Retreat-induced culture update

This past weekend, our girls’ ministry at church trekked into the mountains for our annual retreat. We stayed in awesome cabins, had worship on a literal mountaintop, ate good food, did a little modified geocaching (you should try it sometime!), and studied relationships. As most teenage girls are either pining for a relationship, navigating their way through the one they’re currently in, or recovering from a past one, it’s a topic near and dear to the hearts of girls.

And boy, did we dig in deep.

We used Haley DiMarco’s PB&J study on relationships, and what impressed me most about the curriculum was its bluntness. Whereas most studies on this topic tiptoe around the shame-inducing stuff, this book didn’t mince words. (The definition and treatment of fornication produced a light bulb moment for my group of juniors and seniors—and made me wish I’d had it laid out as clearly as a high school student!) I also loved and appreciated that this study took us straight to the Word, and that’s where we stayed. Our Bibles got a workout, and my girls remarked that they really liked that about the study. (Further proof that they were an AWESOME group of young ladies!)

So I walked away from this past weekend with the knowledge that girls want us to be straightforward with them. We can’t assume that they know what we’re talking about when we use veiled terms to refer to sex and sex acts. Be blunt. Be honest. And involve their parents. Our girls’ minister did a fantastic job of letting parents know what we’d be studying and sent them follow-up discussion questions and ideas to use with their daughters after they returned home from the retreat. Yes, the parents should be the primary spiritual developer in their child’s life, so we shouldn’t be tackling this on our own with the girls. But we all know that not all parents are adequately involved in their daughter’s spiritual development . . . but I’ll avoid getting on that soapbox.
 

I also learned a few more things about teenage girls:
• Keds are back in style. (My second-grade self is pleased.)
• There are some really cute one-piece bathing suits available these days.
• Girls can survive (and even thrive) at a retreat where no soft drinks are available.
• Girls are really good at keeping cell phones out of sight when they’re considered contraband. I thought I was dealing with the best bunch of rule-followers ever until our bus was going to be three hours late and we needed to let parents know. Boy, did those cell phones fly out of their hiding places!
• Girls aren’t as likely to get nauseous on windy mountain roads as their adult leaders are.