LAURA JOHNSON
Staff Writer
“Good morning all you beautiful sons and daughters of Jesus,” said Linda Truschke, the University Church of Christ campus minister, to begin Sunday morning worship this past weekend. At the Campus Ministries annual fall retreat, more than 130 Pepperdine students gave up valuable homework time and came ready to be spiritually challenged.
“Hugs invigorate me,” continued Truschke, as she urged everyone in the room to find at least three people.
The hugging was a precursor to the weekend’s theme “A Life Worth Living.” To reiterate the fact, guest speaker Fate Hagood, a Church of Christ minister from Los Angeles spoke three times throughout the weekend, each time building on the values of Christ’s love.
With a nametag that read George Clooney, Hagood was a speaker who kept the audience’s attention from the moment he came out singing a good old “deep south” song to the instance he informed the crowd that no matter how ugly or horrible they may feel about themselves, “God doesn’t make junk.” He involved the crowd by having everyone in unison chant his main point, “When God loves, God moves.”
Moving in Friday night, students were greeted by cold mountain air at Camp St. Nicholas in Frazier Park, Calif., about 1.5 hours southeast of Malibu. Throughout the whole retreat, t-shirts were scarce and bundling up as much as possible was a popular activity.
To kick off the festivities, about 25 volunteers were asked to partake in a myriad of tasks to entertain each other.
Beginning with a mayonnaise eating contest giving way to a soda swigging-burping challenge, the contestants participated in the showdown, not always with the greatest of ease. In the final round, the students were asked to swallow small Dixie cups of ketchup, hot sauce, melted butter, pickle juice and a baby-food jar of veal.
Other activities at the retreat included small groups, where people came together in a close environment to learn, talk and pray.
Sophomore Tamara Hunt, a small-group leader for the weekend, said she chose to lead a group because she wanted to have leadership experience within Campus Ministries.
“I wanted to be there for people, separate from their teachers or parents,” she said.
Another way attendees could interact with each other at the retreat was the encouragement card-making table. There, one’s wildest dreams could come to life with all the magic that glue and construction paper could create. The point was to write words that lift one’s spirit up. Brightly hued names were strewn across strings where the cards were hung. This year was the most popular year ever for the cards. At past retreats, only one or two strings were filled up.
Many people came together to help make the retreat run smoothly. Among them was Delia Dycus, a Campus Ministries intern. She said the reason she came on the retreat was because she can make so many friends.
“After a retreat, you come back to school and you’re like, ‘Everybody, hey!’” Dycus said.
Dycus said she decided to switch her major from accounting to religion because she felt that there was a need for women to have a role model within the church setting.
Students also had other reasons for attending. From wanting to get things back on track, to fellowship and prayer time, students said they were all looking for something new and thought provoking.
“You can really feel God here,” Freshman Jordan Watson said.
09-22-2005
