The weekend of Oct. 6-8, one of the University of Wyoming’s campus ministries Chi Alpha held their first retreat for its members and friends at Table of the Wilderness in Centennial, Wyoming. The new annual camp is intended to invite those who aren’t familiar with the campus ministry to join together with members for a fun weekend of community activities.
“This allow[ed] us to more easily invite friends not already connected to the group as well as invite the University international student community,” Derik Buescher, Chi Alpha’s ministry director, said.
A total of 65 students attended this weekend’s festivities, and Buescher stated that about 40 percent of those participants were friends of members or international students.
One of those international students was Juan Vintimilla from Cuenca, Ecuador.
“I enjoy[ed] spending time with them in their activities,” Vinitmilla said. “[My favorite activity was] wall climbing, I really loved it!”
Vintimilla is currently a junior studying Psychology and Spanish at the University of Wyoming, and says that he came to Wyoming because he liked the Psychology program here and because he had never been in the Western United States before.
“This place is really similar to my hometown, especially with the mountains around, but I never have seen snow falling from the sky before,” Vintimilla said.
Thankfully the mountains were clear this weekend so the activities for the camp were plenty. On the first night of Oct. 6, there was registration, room assignments and an orientation of the weekend. After everything was set up the students were given the opportunities to tye-dye Camp Chi Alpha shirts and play late night board games.
“To be honest when I realized that Chi Alpha was a campus ministry I was afraid we would be doing ‘churchy’ things the whole time,” Olivia Cate, a freshman studying Kinesiology, said. “But it was really just about the connections and the memories we made.”
The second-day students were divided into six teams to play games such as capture the flag, archery tag, climb a rock wall, use a zip line and shoot archery and pellet guns at targets. Later in the evening, there was a bonfire, smores and other outside night games.
“On Sunday after our little service we had, Derik told us it didn’t matter if you’re Christian or not, just come hang out,” Cate said. “It’s a great place to just be with funny and nice and amazing people.”
Though the camp is a new event for Chi Alpha, it’s not the first retreat the organization has held. The group also hosts both a Spring and Fall retreat for their members and friends where they invite a speaker and focus on spiritual teaching.
“I have made some of the deepest friends in this group that I have in my whole life,” Caleb Wilkins, Chi Alpha’s vice president, worship leader and student leader said. “The love of people [in the group] really shows me God’s love, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
The campus ministry also has a weekly meeting called “Momentum” held every Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Union Family Room where they encourage anyone to attend.
