PYV Summer Camp 2016 - day 3

As I commence this entry I am sitting under a shady tree enjoying a lovely breeze and a good view of trees & hills. Why would I be doing this in the middle of the afternoon of a camp? Well it's not because I'm being lazy nor because I'm hiding from everyone. Quite the opposite. I am here because our activity groups have been instructed to find me near the Rawson Village sign. When they get here I ask them a series of riddles they need to solve before moving to the next challenge.

"a seven letter containing thousands of letters."

Why are we doing this in the afternoon? To answer that we need to go back to what happened this morning.

Like all days, we began with a leader's meeting. Today we were encouraged by the words from Philippians 4 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." As leaders of a youth camp, this is a very important reminder. We rely on the strength of Christ to serve him at this time & in this way.

We enjoyed a time of prayer and then breakfast, although some boys were almost determined to miss breakfast. They said that 'someone forgot to turn on the alarm.' Don't worry mum. We got them out of bed and made sure they could have breakfast.

From there we went to our study groups to talk through some questions based on the sermon from last night. A key focus here, or at least one that I thought stood out, was recognising the holiness and love of God without being focused on just one of these. It was good to hear this group talk through the dangers of just focusing on the holiness of God & rejecting his love, and vice versa.

While we were in our groups, the rain began to fall, which meant that some of our groups needed to move under shelter. It also meant we needed to change our plans. So, because we have bold and talented leaders on this camp, a decision was made to follow morning tea with the second session of workshops. This was a good move.

Today I sat in on the workshops on "Pleasures we can't have" and the second half of "Too far gone". I am very pleased that our teenagers are being challenged to live holy lives while also being reminded that in Jesus we can find forgiveness. This is a message that never gets old.

The workshops led to lunch, which was plentiful today, and then to our afternoon of activities.

I'll add some more notes later today.

Some Time Later

The afternoon activities kept people busy for a good while today. Free time gave people a chance to play soccer, board games, table tennis, or just sit and chat together. Or they did until the storms that ravaged Melbourne made their way here. It got really wet really quickly. 

Which meant that again the planned activities for the evening needed to be changed. I want to give a big shout out to Callum & helpers for being ready to change their plans quickly and still have something for us that keeps us active and entertained. Tonight was the biggest game of fruit salad I've ever seen, and was a whole lot of fun. 

Fruit Salad

Between dinner and our activities we had our third worship session. Tonight we answered some questions (What is predestination?) sang some great songs and heard another great sermon from Jared. Tonight we heard about Moses wanting to avoid what God was asking him to do and putting up all the objections. But God answered all his objections and urged him to stop looking at himself and start looking at God instead. 

That's a good lesson for all of us.

Pictionary