Dates: January 1st – January 3rd (Friday – Sunday)

Subject: Spiritual Warfare (following the topic of peace in the home covered in NY youth group)

What is it: Youth retreat; time to study the Bible, fellowship with believers, praise/worship

Who attends: usually 80-100 youth (ages 12-adult) from Canaan Fellowship, other NY churches, as well as churches in Ohio, Washington, and/or Pennsylvania.

Location: Germantown activity building, off Route 9G in the town of Germantown

Host homes: people who live more than an hour or so away are encouraged to stay with a family in the church (having people over has been an incredible blessing to each of the host families so please you folks who live an hour and a half away, don't feel obliged to drive home in the evenings!)

Cost covered by the church (if you feel that you want to give you may speak to Mr. Teubl or Mrs. Hempel (Wendy)

Format:

Thursday afternoon/evening - out of towners arrive at host homes

Friday and Saturday morning:

• 9:00 meeting/teaching (Spiritual Warfare) (everyone, musicians especially, encouraged to arrive early so as to have time to grab some coffee and still start the meeting on time)
• Break mid morning/poster groups/presentations
• 12:00 Lunch at church
• Afternoon: activities
• 5:00pm Dinner at host homes
• Evening: usually praise/worship and or testimony/prayer time

Sunday morning:

• 10:00 church (entire church, not just youth)
• 1:00 lunch and fellowship

Poster sessions: we break up into groups of 6-8 and make a poster presentation discussing/illustrating what stood out to us from the teaching. This year we may be integrating skits into presentations rather than just posters.

Host homes for dinner: there will be 3-6 host homes that everybody is encouraged to return to for dinner so as to cut down on commute time to farther away homes; also, having dinner together is awesome fellowship time

Afternoon activities: we usually do some sports (ultimate Frisbee, football, etc), play inside games at host homes, nap (if you're one of the late nighters;), and Friday some of us go to the Thompson House (nursing home in Rhinebeck) and do some Christmas caroling (that's also generally a really incredible time to get to talk/share the word with some of the people who live there).