By Shelley Grieshop
sgrieshop@dailystandard.com MARIA STEIN — No one ate rice or slept in a native hut Wednesday night, but dozens of local junior high students did stick their hands in disgusting mixes of squishy oatmeal and cottage cheese to score points for a spiritual version of the TV show “Survivor.”
About 250 junior high students from 10 area Catholic churches converged on the Maria Stein Spiritual Center for Spiritual Survivor II, an event geared for fun and games with some catechism thrown in for good measure.
“This is another avenue of catechism, a way to energize the kids in their faith and have some fun,” said Tim Colbert, religious director of youth ministries for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
Spiritual Survivor, now in its second year, is organized by the Northern Network, a group of Catholic youth leaders from the St. Marys and Sidney Deaneries of the Cincinnati Archdiocese. The leaders bring their groups together several times a year for events, such as World Youth Day in the fall, to allow the children to learn about their religion while getting to know others their age from various parishes.
Junior high boys and girls from Holy Redeemer in New Bremen, St. Marys in Philothea, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Montezuma and St. Henry Catholic Church joined others from parishes in Russia, Versailles, Frenchtown, Troy and Newport for two hours of non-stop fun.
“Oh, I think I know what this is,” smiled Karla Eilerman, 14, of New Bremen, as she reluctantly stuck her hand into a 5-gallon bucket of creamy cottage cheese.
Eilerman and her tribe from Holy Redeemer arrived at Station 5 to retrieve from the muck a small, black canister filled with answers they needed to complete Bible quotes.
“Yuck,” squealed Eilerman, who was blindfolded as she dug nearly elbow deep into the milky mess.
There were dozens of tribes scampering outside the scenic retreat center as the youths tried to earn points for prizes. Each tribe had five to 10 members who hurried from station to station trying to retrieve points in exchange for their knowledge of the names of Saints, Biblical stories, mysteries of the rosary and much more.
A group of St. Henry youths eagerly grabbed the end of a long rope at station 14 for Spiritual Warfare, a good ol’ tug-o-war game against several Russia high schoolers.
“They represent the faces of darkness,” Russia High School student Kristen Simon told the St. Henry clan. “You have to pull them to safety.”
“The point of the game is to encourage the younger competitors to pull the older kids Ôinto the light’ and share the goodness,” Simon explained.
It didn’t take a lot of tugging before the St. Henry team happily walked away with 10 points and headed to nearby Mystery Twister.
One station near a picturesque bridge challenged the young teens to remain quiet — one point for every 30 seconds of silence. It seemed a nearly impossible challenge for a noisy bunch of adolescents.
Matt McCollum, an eighth-grader at New Bremen Local Schools, had no problem tightening his lips.
“I’m kind of the quiet type anyway,” he said with a grin after the test was complete.
Another station required teams to guess the correct number to specific questions from the Bible. When they got the right answer, they scored points by creating that number on the green lawn with the shapes of their bodies.
When each tribe completed as many stations as they could in two hours, points were tallied and the soul Survivor winner was announced: The Holy Turtles, as they called themselves, from St. Denis church in Versailles.
But win or lose, it didn’t seem to matter. The teens chatted on and on about the adventure as they made their way to the parking lot.
Dylan Lange of St. Henry Catholic Church said sticking his hand in the large bucket of mush, which turned out to be smashed brownies, was “the best.”
“My hand still smells like chocolate,” said the eighth-grader with a grin.
Lange said he was hesitant about attending the event at first, but changed his mind rather quickly after arriving.
“I really underestimated what this would be,” he said. “It teaches us more than just reading out of a book.” |
