This year, Rockbridge Young Life held their seventh annual Paint War. It took place on Sept. 10 at a field next to Life Chapel, on Hines Lane.
Young Life is an international Christian organization which seeks to bring together young high school students by their faith. The group is formed of high school students aged 14 to 18. Throughout the school year, Young Life holds club meetings, where they hold playful competitions and discuss sections from the bible. The Rockbridge County Young Life club is led by club leaders who are mostly W&L students. Rockbridge Area Director Quinton Knott has been a part of the Young Life organization for four years and enjoys how it connects people in Rockbridge County.
“We’re a group that is building community alongside the Rockbridge County High School,” said Knott.
Students, such as junior Cole Cathcart, join Young Life to strengthen their faith and establish connections among other students.
“Young Life to me is a great opportunity to spend time with friends, to have new experiences, such as the Paint War, and to have opportunities to hear the messages that are spoken at Young Life about Jesus,” said Cathcart.
The Paint War is held to bring more members to Young Life and establish the start of Young Life club meetings in the Rockbridge County district for the 2018-2019 school year.
“We do the Paint War because I feel like it’s the easiest event to invite anybody to, especially freshmen who’ve never been to a Young Life event before,” said Knott. “It’s always a week before our first club, so it’s just a great way to kick off the year.”
The event started with a dizzy bat competition: a game where the students run to a spot, pick up a baseball bat, hold the bat to their heads, and put the other end of the bat on the ground. Then they spin around in circles ten times and afterwards try to run back to their starting point.
“ I hate Dizzy Bat, but you gotta do what you gotta do to represent your grade when it comes to competition,” said Cathcart.
After Dizzy Bat, the main events took place. The first event was a colorful powder throwing game, followed up by the second event of the paint throwing.
“Each grade gets a different color, and you try and get as much of your color on the other teams as possible. So if everyone ends up being blue, then you know the blue team won,” said Young Life leader Ella Rose. “Blue is always seniors, which is the strongest color”.
This year Rose attended the paint war alongside her fellow Young Life leaders, such as Knott.
“This is my third paint war, which is pretty exciting. It’s a fun way to get students together at the beginning of the school year to all have fun and throw paint at each other,” said Rose.
Senior Hannah Mayr enjoyed participating in the Paint War.
“My favorite part is probably just running through paint and getting to find people and cover them in paint, but also the pictures at the end,” said Mayr.
Many of the Young Life members take photos at the end of the Young Life event, showing themselves drenched in paint.
“I’m in charge of taking before and after shots, so everyone is wearing white at first,” said Rose. “Then everyone leaves super messy and crazy and colorful.”
The Paint War is meant to represent the fun and creative club meetings of Young Life, as it is an exciting event unique to Young Life.
“We like to have fun, and we like to have anybody here who wants to have fun, and I feel like there’s nothing more fun than throwing paint at each other and looking pretty awesome afterwards,” said Knott.
The Paint War is an example of the type of competitions held at Young Life club meetings.
“Young Life is always up for having good, clean fun. I guess the Paint War is not very clean, but good and clean in the sense that it’s fun and all allowed,” said Mayr. “Also, they’re just kind of wild.”