Our theme this year was “Notice,” and we are thankful for all the ways that Covenant Harbor thoughtfully integrates this theme and Biblical concept throughout all parts of the weekend. It was a theme that was tangible and easy to grasp, so we spent a lot of time talking about where and how we notice God and about how we can notice the people around us every day. There’s a lot of laughter, as each worship service includes silly games that our students are invited to play. We sing and praise God together, led this year by a band called “Divine Resonance.” This was the band that led us in worship last year, so it was fun for some of our students to recognize their music!

We also hear from a speaker in our 4 weekend worship sessions, and this year’s speaker brought direct messages and concepts that connected easily with our students. She spoke about times when Jesus noticed the people around him and called those people into lives of following him. We heard about the calling of the first disciples, the Samaritan woman at the well, the tax collector Zacchaeus, and Mary’s encounter with Jesus when he rose on that first Easter. We were thankful for the gifted preaching and teaching of youth minister Kiya Cox-Bey from Calvary Covenant Church of Chicago.

We had plenty of time for play as well, and our students enjoyed the indoor climbing wall, the zipline, the high ropes course, and the giant swing. Once again, we had a number of students who ran into the frigid waters of Lake Geneva for the Polar Bear Dip! Our team had a lot of fun playing Stumpball, the classic Covenant Harbor winter game, and we went head-to-head with Riverside Covenant in the final championship game. While Riverside may have outscored us, our middle school team gave their high school players quite the challenge! We’re hoping for a local rematch before the winter is over.

For the past few years, Covenant Harbor has also planned “Sacred Spaces,” a time where students can take part in different spiritual practices. Many of the practices this year were prayer practices, and we were given resources to participate in these prayers during our cabin time. We prayed for another youth group, wrote down our personal prayer requests, recorded a meaningful word or phrase that we could tie on our wrist, and used string to tie and name our prayers in an art form. We appreciated all the different ways to think about prayer, and it’s easy to see how some of these practices could become part of the regular rhythm of our youth group.

We would encourage you to find a student who attended Winter Camp and ask about that student’s experience. Winter Camp at Covenant Harbor also comes around every year, so we invite you to consider if there’s a student you know who might want to attend, or if you might want to be a chaperone. If you’d like to give toward Winter Camp scholarships, we have an ongoing fund to help get students to camp each year. Thank you for your prayers and support for our Winter Camp experience!