My Last SUMYT Retreat:<\/em> Being a senior within the Seattle United Methodist Youth Team (SUMYT) is always a really emotional experience because it\u2019s one\u2019s last time being there as a youth. <\/p>\n This idea always really hits home at the end of the dance on Saturday night. Let me paint a picture for you: It\u2019s dark, you\u2019re sweaty and blissful from dancing, and the final song comes on. Everyone circles up with seniors in their own circle in the middle. The outer circle is quiet and meditative, while the senior circle is laughing and giggling making jokes with each other about where they\u2019ll be going to college, how they\u2019ll keep in touch, etc. But when the final note of the song hits, the entire outer circle squeezes in around the seniors in a giant group hug. Every year this seems to be the SUMYT retreat\u2019s send off. Every year there are oodles of tears, both from underclassmen and from the seniors because after this moment, all that\u2019s left is sleeping, breakfast, and closing rally. Our final SUMYT over. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, at our final SUMYT everyone banded together to blow past the team’s goal of $300 for the retreat store, actually raising $673 for the American Cancer Society. That\u2019s the most successful store SUMYT has had in a LONG time. <\/p>\n At our final SUMYT, eight small groups banded together to battle it out in our second annual Amazing Race, which was way more successful and challenging than last year\u2019s. At our final SUMYT, we hit the capacity of our venue for the first time in over 10 years bringing 115 people together in faith and fellowship. It is here where we learned the true meaning of God\u2019s intention for us through our speaker Jim Head-Corliss. We learned through morning devotionals that if we let God find and hold onto all of our pieces, we will be able to live fuller, happier, more productive lives. Through rallies we learned that even though our society will work against us with its hate and greed, letting Jesus sit on the throne of our lives is one of the best choices we\u2019ll make – because it will fill our cups to the brim with love and compassion. We learned that we ultimately have the choice between throwing rocks in our relationships and giving love. So fully that when given the choice in the final rally, everyone threw their rocks on the floor and held onto their paper hearts.<\/p>\n On the whole, SUMYT blew past all of our expectations for God\u2019s messages, for the fundraiser, for the amount of enjoyment, everything. And I can\u2019t imagine a better SUMYT to be the last one I attend as a youth. <\/p>\n Participants at the Seattle United Methodist Youth Team Retreat pose for a quick picture at Camp Indianola. My Last SUMYT Retreat: Growing up, Moving on, Giving Love By Abby Fredericksen Being a senior within the Seattle United Methodist Youth Team (SUMYT) is always a really emotional experience because it\u2019s one\u2019s last time being there as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":7177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,112],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-ministries-with-young-people"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IDEAS_SUMYT.jpg?fit=700%2C357&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-1RK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7176"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7183,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions\/7183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGrowing up, Moving on, Giving Love<\/strong>
\nBy Abby Fredericksen<\/em><\/p>\n
\n
Be sure to check out Channels<\/a> 73, May 2014 for more stories, coming soon!<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"