Youth Camp

Youth camp was this weekend. It was absolutely awesome!!! It started Friday night at 8:30pm, and I got to drive down there. It was by the Murray River (Ankara Camp), so it was about 1 and 3/4 hours away. Just a side note: 80 km/h is very slow when you're on a straight stretch of road, and you know you can go faster :). Friday night we had games, and then we went for a short hike across the river (we took the ferry across) to where we could look up at the sky and see all the stars. It was amazing!!! When you're out in the country, you can see so many more stars. After that, we went back to camp and watched a DVD presented by Louie Giglio called "Indescribable". It was a really cool DVD, and it really brought home how awesome our God is. Saturday morning we had a worship/devotion session where the Youth Band (which I'm part of) played 3 songs. The theme of the camp was "Fork in the Road". We had to eat everything with forks, but the message was also about the Forks in the Road in our lives. The senior pastor at our church spoke about a hard decision he'd had to make when he was a lot younger, and it was really interesting! We had an awesome day that day, because we were playing in the river, and they had a pontoon which is a sort of raft floating on empty metal barrels. There was people on there, and everybody was pushing everybody in. I got pushed in a few times, and I also got tackled when I was in the water. I had heaps of fun because there was this really icky sticky gray mud, and I would pick it up and throw it at people. The only problem is when they decide that it would be fun to throw it back at you! I was absolutely exhausted by the late afternoon on Saturday. That night we had heaps of free time, and so we had the choice of playing Singstar or watching the footy (AFL) or playing cards. I tried sleeping in my dorm, but it was too hot, and people kept coming in and out, so I gave up and went into the Rec Hall where the footy was on TV, and I tried sleeping there, but I got poked, and bonked on the head with an empty fizzy drink bottle (Jason!!!), and then I couldn't get comfortable so I went and got a pillow, and then all the die-hard footy fans came in, and started yelling and cheering so I didn't get any sleep. On Sunday, we had another worship session, and this time Ian (an elder) gave the message, and he spoke about the Israelites and the fork in the road decision they had to make about going into Canaan, and how they made the wrong decision. He then contrasted that with the Christian walk now. It was a really good talk, and very challenging. After that, we got told that the Youth Group had hired a Fun Run (an inflatable water obstacle course), and so for the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon we got to go on that. I only got to the end about 5 or 6 times, and I fell off about a million times, but it was SO much fun!!! Later Sunday afternoon, we had some team games, and then Sunday evening we had communion and a couple of girls from the youth band and I led everyone in a song. Later on, we watched a DVD also presented by Louie Giglio called "How Great is Our God". That was also a really good DVD!! It was absolutely phenomenal! This morning we had another worship session where Henry our youth pastor talked. Henry talked about faith, and it was a really good message as well. Then we had about 45 minutes of free time where we could go on the Fun Run, or swim or go on the canoes. I was going to go on the Fun Run, but I was too exhausted. Therefore, I swam across the Murray with 3 other girls! I was really tired, but because I had a life jacket on, it wasn't half as hard. After that, we had to pack our clothes and everything else up, and clean our dorms, the Rec Hall, and the Dining Hall. Then we had lunch, and after that we were allowed to go back on the pontoon or in the river. Quite a few people got on the pontoon, and started pushing people off. Then they untied it from the bank, and got it out in the middle of the river and pushed people off out there! It was really funny to watch, and I kind of wanted to join them, but I had already put my contact lenses back in, and I didn't want to take them out again. Then Dad came, and I really didn't want to go because I'd had so much fun!!