The obligatory post about

FIGS Camp 2006.

It was already a week ago, but as someone else mentioned in their blog, there are so many memories and fun times from it.

We pray that this will become an annual feast of fellowship with the youth at church. I was especially encouraged by the little discussion group I had. Being the topic of relationships, it made sense to have girls/boys only discussion groups.

My little group had some very interesting discussions, and what really caught my attention, was the fact that some people were not afraid to share their feelings and thoughts to the rest of us, about singleness, dating and marriage.
Bearing in mind some of us had only barely introduced each other the previous night.

Panel discussion was interesting. After being sort of dobbed in to be the female married person on the panel, really challenged me to share the experience after only 9 months. I realised that although the questions being asked wanted a black or white response, it was actually not possible to give such an answer.

Truthfully though, I went into marriage with realistic expectations, in that the honeymoon period is limited, and the key is to work on the marriage, rather than having this false vision that all is going to be rosy, especially in the first year.

A book that we read together was "The most important year in a womans/man's life", which basically describes the first 12 months of marriage as being the hardest to work through.

Although some of the younger high school kids pretty much tuned out once marriage was mentioned in the talks, I do hope that the camp in its entirety has opened their hearts and minds to a greater understanding of God's marriage and love to the church.

Thanks again to Dan for presenting such insightful and challenging talks on the weekend.