Cloud Nine 2005 Recovery

This past weekend, we had a gig at Michindoh Camp, near Hillsdale MI (which is also near OH and IN, thus...MICH - IND - OH...get it? *rolls eyes*). For all that the name is a little corny, the camp itself is absolutely lovely, and a first rate venue for a retreat of any description.

Here's a view of the lake from the back of the main building. Check it out:


My friend Donnell had invited us to do the "video recap" for the Cloud Nine retreat. Cloud Nine is an annual retreat that has served Vineyard's youth groups of the Great Lakes region for the past nine years. The video recap is something that the leaders used to stay up all night on the second night of the retreat piecing together...and then present it in finished form on Sunday morning to 500 highly sugared, caffeinated and sleep deprived teens. Yikes.

Needless to say, the leaders "aren't getting any younger", so they needed an alternative to staying up all night. This is where we came in. And, the reason for the title of the post: Cloud Nine 2005 RECOVERY. We needed it. Recovery, that is. Ten total hours of sleep over 48 hours...but the great news is, we delivered a top notch professional result that was well received. Whew!

Here is Donnell speaking to the youth leaders on the first day of the three day retreat:


The retreat uses the following ingredients:
Stir
500 teenagers with
50 youth leaders
lots of loud music
some *slightly* too deep for the room teaching
and a dash of humor

Bake for 48 hours.

The result should be 500 edified teens, hopefully no pregnancies, not too much vandalism, and 50 seriously frazzled adults.


Crowd shot:


Here's a cool collage I put together - on the first night, there was a girl dancing off to one side of the stage:

Remember, click the smaller picture for a larger version. More to come! :-)