9:00 A.M., June 11th, 2018. We are all here, ready to leave. My youth group from church was going on a four day trip to a lake house in Kingston, TX. There were ten of us, boys aged 14-15, while four adults would be chaperoning us. As we got into cars, there is still a little grumbling from everyone. No technology was allowed on the trip. This was a very unpopular verdict ruled out about a week before we were supposed to go. Many of us have a hard time unplugging from our daily routine of communicating with friends on Snapchat, Instagram, and the other things we are constantly on our phones and computers for. The prospect of a four-hour drive without electronics had already been enough to dissuade several people from going.

The purpose of this rule was for us to grow closer and enjoy time together.

As we leave on the drive, I was sitting by my best friend. We quickly fall asleep as we were both up late the night before. When I wake up two hours later, it still feels like we have an eternity to go. We somehow find a way to pass the time. When we finally pulled up to the lake house, the excitement built. This is what we have been waiting and fundraising all year to do. Everyone runs in and claims places to sleep. Right after this, we all race to the lake. The folks who rented us the house provided enough kayaks and paddle boards for everyone. We all start going up and down the lake, but then our youth leaders spotted us. Back to the dock we go. Life jackets for everyone.

That night we have our first discussion. We talk about how to help others and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Then we eat dinner and go play in the lake at night. After it gets too dark to be outside and the mosquitoes come out, we go inside. Then we all draw blanks. What do we do now, with no phones? No video games to play or movies to watch? This is not a situation many of us are used to. The idea comes up to play a group game. Most of us think this is a lame idea. Nobody cool plays group games anymore. However, we have nothing else to do, and our friends are all 200 miles away. We decide to play. Everyone has a surprising amount of fun that night, and we do it the next night after a day of swimming in a natural “water park” we found. The next night is the same, after tubing a river all day. The last night, after a cavern hike and cliff jumping, we are sad to see it go. We all play “mafia” one last time. We have a testimony meeting and every single one of the guys mentions how much closer we have become as friends and how we now are one group when before we were a few pairs of friends. Finally, the question is raised by one of our leaders. “Would this have happened if we all had our phones on us? If we had brought an Xbox and a bunch of movies, would we have had the same experience?” The answer was no and we all knew it.

We see this in almost everyone's lives. Everyone loves vacations. Taking time off from school, work, daily chores, technology can help everyone relax and feel better. But more importantly, when we make the decision to step away from all these things, we are able to bond better with other people and have experiences that we would never would have. This can help bring people together, families, friends, even strangers. Distancing us from technologies and society's “norms”, even if it is only for a few days, can help us bond with others and see who we really are, not who we are around other people.