Church Camp!

Church camp was great! Very tiring, but good! I enjoyed it thoroughly. There were times when I was so tired I just wanted to stay in my room to sleep, but they only go to show that the days were spent fulfilled. :))


Day 1:
The journey took longer than all of us expected. The 5 hr journey turned out to be more than 7hrs. As a result, we missed 2 hrs of free and easy time. Those who drove there arrived much earlier at about 1 plus?

The view from my room was much better than the room itself though Krystal kept insisting it's very cosy. She's also going to kill me on Sunday when she sees the picture on the left.

After dinner we had our first worship and theme talk. It was during worship that I realised I was coming down with a sore throat.

The speaker this year was Dr Tan Lai Yong, a former classmate of Uncle Kim Shang. His messages were full of interesting anecdotes and stories of his life in Yunnan where he works as a missionary. It never ceases to amaze me how some people can have so much love for strangers in a foreign land.

However, the messages by Dr Tan were not entirely tied-in with the theme he gave us for the camp: Seizing the Moment. They were thought-provoking, meant to stir us into acting more like men and women of God and they did; but only bits and pieces could be tied back to the theme. All things said, he was good in that he could hold our attention for an hour and a half with both his stories and the depth of his msgs. I learned a lot from his preaching of the 3 psalms.

Went over to Krystal's room with Shirley after bathing and all the first night. We played bridge for a while before the boys came. And then the fun began! We decided to play Indian poker so that all of us could play. The forfeits Krystal and I came up with were crazy: Prayer to open worship, lead the camp theme song, and say grace for lunch.

Actually, while we were playing, I had some niggling thoughts that using prayer as a forfeit isn't very appropriate; but the rest seemed fine with it, so I just went ahead with my crazy ideas. Just now when I told Afiqah about the forfeit she felt that it was rude even though she isn't a Christian. Were we? Rude, I mean, and even blasphemous?


Day 2:
Dragged myself up out of bed after a bad night's sleep to bathe and do devotion. Breakfast tasted better than the previous night's dinner.

We played badminton after lunch; 11 of us sharing a court. :)
Auntie Lily and I trashed everybody until we got too tired and lost to Ben and Kevin. I had a horrible muscle ache in my thighs later that night. That's what you get from exercising so strenously after being lazy for so long. :\

The youths were supposed to go on a jungle trek in the night with Dr Tan while the adults have their Men's/Women's Night. Ironically, the adults were more enthusiastic about the trek than us youths. They should have made it Adult Safari and Youth's Night. *bleah*

Thankfully, it started raining while we were having dinner. We ended up in the sports complex playing Primary school games which were so much fun! :D

Finally managed to play volleyball like after don't know how many years; but it was a joke.

The boys were playing bowling, so we went there for a while and decided to take a few photos.

Thereafter, we went to Krystal's room again. This time, we decided to forgo the games and get to know more about each other instead. We spent more than an hr answering questions like Your Favourite Hangout turn by turn. Spent most of the time laughing.

Day 3:

The day in which I dreaded the stairs, slopes, squatting down and sitting on the floor the most.

Krystal had said the day before that we could play volleyball for a while during our free and easy time. I'd die before I do that.

Dr Tan had to leave one day early for some reason, and Uncle Kim Shang and family had to leave as a result. So we took our grp photo one day earlier.

After that we went to the Botanical Gardens and Japanese Tea House which was basically a waste of time. The Garden, did not resemble a garden at all. It was more of a well kept forest, with a few species of flowers scattered here and there. The Japanese Tea House, true to its name, only had a tea house with kois in a dirty man-made 'river'. They gave us 3 hours for the walk but everyone finished in 1.

We took the most photos on this day I guess, seeing as it is the big outdoors and all.

We even went to the Rabbit Farm after that; to occupy our time before dinner.

I guess I was disappointed because I was expecting so much more. But seeing from the state of the rooms as well their service, I shouldn't have expected so much.

We went to this "French Village" for dinner. It was very charming, a world apart from our resort or anything we've ever seen in M'sia. However, we were there rather early, there weren't any thing happening. I heard from Pastor David that they have live band entertainment in the night.

We had dinner there before heading back to the resort for Creative Night. I was very reluctant to act at first; but... My team won Creative Night! It was more of Aunty Lily's credit than anything else.

That night, the 'youth meeting' came to my room instead of Krystal's as we didn't want to disturb Charlotte her roomie. Played bridge, listened to Kevin's life story. As usual.

Day 4:

Last day of church camp. I can't say that I was reluctant for it to end; I was simply too tired to go through another day's programme if the camp was longer.

We stopped at Mid Valley for lunch and shopping. It was similar to Vivo City, much bigger definitely. And I bought 3 tops for S$30! :)

As I had been telling Isaac and the rest during the camp, I had wanted to make myself sick on Thurs so that I could take MC on Friday. I didn't. When I went back to work, everybody could see that I was tired.

The thing is, I can't really think of anything that tired me out. True, I had late nights and a game of badminton, but it doesn't fully explain. Actually, all the other youths were very tired as well. *shrugs*

Overall, church camp was very fun! Thoroughly enjoyable. :D