Over the weekend of February 15,16, &17th, students in the Elmbrook High School ministry took five busses up to Silver Birch Ranch for the 2013 winter camp.

This year’s camp theme was Arise, where Youth Pastor Brandon Brown used the analogy of zombies to relate to the way that people act. His main point over the weekend was for the students and leaders to realize the “zombies” in their lives. A zombie is where are you not living the way God wants you to.

The camp wasn’t only teachings about zombies, though. There were also several events going on all over the camp. There was zip-lining, tube hills, extreme tubing, broom ball, cross country skiing, horseback riding, the leap of faith, ice skating, and a coffee shop /chill area called the Canteen.

Extreme tubing is where a tube is hooked up to the back of a snowmobile and whipped around the lake at around 35 miles per hour. It was a popular thing among the males, who enjoyed doing this event shirtless.

Broom ball is like the sport hockey. It’s played on ice with shoes, and with sticks that don’t have the bottom, and it’s played with a ball as the puck.

The Leap of Faith is where there is a huge room that goes straight down and hanging from the ceiling is a cow bell. The jumper is harnessed in and needs to jump out into the room trying to hit the cow bell.

That weekend is a really important weekend to a lot of people. It helped them realize everyone has zombies in their lives and taught the students how to deal with those zombies. The main verse from the weekend was “Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14.
“I’m really glad I went to winter camp,” says Arrowhead junior Ruth Lied. This year was Ruth’s first year going to winter camp and she says, “I loved it! One of the best weekends of my life!”

“I can honestly say that was one of the best weekends of my life. Not only was it amazingly fun, but I learned so much about myself and my relationship with God. I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, and I loved every moment of it,” says Marilyn Feldner, a junior at Waukesha South High School.

Students came to winter camp for several reasons, some needed to get away, from life for a weekend, and get away from their parents or family. Some needed to get away from work, or from doing homework. Some students came so they could make a lot of new friends who are going to show them to love. Students came for reasons that weren’t even voiced, but what was talked about in their cabin time helped them with what they were going through.

Home-schooled senior Cassie Klawikowski says, “to me, winter camp meant not being afraid to open up and show my true self to my youth group. And my favorite part had to be that some of my best friends were there to experience it with me.”

At Saturday night the session (during bible teaching time), the night started off as a huge dance party, then went into a singing worship session, then a student named Kristen Ovestreet shared what God is doing in her life. After that, Brown gave his talk on how to overcome our zombies. The worship band got back on stage and began singing songs. Almost every student in that room was crying about something and crying out to God.

The weekend was needed and enjoyed by hundreds of students and volunteer leaders. It also made people realize where their “zombies” are in their own life, and to overcome them.