This year's youth camp was based on Transformers-you know, that movie with Megatron and Optimus Prime and AllSpark and stuff. But how many of you realised the significance of the storyline? I have to admit it, I didn't. In Transformers, as with many action movies, it's the classic good versus evil story; and in the end, Optimus Prime dies to save the world. Have you ever wondered why so many movies have similar endings where someone sacrifices his life to save people? Perhaps it is because deep within each of us, there exists a deep yearning for a Saviour, for someone who loved us enough, to die for us.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." The most popular quote from the Bible- John 3:16. That guy did come, but instead of embracing Him, people scorned Him and crucified Him. And here's the best part- He
allowed them to. It just blows me away sometimes. I mean, if I was in Jesus' shoes, maybe if people believed in me as their Savior and loved me and accepted me, I might have been willing to die for them. But the thing is, people sneered and laughed and
tortured and tried to
kill me
. In all honesty, I probably would have folded my arms and like Jonah, told God that these people weren't worth it. They didn't even
want me to die for them. But as the psalmist says, "
he was obedient to the point of death on the cross." Wow. It's just so amazing, that someone would love me that much.
Okay, about the camp itself. We started on our journey to PD in the morning and somehow Lyncia, Peter, Ming Han,Yih Ren and me ended up on the same bus. The conversation started out innocently enough, but one comment from Yih Ren (I can't remember what!) started a whole heated debate on the Hindraf and whether we should support the government. Peter and Ming Han were pro-opposition (Peter even said he didn't care which opposition, even PAS! Gasp!) whereas Yih Ren was pro-BN. Lyncia and me? Well, we were caught in between. Haha! Yih Ren made a valid point though about what Jesus said about the government in the Bible. The people asked him was it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. Basically, they were trying to trap Him because they reasoned that if He said it was lawful, it meant that He wasn't the Son of the Kings and He lied; if He said it was not lawful, He would be considered treacherous to the Roman empire. But Jesus replied, "
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and render to God the things that are God." So Yih Ren maintained that we should be faithful to the government, which
was the BN at the moment. Anyway, the debate had no proper conclusion, as the guys were too tired after arguing and fell asleep halfway. LOL.
Guys.
Here's Lyncia and me on the bus.
Two hours later, we reached PD and checked into Golden Sands. I was put into a dorm with 5 other girls, and we had two adjoining bathrooms. It was my first time in a dorm! And sleeping on a double-decker bed too! Here's how our room looks like. Our two bathrooms are discreetly covered up by the curtain, so you can't see them. I slept on the lower bunk of the double-decker bed on the right further away from the camera.
So what did we do during camp? Lots of stuff. We were split into groups of 12-15 each, and each group was named after a transformer. So obviously there were teams like Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet and Bumblebee, but my team was called Sunstreaker. In the afternoon we had of all things, a COOKING competition! Haha... none of us could cook for nuts, especially with ingredients provided, and we ended up getting last place! LOL!! Worst part was, we had to eat up the food we cooked. Thank God no one ended up with food poisoning.
Then we rested for a while, had dinner and then it was time for worship. We had such an awesome time worshiping God! Everyone was so hyped up during worship, it was such a shame that we couldn't jump because we were worshiping on the first floor of the building. The adults were worried we'd crash through the wooden floor if we all jumped. Haha! Anyway, this was the theme song for our camp and it's super meaningful.
THE TIME HAS COME (Hillsongs United)
Found love beyond all reason You gave your life Your all for me
And called me Yours forever Caught in the mercy fallout
I found hope found life
Found all I need
You’re all I need
The time has come To stand for all we believe in
So I for one am gonna Give my praise to You
Today today it’s all or nothing
All the way The praise goes out to You Yeah all the praise goes out to You
Today today I live for one thing To give You praise
In everything I do Yeah all the praise goes out to YouAll we are is Yours
And all we’re living for
Is all You are
Is all that You are LordYeap. The time has come to stand for all we believe in. No more sitting on the fence, no more saying "
I'll decide another day". Today. You could tell that everyone sang the song and meant it with all their hearts.
Then we had our first session with the speaker. The camp's theme verse was from Romans 12:2.
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve of what God's will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will." Basically the speaker spoke about what it meant not to conform any longer to the world. If you say you believe in God but yet your life is still deeply entrenched in sin, you actually don't believe. To really believe, your life HAS to be transformed. Anyway, after session we had discussion, supper and it was time for lights out. Exit Day One.
Enter Day Two. We had worship and another session with the speaker. The speaker split us into groups and we held a debate. The topic was, "Should we spend time evangelising or saving the environment?" It was really interesting! Yih Ren purposely took an extreme point of view and argued that since God said the world would end one day anyway, we're actually helping God through pollution and global warming. After all, if the world ended faster we'd all see God earlier, isn't that great? I loved Jessica's rebuttal though. She said that God commanded us to love our neighbours as ourselves and who are our neighbours? Aren't the animals and plants part of the world too? Besides, people actually die from pollution around the world and how are we loving our neighbours by causing their deaths? All in all, it was a really fun morning and the speaker concluded that we are to do both, because both are commandments from God. There are so many people who are busy with missionary work, but we hardly hear of Christian voices in the Greenpeace or WWF. That should be food for thought for all of us.
Next up were the workshops. Guys were sent to a workshop called How to Pick Up Chicks and the girls attended How to Spot A Jerk. The speaker Wini was really good, and she really understood us. She used a really good analogy to describe men and women.
Men are like waffles, and women are like spaghetti. She said that to men, career, relationship, sex, family, friends were all different things- that's why guys can have sex with you but not love you. That's why guys can say stuff like concentrate on career and completely forget about his girl. However for us girls, we are like spaghetti. We can't have sex without loving the guy, if we're having problems in relationships it affects other parts of our lives as well! At the end of her talk, she sang this song called River beautifully. She said she saw all of us girls were still so innocent and pure; she wished she could protect us from all the heartbreak she had gone through before she got married because she said there was no pain like the pain of a break up. She had been through a miscarriage earlier on, and she said that even the pain of losing her baby was not as painful as breaking up, because she knew that she would see her baby in heaven again, but break ups, there's just no part 2- two souls were once connected, and they were torn apart. That's how painful a break up is. During her song, I couldn't help it. I started crying. There were a few other girls too around me who did the same. Eunice came around and hugged me and prayed for me. So did Sara. I can't explain how it felt to be literally in the arms of friendship. I was really sad then, but yet strangely comforted. Then Wini came and prayed for me. I'll never forget what she said to me.
"Rachel, I know that your dress which was once beautiful and clean is now torn and dirty. God wants to give you a new dress, but first you need to give him the old one."I gave God my old dress that late morning. I know
I'll never forget the things that have happened, but I know that God understands and He will be with me, through it all. To think that in the beginning I was hesitant about going to camp because it was to be held at the beach, a place where I have too many painful memories. Thank you God for telling me to go. Thank you for your healing. Oh, and for the guys reading this blog, you wanna know what the guys at camp learned? Well, the truth is, I don't know either. NONE of them would tell me!!! (Hint hint to those who know from camp! =D )
Oh yes.... and the girl on my left is Eunice by the way.
In the afternoon we had Amazing Race. The first challenge was a SUDOKU challenge and my team only had 3 people who knew how to play! The question set was so hard too! Anyway, we finally completed the puzzle and now I can safely say that I know how to play SUDOKU. Of course, playing it well is another story altogether =P. Then we had to run to the beach for our next challenge. Goodness!! We had to dig out marbles from the sand with spoons in our mouths! It was SO HARD! Then there was a Bible quiz, thank God I took BK in form 5=) We also had this fear factor thing where we had to drink some disgusting drink that smelt awful and looked putrid. Unfortunately for the organisers of the game, one of my team members Yu Mey fell in love with the drink and she drank the whole cup herself without anyone helping her! My team members even asked them for second helpings. CRAZY!! There was another game where there was this baby swimming pool filled with rainwater, marbles and ICE. We had to step into the icy-cold water and pick up marbles with our toes and put it into this tin can
still with our toes. The water was so cold I tell you! Once your feet goes in, it's like a million icy needles stabbing at your feet and within 10 seconds you can't feel your toes anymore! Besides, the water was the colour of Milo and there were leaves floating in it and you can't even see the marbles, much less pick them up with your TOES. There was also a game whereby we had to pass marbles using these pipes from one end to the other. It was a standing joke by then the organising committee must have lost their marbles to be torturing us with so many marbles. LOL. We also played a game whereby we had to drop coins into a bowl at the bottom of a pail filled with water. The catch was- you had to earn the coins. I can't even remember all the crazy things we did to earn the coins. We catwalked, danced the chicken dance, sang Negaraku, recited Rukun Negara, held a conversation with a chair, danced the Hokey Pokey and I'm a Little Teapot, sang the camp song, did 20 sit-ups and goodness knows what else. For the life of me I can't remember all the games, but I know there were 11 stations. You can imagine how tired we were by the time we finished. And our spirits were quite low as we finished I think 4th or 3rd from last.
Exhausted, we showered and went for worship and session again. Despite our weariness, we were all still super-energetic. The floor thundered and the roof shook. Almost. =) But seriously, we were loud. When we quietened down to sing the last song, it really just hit me. The song we sang was just so meaningful. I think almost everyone cried. God's love was just so awe-inspiring. This was the song we sang:
ONE LIFE, ONE LOVEWho am I
That You would know me from the start
Set me apart
Who am I
That You would place eternity
Into my heart
You have given to me
More than this world could give
My purpose is found in You
One life, I lay at Your altar
One love, I have with You
Touch me again
Fill me as You hold
My outstretched hands
One word, You know I will follow
One heart, broken to You
Use me again
Your mercies follow me
For all my days
In Your presence
In Your power
Holy Spirit I surrender
We had altar call as well and a non-Christian accepted Christ. Praise the Lord.
After session, we had discussion and supper. And it was lights out again.
OH YES, before I forget, Michelle brought 2 of her friends from Help and one of them brought his non-Christian cousin, Alvin who happens to be a Sunstreaker too! Anyway so these are the two guys:
This is Khai Xiang. He's in Cambridge studying Maths!! Super smart... Don't play play!
This is Joshua. He's in Nottingham studying pharmacy! When he found out I was going to Monash for medicine, he immediately started talking about the argument between doctors and pharmacists on dispensing medicine. LoL. Hope you two won't get mad at me for posting your photos up here =)
Okay, the 3rd day. Speaker spoke on how transforming meant no more idolatry. Which means it's not studies first, or relationship first, or family first, or computer games first... it's GOD first. It really hit me about my priorities in life, and how I thought I wasn't conforming to the world, but God was not always first in my life. Thank God that our God is a merciful God and he forgives every time.
Then we had separate workshops. I signed up for the politics workshop and man, I learnt so much! We're never too young to start changing the world, the only thing is we have got to try. Tricia, the speaker got me all fired up to read more, learn more and write more about politics. The word politics may seem so big, but actually it's anything got to do with us and our lives. Like our freedom to blog. Our freedom to have equality in education. Lots of stuff. Too many people fear the implications of their actions if they stood for justice and hence would rather keep their mouth shut. But is that what we are called to do? We are called to be the light and the salt of the world. To stand in the light and not in the darkness.
After the workshop we had some free time. I went back to my room and loud music greeted me. One of my roommates had some sony ericson that could play music so loud! So we spent our time singing in the room. Haha! The roommates who were there were all 17, and they were such cute and crazy girls! Here they are:
This is Yee Eng & Yeun Yi
Disregarding the guy, from left to right, Yeun Yi, Jillian, Yee Eng and yours truly. I love you guys!
After free time it was games. Very very VERY tiring games. Water balloon games, dressing up in a skirt, goggles, umbrella, jacket and santa hat and running across the field (yes both guys and girls!), footsal on your butt games, beach games and one more game involving cardboard which I'm too lazy to describe XD All in all, we lost 2 games, drew 2, and won 1. Pretty bad, but some of the games were unfair. Not the committee's fault, just that the circumstances made it so.
That night was Skit Night. In short, it was hilarious. Enough said. As it was the last night, curfew was at 2. We stayed up talking until then =)
OH YES, throughout the 4 day camp we played the angel-mortal game, except that it was called transformer-human. So everyone had a human to take care of, and everyone was being taken care of by a transformer. My transformer was really sweet- he gave me sweets, loads of junk food, wrote me notes and even gave me a flower! I gave a note to my human folded in the shape of a paper airplane, some junk and biscuits. Hehe... he kept asking for hints on who I was, but obviously he never found out.
Okay, last day. I am super ashamed to say that I couldn't wake up and skipped both breakfast and morning devotion, but made it in time for worship. They announced the top 3 group finalists for the whole camp. I didn't really pay much attention because I knew we had been losing all this while, but the first group name read out was SUNSTREAKER!! Turns out that our team had done really well on the signature drive (we were supposed to collect signatures from people to get to know them better) and we were the only team who did the Bible quiz set inside our booklet. LOL. All because my team tangan gatal, we got SECOND PLACE!! WOOHOO!! SUNSTREAKER ROCKS!! What was the prize? A big plastic bag filled with biscuits and junk food! My favourite! Yum~~
Then it was time for the unmasking of the transformers. So here they are:
This is my transformer- Min Yi;
AND this is my human- Kenneth. He designed our camp T-Shirt! He drew a whole transformer at the back of the shirt!
After that it was plain camwhoring all the way.
So this is my awesome team SUNSTREAKER!!
Just in case you're wondering, these are the speaker's children's. I just had to put their photo in because they look SOOO CUTE!! Note the green umbrella!!
Last, but not least, this is Michelle and me. We talked all the way from PD back to KL. =)
So that's the camp. Wow. If you aren't tired reading this post, I'm tired typing it out. Hehe... Oh yes, just a final thing to mention. We were at spiritual warfare during the camp- so many people got injured! Peter our camp commander twisted his ankle and had to go home earlier, Yih Ren hurt his arm and has it now in a sling, two worship leaders went down with fevers... it was scary to see how the devil was trying to upset things. Anyway, we're all home safely now and God is working his healing on these people. So hah! In your face Satan! With God you'll never win!
Conclusion: I have been transformed. Lord, help me to stay transformed.
P.S. I forgot to put up this pict: This is what happens to short people when they meet mean people like Si Wei and Nicholas. Kidding =P
