Survivor~ Laughter Island 2009

No, it is not a TV show, it is the women's retreat at my church two weekends ago, and a great part of the reason I haven't been blogging so much.

I am the Women's ministry leader at my church along with two great team members (who happen to both be bloggers, thanks to me). We started planning this great retreat a few months ago. We had a couple of goals and reasons behind it. Being a Christian doesn't bring a peaceful, perfect life, sometimes there are some nasty and horrible things that you have to go through. But with Christ we can be victorious Survivors! And joy and laughter are a big part of getting through things successfully. We have been really led to believe that the women in our church need emotional healing, and what better way than through laughter? That was our goal, to reach women where they are and to help them to laugh no matter what the circumstances.

This is our mascot, Crush, a real sea turtle that someone from the church owns. This amazing couple lent us whatever sea creatures we wanted so that we could decorate islandy! We even had horseshoe crabs, corral, tons of shells and even a puffer fish! It was such a blessing to be able to decorate with real shells and for free.

I started out the evening with a great "ice breaker." Literally, lol. The women had to get marbles out of a bucket of ice with their toes!

They had a blast, even if they were cheating and throwing the ice out with the marbles.

The point was that we are willing to go through pain to get to the reward. And God does reward us when we go through tough times, it is well worth it if we let God direct us and lead us to His plan.

As you can see, laughter was definitely part of our weekend. The ice was just so much fun, they had to switch off every 30 seconds and see which team got the most marbles.

The catch was that the winning team got a special dessert, and the losing team got kitchen clean up!

I have to say, my friend Jody is on my team and she picked out a Javanese Dinner for the meal. I must have fought her for a month, because it sounded disgusting to me. Finally I gave in and let her have her way, and it was the most amazing meal! Oh my goodness! Delicious! The speaker was even motivated to talk about it!

The skit we had was incredibly funny! It was about being naked without the armor of God, and lets just say that none of us there that night are ever going to get that image out of our heads, LOL. We had to kick the men running the electronics out of the room and stop the video taping. Ahem. hehe
We had an amazing speaker that night. Wow! She is a cancer survivor (which is part of why we picked her) and she is a humorous motivational speaker (the other reason we picked her).

We were overwhelmed at how much everyone loved her! She told jokes, and motivated, and shared, and moved us to tears. Lots and lots of laughter, though.

I also gave my testimony that night. I have hesitated with putting it on my blog because I don't tell my family about it because I didn't want them to hate my husband after we got through our problems. I also have hesitated giving it at church because, despite being Christians, many church people are so amazingly judgemental and I was concerned that they wouldn't see the freedom and only see the past about my husband. However, God told me to give it, and I was approached by a few people who really thanked me for doing it.

We had an overnighter, but most people went home to sleep in their own beds. We met up the next morning for breakfast and more games.

First thing was the bug hunt. They had to dig for bugs blind folded. In kitty litter. With tootsie roll turds. And water to make it wet and clumpy.

Yes, we are that mean! But it was fun and Cindy in the red went for it and did great! (the gal in the pink is the one who lent us the decorations)

Then came the fun part of the weekend. The part that we kept secret and just could not wait to do!

What would a Survivor event be like without an eating challenge? OH you know it!

Here is Kathy prepping Betty for her challenge, and they knew it was bad by the smell coming from under the cover.

We were not all mean, two were easy and two were hard.

The first food, just to set the fear in place, was 100 year old ostrich eggs, which were really sour kraut juice and a canned apricot. Difficult to get down, but not bad.

Then we had bugs. Nasty beetles and spiders and caterpillars. OK, they weren't that bad! They were gummy bugs with hard candy coating on the outside, gooey gummy on the inside.

After that came the sardines! One gal went to town on them like she was addicted to them! It was great! We later found out she does NOT eat fish.

The last food revealed was a cupcake with a gummy bug, lol. They were scared to open it, but it was funny to get a great food.

The weekend was a big hit! Let me tell you why. Our team did everything wrong that could be done wrong. We forgot things, we procrastinated, we were sick for WEEKS ON END, we lost our notes more than once, and just plain stunk at being organized. We were under such spiritual attacks that we just knew it was going to be important. (endless sickness, panic attacks) But we trusted God, and every where we turned we could see God's plan in things, so we went with the obvious things and trusted God to bring it together. Getting out of God's way made this the best event I have ever been a part of. All the glory goes to God!