Giving Back :: Joni & Friends Family Retreat 2009

This will definitely be my longest blog/image post e-v-e-r....this past week I spent three amazing days at the Joni & Friends Family Retreat at Spruce Lake Retreat in the Poconos trying to capture the spirit of this event in images. This retreat is a week-long, jam-packed amazingly fun vacation for families with special needs members. Volunteers, a.k.a. short term missionaries, are matched with a family member affected by a disability and spend the week helping them with activities and creating a friendship that often lasts many years. Parents and siblings also have special activities, meetings and worship times. This year the retreat theme was "Down on the Farm" and along with the popular annual events, like the talent show and water slide, there were wagon rides, a country fair, a hoedown and other farm related activities.

Some things are difficult to describe, and 'Joni Camp', as it is affectionately known, is really impossible to describe properly so about the best way to say it is "you just have to be there to understand." But knowing that many people will never get the chance to attend Joni Camp, the best way I can think to explain it is this: once you are there, you experience this other-worldly, overwhelming sense of peace, comraderie, patience, love and kindness that makes you forget about the rest of the world (and all its issues) and just relish in the fun activities and events planned by the Joni Camp staff, enjoy the wonderful food and simply spend time getting to know people. I was able to take our youngest and oldest kids with me, and was informed by the elder that we simply MUST attend the entire week next year, because this was the best vacation of her entire 10-year-old life!

So that is my text portion of this post~ now onto the images! Due to the passing thunderstorms last week, many of the events were moved indoors, so I was definitely feeling challenged in learning my equipment quickly in different settings and poor lighting conditions. I was pleased with how the images came out despite very little post-processing and came away with some images I will cherish because of the wonderful personalities that I can connect with them. I will post more images on the Circle of Life Photography page on Facebook since this series on the blog just barely touches the surface of what all goes on over the course of several days at camp. Please feel free to post a comment on what you think, or if you have been to Joni Camp, add a note about your experience to share with others just how special this time really is~ thanks!

The day starts off with some relay games for the teens


The water slide is always a huge hit...sometimes literally






Professional services, such as hair cuts, massages and painting nails are provided, and appreciated










Painting pots and planting herbs


Getting her turn on the "power swing"~ very popular with the young adults along with a rock climbing wall

Everyone looks forward to talent show night






Special friends






Adult morning worship


Doing the marshmallow prep for a mass making of s'mores...yummm