Anchor Retreat!!!!

Had an awesome time at the Anchor Retreat! The Anchor Retreat is a once a year thing that my youth group does. Where we do a prayer walk around the lake! 21 miles!!! It was an awesome time yesterday! The first time I have done it! They have done it two other years but this is the first I have gone to!
We left the church and like 1:30 PM and walk the lake walk! We were walking to a park about 11 miles away in the dead heat for dinner after a long while. Truly it felt like ten days put in one just trying to walk to the park. We took a lot of breaks during the walk and did prayer things and had awesome encounters with God. When we finally got to the park at like 7:30 PM we ate dinner jumped in the lake and swam then one of the youth kids wanted to speak and did. He spoke about Andrew one of Jesus' disciples. It was really good! Then at like 9:00 PM we started out on our journey again. We walked, and walked, and walked and walked AND WALKED! It felt like FOREVER! In the dark with flash lights we walked. Finally we got to the town and went into a coffee place at like 10:30 PM got something to drink then went on our journey again. A girl in 7th grade was really tired and could barely keep on moving. She is one of my good friends so I tried to keep encouraging her to keep moving. I kept on like asking her to recite her favorite Bible verses to keep her mind off her hurting feet from the LONG walk and stuff. Even though I felt like my legs were truly just going to STOP moving and just jam on me I kept trying to encourage her because it helped me too! I felt bad for a lot of the youth kids because they had blisters on their feet and hurt all over so I tried to encourage them as I went. It truly feels good not complaining but instead encouraging others when you feel the worst!

Guess what! That night when we were walking we had to go through some woods and such and I counted that I went through 16 spider webs! YIKES! I don't like spiders! And all the spiders webs hit my face! I now pretty sick!

I don't think in all my life a night has EVER been SO long! We walked in the dark for about 3 hours. I know, that is a LONG time! And during daytime we walked about 5 hours are something like that! All together I think we walking about 21 miles. I can't remember what my youth leader said, but it was like 21 miles or something like that =)
As we walked in the dark when you turn your head to the left we could see lightning far off in the distance. But as we walked more it got closer and closer. It made me so awe struck for it reminded me of God shining a bright flashlight in the clouds. It was so beautiful. Finally after FOREVER and a lot of pain we finally arrived to the side road to the church! Hooray!
I don't think I have ever been so excited about something like I was to be close to the church! My friend ran the rest of the way because she was so tired. (Personally I would think running would make you even more tired but I guess not for her!)

When we reached the church it was about 1:00 in the morning. Me and my brother had to drop off someone before actually getting home. And it was like 2:00 AM when I finally rolled in bed after a shower. And as I got comfortable in my bed just before falling asleep I heard the ran starting pouring outside! It was so amazing how God kept the ran away until we were done with the walk and in our homes. It was pretty cool.

Well, I think I should go now. Have an awesome week!
God bless!

A Servant 4 Christ,
Lizzie