YM Camp 2006
Hi, read my story about this year's YM camp below and here are some pictures of the camp during the worship and prayer sessions.I just came back from YM camp. The camp was a 4 day 3 night camp at the YWCA building near my church, which is Wesley Methodist Church. The camp was great and the worship part was excellent. Maybe my church should have more camps in a year.
I don't know how to describe the camp... a lot of fun and games and a lot of worship too! On the last night of camp we started worship at 7.30pm and ended at 1am. The keynote speaker for the camp was Dave Reardon. He's a humourous speaker and all his sermons were funny but touching. The best part is always the alter call. Almost every single person responded and then the worship would begin again. I could tell that everyone was really worshiping God and many even broke out in tears. Then there was the lively part of the worship where everyone would just lift up their hands and jump around. This was indeed the best worship experience for me. It felt as if you wanted it to go on forever. During normal sundays, the worship service in church is somewhat dead... but during the camp, everyone is so alive.... Now there are currently 500 people in the Youth ministry. The chairman of YM, Adriel, shared with us his vision of what he wanted YM to be like. He wanted to see a YM with 1000 youths. All each of us has to do is to invite 2 new people to YM and that would make 1000 people! Then he said something like the YWCA building will be too small for us so we have to change venue to the Singapore Expo.
During the camp, we played many many games and they were very fun and interesting. The people who planned the games must have been very creative. Most of the games were outdoor games and thank God it didn't rain during the 2 days we played games. The war games was very fun... i remember we had to create our group flag, and at first, we just sat down for half an hour staring at a piece of green colour cloth.... with no ideas how to decorate the flag. Then suddenly we had a brilliant idea. We decided that our flag will be different from all the other groups (By the way there were 24 groups during the camp and 300 plus people came for the camp. This is the biggest YM camp in YM's history, ever since it was started in 2003). As i was saying, we wanted our group flag to be the most outstanding. So we started plucking leaves and pasting them all over the flag. It looked like some flag that could be well camouflaged in a bush. Our flag was the most outstanding as all the other groups decorated their flag with the usual markers, spray cans.... so boring. However, the problem with our flag was if you try to wave it around, the leaves would fall out! There's a picture of my group with our flag above if you scroll up...... So during the war games, one part of the game was to protect the flag while going round " fighting" with other groups. What our group did was simply to hide to flag in the bushes so that no one could spot it. And true enough, no one spotted it.... it was well camouflaged. By the way, the war games was held at Fort Canning Park.
The food during the camp was excellent and i enjoyed it. All the breakfasts were buffets at the YWCA cafe while we had our lunch and dinners at the main church. Of course they were packed food. On the last night, we had a buffet dinner instead of packed food and there were 2 suppers that night ( hungry from all the worshiping... and i can tell you that jumping while singing is very tiring). Overall the camp food is very good but there was one lunch where the chicken rice was soo hard and.... i don't want to talk about it.....
The rooms in YWCA are satisfactory and the aircon wasn't too cold, there was a heater for the shower and the room has a TV. The biggest problem for all campers was the lifts. Some people can wait half an hour just for the lift to come! There was once i was waiting for the lift... when the lift finally arrived, it was full... so i had to wait for the next one. The lift went all the way down to the 1st floor ( and it stopped at every level!!!) before coming back to my floor, the 11th floor. When the lift doors opened, it was full again with different people!! So i had to wait again and this went on for a long time.
One thing i really love about this camp is the worship sessions. Everone is really singing in unison and really worshiping God with all their heart. Everyone worshiped until many had tears flowing down their cheeks and their eyes gone all red. At some points in time, i too really felt like crying (and i did). One part of the worship session that i really enjoyed was the jumping part. It was great, like everyone shouting and rejoycing away. Every night, the worship would go on for hours and hours and people never got bored of it. When the night finally came to an end, everyone was so sad (this is so unlike normal YM on Sundays). The chairman shared with us that during camps, everyone would we spiritually high... but after the camp, everyone would go back to their usual ways, meaning like no more enthusiasm for God. He told us that worship wasn't just something we do during camps or on sundays but it is a daily thing. And the only way to mantain that spiritual high from camps is to constantly read the bible every day after the camp. He said that the real test wasn't during the camp but after the camp, when we would return to our homes, our school and our usual lives. Camps are really wonderful, it is not only fun but you really learn a lot more about God. For all those people in YM who haven't gone to a camp before, i encourage you to go for it. It brings you a lot of fun but more inportantly, it also brings you closer to God and you will also become more enthusiastic in going to church. Although this camp is the first YM camp i have ever gone to, i really enjoyed it and it greatly impacted my life. It will greatly impact your life too.... so go for next year's camp!! It's really fun.....
This year's camp theme is " The fear of the Lord" and the camp verse is "then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever."- Jeremiah 32: 39a
This YM Camp was a great experience for me and i look forward to the next camp.
Labels: My Greatest Experiences
Gabriel
4:35 PM
