A group of St. Louis students went to a winter retreat at The Springs Camp in Gladwin from Jan 11-13. The students are part of a youth group at First Baptist Church of St. Louis. Most of the students left about an hour after school on Friday. After all the students got to the camp, everybody settled in and gathered around in the Robinson Retreat Center,  and created teams and flags. There were two other churches attending the retreat; First Baptist Church of Mt.Pleasant and the First Baptist Church of Carson City.

There were about 65 kids and teens from the three churches combined including five volunteers that were attending the retreat. Some of the activities included chapels, tubing, escape rooms, camp scavenger hunt, and recreational activities. Freshman Maude Zolue states, “One of my favorite activities this weekend was the escape rooms. It was my favorite activity because at first my team and I were lost mentally and then we figured it out as time passed. Zolue is also one of the singers in the church’s’ worship band. According to Ignatius Jackson, “ My favorite thing about this weekend was worshipping in the church band, it was fun because I got to practice in front of everyone. Stuff like that makes you better. The students that were in the church’s band were Zolue,(Singer) Jackson,(Drums) James McDonald,(Drums) Robert, “Russell”(Singer) and Avante Taylor (Bass).

The whole weekend the teams were competing for “Tomthetrophy,” a trophy created by BJ Merrymon activity director for The Springs Ministeries. All the activities that took place added up to the teams total to win the trophy. One team ended up putting their names on the trophy and taking a picture with it.

“All in all, I don’t regret this weekend. It was a fun way to connect with other people and to grow in my faith, says Michael Baysah. According to Russell, “ If there was one thing I would do if I could go back to The Springs, it would be singing in the chapel. It was the main part of my weekend, and I enjoyed it.” At the end of the week, all the participants packed up their belongings and watched a video of how the weekend went in the last chapel on Sunday morning.