly lost his mind with it! It took the guys awhile to get through this one, but they worked together much better after it.

The girls on The Skateboard- they took a much different approach. Instead of hugging and passing, they stepped over each other. Of course, that's easier when you're small like a lot of the girls were! I'm not sure the guys would have been able to crawl over each other.

The guys celebrating their succes on Mountain Tops- they made it across on the very first try!

The Trust Fall: One of the hardest things to do! Nobody got dropped, though!

The girls on their hardest event: The Mohawk Walk. It was this cable just a foot or two off the ground, and it went between a bunch of trees. The girls had to walk across it, get everyone on it at the same time, and make it all the way across together. If anyone fell off, they had to go back to the beginning. They worked really hard and did an awesome job on this event!

The event both groups worked together on: The Rescue. They put Jordyn in the gurney and had to carry her across a massive course without falling off. The gurney could only touch a few places, and most of the course was rounded railroad ties, so it was really easy to fall off. There was a two hour time limit on the course. They started off really well, and got the gurney to the first platform pretty quick. But once people started falling off and becoming blind (or losing arms, or speech, or other "consequences) it was a lot harder and they started to get frustrated. They got very close to finishing the course, but ran out of time.

It was interesting to see how they worked together at first and then kind of broke down when things got frustrating. The "guides" that took us through all of the activities were really amazing, and really helped the kids see how they could work together, and how important it is for the Body of Christ to work together, even though we all have different personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. So the low course was a great learning experience for the kids. After some time at the pool, we headed back to the course for the high ropes course!

The High Ropes Course:

The high ropes course had lots of different parts. First was a big tower that you could get up by climbing two different rock walls, a cargo net, or a pole and then walking across a wire. Once you're up there, you get to zip line down, which was awesome... not that I got to do it, but it looked like fun! :) It was really neat to see the kids use the team building skills they'd learned earlier in the day to be encouraging and helpful to everyone else. It was just a really positive experience all around.

Sam on the rock wall... he did a great job and made it all the way to the top!

Josh and Charlie both went for the rock wall on the other side of the tower...

Other than the tower, there were a couple of other challenges. One of them was the "Leap of Faith." For this one, you climb to the top of this telephone pole, then stand on the top of it and jump out to try to grab a trapeze thing in front of you. It's darn hard! Josh, James, and Gavin all tried it. They all made it to the top of the pole, but none of them got the trapeze. I did it when I was in high school, but I didn't get the trapeze, either. It's really hard! Anyway, here's the play by play of Josh and his attempt at the Leap of Faith!

Arguably the hardest part of the Leap of Faith- letting go with your hands and standing straight up. It's hard to let go of that security! And it's hard to balance!

The actual leap: he was so close! :)Enjoying the ride back to the ground: doing the Peter Pan!

At the end of a long day, we were all exhausted (even me, because I ran all over the field to take pictures... and I had the cankles to prove it!) but happy. It was a great trip, and I hope the kids learned from the experience as well!

For more pictures, check with the MHBC Youth blog... I'm sure Ruth will be posting soon!