El Caribe '06

FRIDAY:
Left for El Caribe at 5pm. Ate at La Fiesta where we had a karaoke competition (Colin, Mark, Jordan and Chris Anderson sang My Girl; Warren, Ben, Alex, and James sang Complicated by Avril Lavigne, haha).
After that, we headed on the bus, arrived at El Caribe, got settled in, and then "explored" (aka, went to the beach and pool). OH! And this kid, Bradley Cluxton, who I hadn't seen since 4th grade and Covenant Christian School was there! There as in, he's going to be a LugROX Captain so he went on El Caribe. It was crazy to see him again and talk about how everyone from elementary school has changed. Apparently Bret Boncore (who I also went to CCS with) told Brad that LugROX is awesome and that he should be a leader at it.
So after meeting Brad, it was time for session #1. It was awesome. Tim Wright (Northland Elder, owner of almost every Orlando McDonald's) was the speaker and the topic was love. He had a pile of bricks and each brick had a thin peice of metal with the word "Love // Protects", "Love // Compassion", "Love //Exhorts", "Love // Content", etc. There was one for every trait mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13.
Time had a great activity to explain his idea: We all recieved one of the bricks (there were about 5 of every one) and he got Papa and Mama Gritter up front. Tim explained that we, the students, were a wall of love that kept the Gritters' love/"garden" safe. Every time one of them did something un-loving to the other, a brick fell out of their wall.
Then he asked for an example of a time when love hadn't, for example, forgiven and instead had "kept a record of wrongs", then the person who told of a time when that could happen brought up their brick and stood in between Papa and Mama Gritter. Eventually, we got through all 14 traits (a time when he had been untruthful, incompassionate, rude, demeaning, not kind, unappreciative, etc). By the time we were finished, the wall (us the students) had many holes and Mama Gritter couldn't even see Papa Gritter. Tim then asked Papa Gritter to ask forgiveness of Mama Gritter for each individual un-loving action; as he asked and she gave, the bricks/students were placed back into the "wall" and the couple came together again.
Now the whole garden/wall thing sparked a very funny connotation with us: "gardening". We made fun of the Gritters later when we saw them alone together later that night and told them "now there's not to be any gardening in public, you two!"
That was Friday night.

SATURDAY:
Hung out till 3pm, then I had to leave to go to work. I cried on the way home 'cus I wanted to stay so badly. I had had so much fun that morning hanging out with Mason, Amara, Rudy Tamez, Sam Geritty, Ms Amy, etc. And, I didn't want to miss Saturday night (they were having dinner on the beach and the Session #3). But I knew it would come back just in time for communion and then stay till Sunday and all, so it was ok 'cus I knew was going back.
Anywho, I went to work, and when I was there I told Armani about how I was excited to go back after work. He then said, "don't you know you're working tomorrow?" -I stopped, didn't believe him, and, my voice about to crack into tears, said "I'm going to check the schedule in the back."
I cried so hard when I saw the work schedule -I was working Sunday, I would have to miss the rest of El Caribe. I called my mom, and in between sobs told her the news. She told me I should tell them either I didn't work Sunday or I quit. Just then, Andy (manager) came in and said that he could work alone on Sunday and that I didn't have to miss the last night/day of El Caribe. I was so thankful to him -yay for Andy. I promised him I would come to work when I got home from El Caribe (3pm).
So, 9pm came around and we closed, then I went back to El Caribe. I got in a lil late and thought I had missed communion and everything, but I looked harder at the room where we have session and realized they were praying to commence communion! I hadn't missed it!
I went up and took communion, but didn't feel quite right...
Then Sean got up and announced there had been a change of plans. He then proceeded to tell of how Senny was going to be baptized tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Calling Senny on stage, Sean asked Senny to tell her testimony. -Senny is amazing. She grew up Buddhist and in 9th grade I invited her to come to Northland. She really enjoyed it -I even remember her comments about her 1st o2 and how she thought Sean Cooper was pretty good looking, haha. By July, we were almost sophs, Senny and I were talking on the phone, at midnight, with me leading her in the the sinner's prayer [I feel so honored that I was able to be a tool in God's plan for Senny].
When Senny finished, Sean asked if she would like anyone to be with her and pray for her baptism; she replied, not knowing I was back from work, that she would want Amy/me, but that she/I wasn't there. A yell from Miss Tanya Rich, in the back of the room and next to me, said "YES SHE IS!" and I ran up, hopping over and around people so that I could embrace Senny in my arms. Both Senny and I, during her testimony, had started tearing up and crying, it was awesome.
Senny then called up Taryn, Maxi, and Carolyn too, and we all prayed together for her, then all went out into the stormy night for Senny's baptism. All 3 of the youth pastors (James, Sean, and Rudy) baptized Senny in the sea at midnight, just as a bolt of lightning came down behind them in the distance.
One word: Unforgettable.

oh, and afterwards, when the wind was howling up and down the shore and everyone was congratulating Senny, I said I was cold, so Sam went up to his room and gave me his jacket. It was HUGE on me, haha. I actually slept in it, teehee. I don't know if his gf, daniel, would approve of us being so close, but too bad, he's my big brother and I love him to death:-).