OCBP 2026: Wrapping Up Week One
Hello family and friends! Everyone at Ocean City Beach Project is doing well and so excited to share how we are doing! Everyone arrived safely on both Sunday, July 5th and Monday July 6th.
We started off on Monday, July 6th with fun games to hype each other up and allow ourselves to get to know each other. Some activities we did were a scavenger hunt around the boardwalk/town. The winning team would receive a dessert of their choice. We ended up going to Hobby Horse the day after to reward them. After our scavenger hunt, we had yummy crabfries, sushi, and other things for dinner on the boardwalk. We went down to the water for some fun games. We played Signs and Twisters Got My Sister.
On Tuesday, July 7th, we started our faith related activities. In the morning we had our daily devotionals, John 15:1-5. These verses explain how God is the vine and we are the fruit. We are unable to grow without the vine because it is our source of life.
After we had our debrief from our devotional, we headed to First Presbyterian Church to discuss Nehemiah chapter 1, which we studied before all of us came together for OCBP. This was followed by a prayer walk on the boardwalk. All of us paired up with another student in order to walk, sit, and reflect about the brokenness we see around us.
After that, we had lunch and free time. The girls and staff member, Ari, decided to go to thrift shops around the town for both free time and women’s group time! The boys and staff member Ray spent free time at the beach and men’s group time playing golf on the boardwalk. We ended our day with dinner, worship, and ice cream!
On Wednesday, July 8th, We started our morning with our daily devotional in John 15:6-11. The devotional was focused on remaining in God’s love, as he has commanded us to. We had a Gospel 101 lesson followed by lunch and then a zoom call with Bryan Borger. He talked about a couple books and shared fun stories about his experiences with OCBP.
After our meeting with Byron, all of us wrote our version of how we would share the gospel to other people. We then got together in groups and created our own skits on how we would share the gospel.
Ari, Josh, Gaby, Brandon, and Kayley all performed a skit on creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. This was aimed towards the younger side of youth. Ray, Abby, Essie, Victoria, and Owen performed a skit on awareness of being a lukewarm Christian. This was aimed to be able to be used with people in our work places, Bible studies, school, etc. After dinner, we had our first Bible study in Amos 1.
On Thursday, July 9th, we started with our daily devotional, in John 15:12-17. These verses were focused on how we are not only God’s friend, but He chooses us first and we choose Him.
Our focus for this day was testimonies! We learned four quick and easy methods on how we can introduce and share our testimonies. The different methods: A simple sentence focused on “I was… but now I am…”, story lines, drawing method, and a chart. After dinner, we had our (first of many) student-led Bible study, focused on Amos 2.
On Friday, July 10th, We started our day with surprising Ari with a fun decorated kitchen for her birthday along with gifts! We then moved onto devotionals, focused on John 15:18-22. These verses touch on how we are God’s chosen people. There will be struggles that we face, but God calls us to follow Him.
For our faith-focused lesson, we learned about repentance and the kairos circle. We finished our day up with a study in Amos 3. There was an awesome thunderstorm that came through during our Bible study, so we got to enjoy the storm while learning about Jesus. After the Bible study, some of us went out into the rain to run around and enjoy the moment.
On Saturday, July 11th and Sunday, July 12th, we had free time. Everyone enjoyed spending time with family, each other and having time to relax. Ari and Ray had to leave us, which was super duper sad and we all have been missing them. Fortunately, Ray will be back the third week, so we’ll get to have more time with him and the new staff members coming.
Sunday, we spent the morning attending a Sunday school lesson with adults from First Presbyterian Church. Afterwards, we attended regular church service. Pastor Luke was very kind and had us over for lunch, where we enjoyed a delicious curry and had a relaxing rest of the day!
That wraps up week #1 of our time with OCBP! We are so excited to see what God is preparing and working on in our lives as we finish up week #2 and move into week #3!
