Ian woke me up thinking it was nearly 7am, I checked my watch and told him it was 6:30am and that he was wrong before sleeping for another 15 minutes before my alarm went off, then I went to the leader's meeting which went through the passage for today, to be spoken by Alistair. Then we went through debriefing and other stuff, including travel to the beach, which needed drivers, so I had an inkling of a feeling that I would be needed to drive, which I was prepared for. I took my time to get to breakfast, chatting with Jo (D) about the youth. After breakfast I once again whipped up the powerpoint for chapel time.
The passage was Mark 10:13-31, which looked at the Rich Young Man, which was about coveting (something I did not originall know), which is wanting things that other people have, then going after it, kind of like stealing. The basic gist is a rich young man comes to Jesus asking how to get eternal life, showing that even though he is rich and young and essentially has it all, he knows there's more to life and knows Jesus has the answer. Jesus questions him, and if he has followed God's commands, which the rich man says he has, though all except one, coveting! The man couldn't give up his possessions to follow Jesus, seemed like he wanted more and more stuff, stuff that didn't belong to him too. I really like the verse at the end. Mark 10:29-30 "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.
Following Jesus will gain you more, not less (not more materialistic stuff). Following Jesus does not mean we give up everything in our life like some people perceive, we all still have our family, friends and whatnot, but we have a new path in life, a path that leads to eternal life, and I like where I'm going, hopefully, you reading this are coming with me too.
Question time was primarily about money and priorities, this time we got to relay these questions to Cam Phong which really helped the youth in understanding and answering their questions. Morning tea followed, which as always is just more time to chat and socialise before the first activity of the day. I was planning to just stay back and hang out at the campsite, though one of the youth, Geordie decided he wanted to do abseiling after the abseiling group had already left, so I was instructed to take him there. Having never been to this campsite before, and not knowing where any of the locations for activities were, this was going to be hard. The only direction I got was "Go left", so Geordie and I went left, we soon reached a slight obstacle, that of a sign saying "Authorised Personel Only", beyond that was a path that went up a hill, standing there I wasn't sure if I was going the right way or not, until I heard something. In the distance, up ahead I heard the wailings of a girl, who I assume was probably Shirley as it sounded most like her. So I was going the right way, "Lets go up here Geordie", the walk up was more tiring than I had anticipated, and my shoes were not fit for this type of terrain. As we headed up and reached more forks, I stopped and listened for voices to determine which way to go, and soon enough we caught up to them and Geordie was able to go abseiling, and I was able to take a rest from my tiring walk. Where we were for abseiling was filled with cicadas, and it must have been choir season or something because they were all chriping incessantly, threatening to destroy our ear drums. Fortunately I had my jacket, which I had to take off half way up the walk, which i wrapped around my head to lower the volume. I didn't abseil though, as it would've costed me extra, and I'm cheap, so I became a human clothes rack, carrying the youths jackets and whatnot.
After abseiling we trekked down what was hard to walk up hills but now were easy to slip down hills so we had to take careful steps. Then we had lunch, which I remember this time, they were sandwiches with mini hamburger buns so they were healthy and quite tasty from memory. Soon it was time for the beach, which we had around 35 spots for youth. Hoping not to drive I waited to see how many youth were going, and at one point I didn't need to drive, but then leaders wanted to go too, and so did a few other last second pop up youth so I gave in and decided to drive as well, plus I needed to fill my car up with gas to ensure the drive back on Friday was possible. So I changed into swimming gear, got allocated 4 youths then boarded my 4WD and followed the leader on the way to the beach.
The beach was fun, and since I hadn't been to the beach (nor swimming) in a very long time I took the opportunity to go into the water. Splished and splashed here and there, trying to catch a wave but to no avail and breaking the rule of not going past the second wave, though without really realising it. At one point, Kevin, Jo Lo and I went out seemingly a bit too far, it seemed like the waves got quite tough and we were pulled out more than we thought we were. Having not swam in a long time I was none too happy about this situation and proceeded to try and get back, I swam until I was tired and took a rest, which is hard when you're in water, so every so often I'd sort of dive down to see if my feet could reach the floor...it couldn't, which only made me feel worse. Kevin, a competent swimmer and overall crazy person went to the life guard and asked to ride on his giant board thing, Jo Lo and I pressed on, she seemed cool and calm, slowly making her way back. I was just tired and wanted to get to shore. We continued swimming, stopping to try and touch the floor but never touching it, which probably was a stupid move as it would only have dragged me back further. At some point I felt like giving up and looked at Jo Lo and uttered the words "I think I need help...", I don't think she gave me much of a reaction which was funny in hindsight, but I kept swimming anyway, fortunately we managed to catch a wave, which helped immensely in pushing us towards shore. Once I touched ground I was relieved and walked in to where little water would be and collapsed on the ground, taking my time to rest my weary legs and catch all the breathe I could catch. That'll learn me to try something like that again.
I healed up (rested), we took group pictures, which I'll have to hunt down then drove to the shops so people could buy stuff and withdraw money. I used this time to find the only gas station I spotted while driving and filled up on gas, and bought a drink to quench my thirst. Returned to the shops, which was only an IGA, loaded up on youth then followed the leader with what was around 7-8 vehicles, of which I was at the end of. This changed once we reached the final road towards the camp (the road filled with potholes), as I used my 4WD capabilities to drive on the grass, overtaking 3 cars before catching up to Andrew Ha's car, attempt an overtake, failed as a road sign was in my way, tried again successfully to get a good parking spot. It's things like that that make you want to sing like Marge Simpson, "Canyoneroooo!". (sorry for potentially obscure joke)
I returned to my room to change out, and found my room's bathroom floor completely drenched, moreso than it was usually. I assumed the guys must've went swimming and that was where most of the water came from. I later found out that our room, and a bunch of the other rooms were used as loading stations for waterbombs. I failed to notice the water balloon scraps on the walls and floors, must be getting old. Waterbomb skirmish is something that I think both youth and leaders look forward to each SYC, and I was ready to do some damage. So after dinner, which our dorm served so I remember what we had (Pies, Wedges and Vegetables) we set off down the hill to the designated waterbomb area...
Towards the battlefield...
Each team (youths and leaders) had two bins full of waterbombs each to their disposal.
The Youth
The Leaders (look, its me on the right!)
Bomb's Away!
Boom Headshot!
There's a whole bunch of other pics I could put up but I'll put them up elsewhere so look out for them! After the little skirmish, of which I got bucket'd (someone poured a bucket of water onto me) and I got some other people pretty good too. We had a firing squad for 3 youths who apparently weren't playing fair. Afterwards, the leaders got into a line and the youth were allowed to fire at us ala firing squad. Not wanting to get anymore wet I stood with the girls where it would be relatively safe, as opposed to the guys who were prime targets for the youth. And it worked, for a while, I ended up getting hit on my left leg at the end but that was alright compared to others.
After getting wet, we all dried off and wore dark clothing for our upcoming game, which required darkness. So we played King Karacticus first, and it was loud, too loud but fun to watch. Then we got to capture the flag with glow sticks, where we had three teams, and those three teams try to steal other teams glowsticks, the first team to get one from each team wins. The twist was that its night, and the leaders have torches, so youth have to sneak past us, if we spot you and shine our light on you, you freeze, then continue moving when we turn our torches off. It was fun watching the youth crawl on the ground, stopping every few seconds, then moving off again as they head towards enemy bases. The game ended fairly quickly, in just under an hour which allowed us to run on time.
Supper time was interesting this day, as some people found out that one of the leaders, Howard, had never had Dosirac, a brand of instant noodles. This blew out of proportion fast and it became Howard, who had never had instant noodles. Suffice to say, I got the moment he finally got to taste the noodles on my mobile phone. A word of caution though, girls are loud, very loud...
Following the festivities was time to sleep. I took a shower, the boys were already in the room, doing their usual thing. We waited for Ian as he hadn't come back yet. People came in and out to play DS or chat or whatever and soon we found out Ian was looking after Nelson's youth while Nelson attended to a matter. With concert night the next night, we discussed what we were going to do for that. We had to do Snow White in the style of ballet, which was an interesting challenge for a room full of buff youths, but would result in something funny. We chatted, and soon got tired and went to sleep with Man's music playing in the background, and my music playing in my headphones...Day 3
No comments:
Post a Comment