_{Emma Stoltzfus–Staff Writter}

_{The annual Dordt All Campus Retreat was filled with swimming, worship, spike-ball, games, chapel, belly flops and tossing freshman into the lake.}

_{As students arrived at Lake Okoboji in shuttles on Friday, Sept. 8, they started the party by heading down to the lake, swimming and playing Spikeball. The students also piled twenty to thirty people on a floating dock and flipped it. The raft was still upside down when they departed on Saturday. The students found it almost impossible to flip it back over using the same strategy.}

_{Friday night was partially spent playing a game of “speed friendship” over bowls of ice-cream. The students spent a minute trying to learn the most interesting fact about their neighbor. Results ranged from students who have grown up on an ostrich farm to volcano-surfing. The winner was a student who applied to Dordt on accident—believing that they had signed up for an email list until they received an acceptance letter in the mail.}

_{There were some issues with the campfire at the worship later that night due to the wind; causing the front rows to become too smoky for singing—or breathing. The worship ended with an energetic round of “Days of Elijah.”}

          _{On Saturday morning, the students listened to a chapel by Aaron Baart—Dordt’s Dean of Chapel—and had a quiet hour or so of prayer.}

_{Then the games began.}

_{Numbered off into groups of nine to eleven, seven teams competed in games ranging from volleyball battleship, blindfolded obstacle courses, putting on frozen t-shirts, trivia and more.} 

_{Then came the time to throw seven freshmen into the lake for the annual Freshmen Toss. Various tactics were used, and some impressive distances and flops were made.} 

_{When asked if her team had any techniques planned out for the toss, freshman Shannon Oostenink said, “We tried to. It didn’t work quite as well as planned, but we got third; so something still worked.”}

_{To continue the trend of slapping students on the lake surface year after year, the all-grades men and women’s belly-flop competitions went on with many cheers and winces.}

_{After a day and night of fellowship, in addition to hearing the various competition results and receiving their respective laurels in the form of Dordt gear, the campers quickly cleaned up, piled into a fleet of vans and buses to head back to Dordt.}

_{Freshmen Chloe Hansum said, “I had a lot of fun and met people I wouldn’t normally meet.”}

_{Men’s belly flop competition:
1st…Aaron Zwart
2nd…Ben DeKleine
3rd…Colton Ott}

_{Women’s belly flop competition:
1st…Emma Stoltzfus
2nd…
3rd…Caitlin Mundorf}

_{Freshmen toss:
1st…Caitlin Mundorf
2nd…
3rd…Shannon Oostenink}