After a fun, music-filled car ride with lots of laughter and much anticipation, you pull up to a somewhat desolate camp in the hills of Paron, Arkansas. Getting out of the car, you make the long trek with all of your luggage for the night up the hill to where your cabin is. Nervous about how you will sleep, you open the door to find old metal and wooden bunk beds dispersed around the one-room cabin with a bathroom on one end. Thankful that you only have to stay one night, you drop your stuff down on your bed and head to dinner, where you will begin what many describe as an experience that could shape the rest of your time at Ouachita.
Around two hundred students, faculty and CM leaders took this journey this year at the Campus Ministries Fall Retreat. The retreat, held at Paron Baptist Camp, took place the last weekend of August. It is where many freshmen are known to have begun lifelong friendships with students who are equally nervous and excited about the upcoming experience known as college.
Campus Ministries hosts this retreat annually where students come to worship, learn about and hear from God, play games and meet new friends. James Taylor first attended the retreat his freshman year in 1995. Now, as the Campus Ministries Director, Taylor is in charge of planning the retreat and strongly encourage students—especially freshmen—to attend.
“When people have just gotten to campus and they haven’t met a lot of people, it’s a great way to meet people, but it’s also a great opportunity to connect with some different campus ministries if they want to get involved,” Taylor said.
Although meeting people and making new friends is a very important part of the retreat, Taylor’s favorite part is on Saturday morning when the students spread out around campus to open their bibles, pray and participate in a quiet time.
“I like all aspects of the retreat, but for some reason that’s probably my favorite, because it’s a little quieter, it’s a little cooler, and it just seems like a time of pause that I like,” Taylor said.
Along with a quiet time, the students can attend two worship sessions where they not only hear from God’s word through what the speaker has to say, but also through the Refuge band leading in a song service. The theme this year was “The Lord’s Prayer.” Each aspect of the retreat focused on different parts of the prayer and encouraged students to pray throughout their everyday life.
Taylor says that one of the multiple goals of the retreat is to give students a time to pray and think about their upcoming semester.
“[It is] a chance for people to hear from God, listen to His word being preached, spend some time praying and just thinking about what they want their semester to look like and to refocus their own faith as we get started in the school year,” Taylor said.
The other main goal is to encourage students to get involved with Campus Ministries, and this seems to be the case for one student, Kinzie Schmidt, who attended the retreat both this year as a sophomore and last year as a freshman.
Schmidt, one of the CM Tiger Tunes leaders, unknowingly became a CM leader due to her association with Tiger Tunes.
“Because I’m the Campus Ministries Tiger Tunes Director, it apparently makes me a ministry leader, which I didn’t know going into it, but I’m so excited because our team of ministry leaders got to go on a retreat before school started,” Schmidt said.
At this retreat, Schmidt’s eyes were opened to how she could use Tiger Tunes as a ministry to freshmen.
“We just talked a lot about finding the vision for your ministry, and so that was great. It was a really good time of praying and really talking about, ‘ok, this is for the community and building community among freshmen,’” Schmidt said.
Although she planned on going to the CM Fall Retreat anyway, because she met so many of her friends there last year, Schmidt was excited to get to share about her plans for Tiger Tunes to freshmen this year. While Schmidt enjoys many parts of the retreat, she does have a favorite.
“I love game night of course, but I honestly loved the speaker. Clay just did a really good job,” Schmidt said.
Clay Cunningham, a pastor, former Ouachitonian and the speaker at this year’s retreat, touched many students’ lives, including freshman Maggie Johnston’s.
Johnston, who enjoyed many aspects of the retreat, couldn’t narrow down her favorite part to just one thing. She loved listening to the message, worshipping and getting to make new friends.
“Even strangers would just come up to you and start worshipping with you and you felt like you were all there for the same purpose, same reason, and you all connected because we all understood and were engulfed in the message. So we all felt connected in that way,” Johnston said.
This seems to be the case for all who attended the retreat. It is a time for fun, but also a time to concentrate on God and what He can do throughout your upcoming semester.
– By Ethan Dial, Staff Writer
