PYV West Camp 2017 - Day 2

Isn’t it good to enjoy a night of deep sleep at a camp? I know the answer is ‘yes’, but that wasn’t my experience last night. Can’t blame campers or leaders of kookaburras. I guess it was just one of those nights.

We began the day with the usual Leader’s Meeting. I really enjoy the chance to sit with the camp leaders at the start of the day, to pray together, to hear about what’s planned for the day, and any final announcements that need to be made. This is a good group of leaders, with a number of the team on their first or second camp. Please continue praying for them and do so with thankfulness. I am.

From there a group met together to pray before breakfast. Again, it is a delight to meet with a group of teenagers and leaders who want to pray for what’s happening at camp and beyond. Will there be as many at the prayer meeting tomorrow morning? We’ll find out.

Our devotions at this camp, like our group studies, are based on the COMA method of reading the Bible. This acronym stands for Context, Observation, Meaning, & Application. It is our hope that this wonderful group of people can learn a model of reading the Bible they can take away with them and apply it in their own Bible reading. If you have someone at camp, ask them about it when they get home. Why not take it on yourself? 

Some achievements should be celebrated

 The worship session this morning included a mix of songs both old and new, a review of the book “The Case for Faith” by Lee Strobel, and the first of our vox pop videos. It is a great way to start the session by reminding ourselves of what has happened the day before. The Bible was opened and we read from Romans 3:21-31 to remind us of the sacrifice of Jesus and the significance of that. “Propitiation” is a word that teenagers don’t use much now – in fact it’s a word you probably don’t use either – but today they learned what it means and why it is an important concept as we speak about the death of Jesus. 

The gospel brings freedom from God’s anger.

Because the weather for tomorrow is looking like it’s going to be wet and cold, we swapped our planned activities, which means that today we had people hiking up to Boronia Peak, or a short drive to MacKenzie Falls, or a stroll into Halls Gap for ice-cream and other good things. Being in the Grampians makes these kind of activities worth doing.

It is good to be out in the hills enjoying the glory of God’s great creation.

After a magnificent dinner tonight we had a first set of workshops. Tonight the options were

• ·         Pleasures we can’t have
• ·         Help! My friend is depressed.
• ·         Being a Christian in a hostile world.
• ·         What is the Gospel?

If you have someone at camp, please ask them about the workshops they have attended and what they learned there.  

To finish the day – and what a day it has been – there was a game of Capture the Flag across the campsite. Glowsticks and balloons are important parts of this game. When that was done we had supper and various kinds of card games happening inside. Who knew you could have a game happening on such a long table?

That's a lot of people in one game