Our Weekend Winter Retreat

Well, it's winter time, but you sure wouldn't know it by the weather we had! We took 16 teens from our youth group on a winter bible retreat to the Smoky Mountains, TN. The conferences were in Sevierville and we stayed at a hotel on the main strip in Pigeon Forge. The weather was incredibly warm! We were really hoping for snow since many of our teens have NEVER seen snow before...SOOO hard to imagine! The weather was way up in the 60's and sadly, we did not see snow...obviously.
Despite the fact, the weekend was wonderful. One of our teens made a decision to receive Christ and several of the teens who were already christians made some important decisions as well. The Holy Spirit certainly was in the Smoky Mountains this past weekend! The speakers were excellent and all of them were authors who gave away their books for a small donation of your own choosing. Many of our kids received some wonderful books that will really help them through their christian journey.
The ride there and back was rather long (14 hours both ways) and Steve drove the entire way, bless his heart!! We had a great weekend but we were just as glad to be back home.
(The picture was taken just outside the Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg)