PYV East Camp 2016 - Day Two

Is it just me, or does today feel like a really long and wonderful day? Our day at East Camp began with a good sized crowd meeting together to pray. It was great to hear different voices as people prayed, and also good to have Zack share his testimony. Thanks Zack. I am always encouraged to learn how people came to know Jesus properly.

From there we joined everyone else for a yummy cooked breakfast. I'm not a big fan of a cooked breakfast, but clearly I am in the minority! Everyone else seemed very happy to enjoy it today. Perhaps I need to change my mind.

Our worship session today included a chat about the PYV planned mission trip to Malawi in 2017. We were reminded of the PYV mission trip to India in 2012 and the great encouragement that was to the whole team as well as the people they went to visit there. We hope that the trip to Malawi to support Orbus will be just as encouraging. You can learn a bit more about that by visiting pyv.org.au or by clicking here.

Stephen Jones preached from John 15 and confronted us with the a statistic that every minute there are 500,000 Facebook posts! And the vast majority of them are pointless. (I'm glad you enjoyed your coffee, but I'm left wondering, is that all you do with your time?) Of course, most of the important stuff we would talk about with our best friends is not the stuff we put on Facebook. And that is one of the weaknesses of social media - we can lose the ability to talk about deep things with anyone. (That wasn't Stephen's point though. That's my comment.)

Jesus shows us what it is to be the best of friends - he lays down his life for us. Importantly, he doesn't do that because we are good enough. We're not. Instead Jesus does this because He is good enough. Brilliant.

Morning tea led into the study groups and once again campers and leaders had the chance to talk through some questions and learn a bit more about the friendship of Jesus and what it is to be obedient to him. Some good thoughts for the campers to take into their own devotional time.

From there the day seemed to get really busy. And creative. Lunch was good and then into an afternoon of physical activities. I was with Phil at the Commando Course where our trainee astronauts were making sure they were physically fit enough for the rigors of the journey. I wasn't convinced that we would get through everyone in the allotted time, and as much as I hate to admit it, I was wrong. So wrong.

Easier than it looks!

We had people storming through the course, and there is nothing like competition to get teenage boys determined to beat each other. The time kept getting shorter and shorter. Well done boys, and the girls did a powerful job too. There were other activities with a space theme too, one of which may have included eating some baby food. I'm glad I missed that one.

Then we gave everyone the opportunity to use their creative skills by making rockets or robots. They were brilliant! Some were large, many were small, and a few in between, but everyone was busy building something. There might be some photos of some later in the week on our Facebook page.

As usual we dressed up for our last night at camp, and the space theme meant we had the chance to show off our favourite space shows. Doctor Who; Star Wars; and Firefly were well represented, as well as a couple of Buzz Lightyears as well. There were even those who went for a legitimate astronaut / NASA look. Some good costumes there. It should be a good photo.

The dining room looked very space-like with lights, decorations, and smoke - which we had put there; nothing was burning in the kitchen. And after tea, everyone had the chance to run around on the oval for the big game. Fortunately, the snow had all melted, so it was much dryer and safer than it might have been. I think the rubber ducks were rescued, but I'm not sure. I didn't get to watch the game as I was with some others getting a campfire going.

After the duck rescue, we were joined by a number of campers ready to sit by a fire, toast some marshmallows, talk a bit and even sing a bit once the guitars turned up. A nice place to sit for supper before going to bed.

It has been a long day, and sadly tomorrow we will say farewell to each other. But not before we have the chance to once again worship, listen to excellent preaching, and discuss what we have heard. I'll say more about that at the end of the day.