By Brianne Fenton, Thunder Planning Team and Minister to Sr. & Jr. High, Shoreline Covenant Church
The planning team and myself were so excited to pull together this retreat for our middle school students at Cascades Camp and Conference Center after over a year of not being able to gather for a big retreat like this. The theme was quickly picked – we decided to go to space and hear about how our great God who created the stars and galaxies also cares deeply about each of our individual middle school students. Our vision for what God was going to do at this retreat was big and exciting. But as the weekend started to draw closer, and COVID numbers started rising, Thunder 2021 at Cascades Camp started to seem more impossible than possible. Questions came up about whether or not we should move forward and then how we could move forward. With some hesitancy, and safety protocols in place, we decided to continue planning truly feeling that this retreat was going to happen. Then, last weekend I got to witness God making what almost seemed impossible, not only possible, but better than I even hoped for. I came away from this weekend feeling like these middle schoolers weren’t missing out on any of the things that have made Thunder so special in the past and that we set the bar high for the future.
Here’s a little glimpse of what went into “To Thunder and Beyond”:
Erik Cave and Jessica Bauml put a lot of work into getting a new registration system set up for us and things started to become real as groups started signing up. It was so great to see that leaders were excited and willing to put in the work to bring their students to this event.
The energy of the middle school students was super high during our sessions that were organized by Mark Neely. Matt Knapp made amazing space themed graphics. He and a team brought to life a great vision of making our stage look like the moon by adding awesome lighting, and hanging giant planets, and the Death Star, from the ceiling. He also came out on stage during each session with his intern, Ethan, wearing full space suits and light up shoes to hype up the crowd as “Astro” and “Nut”.
During our big game, groups were running around non-stop looking for the missing pieces of their space ships while avoiding aliens running around trying to get them with pool noodles. The weather held out for all our various free time activities of bumper balls, archery tag, boating, making galaxy slime, and more. We figured out who were the space invaders among us, decided if we would rather spend a day on the moon or a month on the international space station, and tested our space knowledge of things both fact and fantasy.
“A Total Fiasco” (Sam, Candace, and their teenagers Max, Echo, and Zoe Vance), was our incredibly talented worship band. They chose engaging and perfectly thematic songs, and powerfully led the voices of 200 students and leaders in worship of our God over the weekend.
Our speaker for the weekend, Mike Davis, absolutely killed it! He brought incredible energy and life to our retreat by entering with an epic rap that connected so well with the students. A student from my youth group said that Mike was the best preacher they’d ever heard. He was engaging as he spoke by providing metaphors and illustrations that drew kids in. He drove the point home on who they are as beloved and deeply cared for creations of our incredible God.
There was contagious joy and enthusiasm felt throughout the entire weekend. Students left declaring that God cares about them, their friends, and everyone around them. God did amazing work in the hearts of our middle schoolers and I’m excited to see how God continues to use them as they put that enthusiasm and knowledge into action in their lives beyond Thunder.
I have to give a big thanks to the team that brought the vision of this retreat to life for our middle schoolers:
To Erik Cave for gathering our team, leading us as we planned, took on new challenges, and helped groups get access to COVID tests.
To Jessica Bauml for being our registrar extraordinaire; helping leaders navigate our new system, organizing housing and setting up pods for the weekend.
To Matt Knapp for all the design elements and fun, detailed graphics that went into so many parts of our weekend.
To Mark Neely for organizing our four main sessions; booking our awesome speaker, coordinating between everyone who was part of the session, and making sure all parts of the session were thought through.
I was honored to plan so much of the fun stuff for the weekend outside of our sessions; organizing and planning our big game and other activities.
To the staff at Cascades who went above and beyond in this new role with the Thunder Retreat to make our weekend the best it could be.
To the high school work crew students who gave up their weekend to serve us at camp, thank you for all your work setting and cleaning things up, and for whacking middle schoolers with pool noodles during our big game.
To all the leaders who brought students, or even wanted to bring students and weren’t able to, thank you for faithfully serving middle school students in the pacific northwest and continuously showing them how loved and cared for they are. Thank you for being willing to put in the work to make this weekend as successful as it was.
All glory to our God who created the heavens and the earth, who put the stars and moon in their place in the sky, and who intentionally and lovingly created each of us at Thunder and beyond.
