Sunday, September 28, 2008
It was the annual Bluesky camp last weekend (26-28th Sept) and 2 days sure does fly by. It's kinda depressing that it's over. I reckon 2 days is far too short for camp hahahahaa. Anyway, i'm usually a very wordy person but i'll try to use photos to tell the story as much as i possibly can.
I think this camp is definitely one i'm going to remember for a very long time. The adventure actually started right from the word GO when we spent 3 and a half hours (instead of the expected 1 hour) trying to navigate our way in pitch blackness in the middle of the Australian bush. Even though we had been given explicit instructions on exactly how to get there, my brother decided to follow the instructions given by the GPS instead and that's how it all went downhill. See, it just so happens that there are 2 roads with the same name within 50km or each other and yeps, the stupid device led us to the road we didn't want to go to! That was just the beginning of our worries however. So we were 50km west of our intended destination and the only way to get there was to cross the Hawkesbury River and drive riight down and around. To our absolute horror, the only way to get across the river was to drive onto this ferry thing which shipped you across (you'd think they would build a bridge). When it's already 11pm at night, it's dark and you have no idea where you are, the idea of being shipped across a river doesn't seem all that thrilling. The guys however seemed rather excited about it so i guess..it made the situation not so bad afterall. So to cut a rather long story short, we arrived at the camp site at midnight and that was pretty much..all friday night of camp gone. Poor Peter and Hendy attempted to give us directions over the phone but when they had no idea where we were it was a bit hard. It was quite funny calling Peter while we were on that ship though and going.."Hey...you would never guess where we are at the moment!" *moral of the story: do not trust a GPS*
So anyway..we got there, and there were so many spare beds I pretty much could sleep anywhere i wanted (within the girls dorms obviously) and I really couldn't have asked for better room mates:
(izzy and vicky)
We were all pretty tired so we girl talked for a bit before heading off into dream land. 6 hours later (or was it 5?) we woke up for morning prayer. We all stood outside in one big circle and prayed out loud all at once (korean style) for the person on our left. We then headed in for breakfast
which I gobbled down before heading off for band practice for the morning session:
theres nothing better than starting your day singing and jumping up and down for God! So anyway, I forgot to mention. The topic for camp was Holiness and more specifically, holiness in relationships (yeps, bgr) as well as our own individual pursuit for holiness. The message preached that morning was on holiness in marriage. I think what really stood out was the importance of committing our relationships to God and to
never ever compromise the standard of God's word. Finding a life partner really is the second most important thing in life and it's true that we should be praying very hard for who ever that person may be whether we know them yet or not lol. Here is our relationships experts panel: (we could pretty much fire them with any relationships related question we liked)
we then had discussion groups. After lunch it was games time!!! So we were split up into our discussion group teams and there were i think 9 different stations. we were given 1 and a half hours to score as many points as we possibly could. The whole point was about making wise decisions.
So here I am in a mine field blind folded. If being blind din't make it hard enough...the mines could move!!
Team James Brown!! WOOOO!!
Here you have a bucket full of water, 2 pieces of string and 2 sticks. The challenge is to try and pick the bucket up and move it outside the circle. It seemed impossible at first but every team eventually managed to do it. I realised physics does come in handy afterall.
This was the weetbix challenge. So..you eat as many weetbix as you can in 4 minutes. Gross. Chris and Justin both came on top. They did 14 each!!! that's just crazy. I love this photo! chris is doing the hardwork and dave is giving him a massage. It must have worked though!
Anyway, after all the fun and games, the mission team got together and spent some time in program preperation, spiritual and mental prepration:
and physical preperation:
Saturday night started with Hendy's fruit and vegetable eating class during dinner. Since he eats ZERO fruits and vegetables I have made it one of my goals to change that (on the up side, i have found someone to eat the meat and stuff I dont want and i get double share of vegetables instead!).
yayyy!! he managed to eat half a mini piece of pumpkin and a carrot. Which really is a huge achievement. Didnt get very far with the fruit though. He accidently got the tiniest bit of apple from the apple crumble on his tongue and he whinged like a baby before washing it all down with a glass of water :p During dinner we also attempted a challenge where for FIVE MINUTES the only words coming out of our mouth had to be positive words about each other. We failed miserably LOL. it just goes to show how much we tease each other and we're supposed to be brothers and sisters in christ hahahahahaa!! oh dear...
That night's session was on our own individual pursuit for holiness. It was extremely challenging and at the end of the message an alter call was given where people could go up to be prayed for. Some of us stayed back at our seats and prayed for each other =) I think we could all feel the Holy Spirit moving through the place that night. We then moved outside to the campfire where we wrote our struggles, sins, bitterness and ambitions on a piece of paper and threw it in the fire symbolising our surrender to God.
The marshmellows then came out and the marshmellow party began!!
the marshmellow party then died once all the marshmellows and ran out and the guitar came out instead. The worship session then began =)
I know it sounds corny but as everyone was singing, I lay on the grass and looked up at the stars and the stretch of sky that seemed to go on for ever and it was one of those moments where I was just totally in awe of God. It was also a time where we seeked God
and prayed for one another as a family of God. The way bluesky prays for one another is just truly amazing and incredibly encouraging. It was one of the first things that struck me when I first went to Bluesky.
That was one of the best nights I've had in a very long time and one I will definitely treasure. The night didn't end there though!! The prayers continued for the next 4 hours in fact.
Although...I have to confess, I wasn't one of the people praying for 4 hours. We were writing encouragement cards instead. hahaaha!! it was almost like a competition to see who could write the most number of encouragement cards.
We ended up sleeping at 2 that night which is considered pretty early considering most of them ended up sleeping at 3 or ever later.
So the next day was Sunday and it was sad because it was already the last day of camp =( Camp couldn't finish until group photos were taken though! The first years will never throw away an opportunity to get on camera:
And then it was time to say farewell and head home. The journey back home was not quite as eventful as the trip there which I guess isn't a bad thing considering it took us one third of the time.
This is a special camp for me =) It's my first ever camp with wesley and I've been told it's definitely not the last. There's truly nothing better than spending a weekend with God and your church family. I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world.
posted @ 12:11 AM
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(izzy and vicky)
which I gobbled down before heading off for band practice for the morning session:
we then had discussion groups. After lunch it was games time!!! So we were split up into our discussion group teams and there were i think 9 different stations. we were given 1 and a half hours to score as many points as we possibly could. The whole point was about making wise decisions.
So here I am in a mine field blind folded. If being blind din't make it hard enough...the mines could move!!
Here you have a bucket full of water, 2 pieces of string and 2 sticks. The challenge is to try and pick the bucket up and move it outside the circle. It seemed impossible at first but every team eventually managed to do it. I realised physics does come in handy afterall.
This was the weetbix challenge. So..you eat as many weetbix as you can in 4 minutes. Gross. Chris and Justin both came on top. They did 14 each!!! that's just crazy. I love this photo! chris is doing the hardwork and dave is giving him a massage. It must have worked though!
and physical preperation:
Saturday night started with Hendy's fruit and vegetable eating class during dinner. Since he eats ZERO fruits and vegetables I have made it one of my goals to change that (on the up side, i have found someone to eat the meat and stuff I dont want and i get double share of vegetables instead!).
yayyy!! he managed to eat half a mini piece of pumpkin and a carrot. Which really is a huge achievement. Didnt get very far with the fruit though. He accidently got the tiniest bit of apple from the apple crumble on his tongue and he whinged like a baby before washing it all down with a glass of water :p During dinner we also attempted a challenge where for FIVE MINUTES the only words coming out of our mouth had to be positive words about each other. We failed miserably LOL. it just goes to show how much we tease each other and we're supposed to be brothers and sisters in christ hahahahahaa!! oh dear...
the marshmellow party then died once all the marshmellows and ran out and the guitar came out instead. The worship session then began =)
I know it sounds corny but as everyone was singing, I lay on the grass and looked up at the stars and the stretch of sky that seemed to go on for ever and it was one of those moments where I was just totally in awe of God. It was also a time where we seeked God
and prayed for one another as a family of God. The way bluesky prays for one another is just truly amazing and incredibly encouraging. It was one of the first things that struck me when I first went to Bluesky.
Although...I have to confess, I wasn't one of the people praying for 4 hours. We were writing encouragement cards instead. hahaaha!! it was almost like a competition to see who could write the most number of encouragement cards.
We ended up sleeping at 2 that night which is considered pretty early considering most of them ended up sleeping at 3 or ever later.
