PYV Summer Camp 2017 – Day Five. New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve 2017

Why do we do what we do? There are a number of answers to this, most of them equally good, but one towers above them all. We do camps to lead people to faith in Jesus. And we have seen this happen. Young men and women who have Christian knowledge and families have this week had this turn into a personal faith. Hallelujah!

Where yesterday’s talk was about getting romantic relationships right, today’s talk was about getting friendship relationships right. The book of proverbs was a good place for us to spend this time as there is much to say about friendships here. Some old writers also have some good things to say about friendship. Here’s a good one from Augustine:

In this world two things are essential: a healthy life and friendship.

The study groups were a good place to continue the discussion on friendship by first starting with a list of what friends do and what they don’t do. From there we looked through a number of passages from Proverbs on friendship and created another list. It was positive to see that there was a number of similarities in the lists. We hope that good friendships have been created on this camp, and look forward to seeing them develop over the next few years.

The afternoon included some activities in our groups before a great game of dodgeball with water balloons. It’s a warm afternoon so throwing water balloons at each other is a brilliant idea.

Over the days of camp there has been something else happening which I haven’t recorded in my blog yet, and that is the afternoon prayer meeting. This has been led by Jacob, one of our younger leaders, and has been attended by 20-30 people each afternoon. Some of you know how good it is to hear young people pray and here is where that happens.

Something else that has happened each day, or rather each night, is the Radio Show. Our hosts for the show this year were Kellie McLeod and Hayden Millsteed. They were funny and entertaining and involved the campers each evening. Ryan was also there making sure things worked. Tonight we don’t get to listen to them, but that’s because it’s New Year’s Eve.

Our costume theme this Summer Camp is “Under the Sea” and once again, there were some outstanding costumes. Some were obvious, some took a bit more thought to work out, and some were brilliant. I was going to include a few photos, but you’ll have to wait another day.  

After dinner and some outside time, we enjoyed a trivia night and then a movie. With the “Under the Sea” theme, there are a few films that would fit, and “Finding Nemo” is one of them. It’s so long since I have seen it that I had forgotten most of the storyline. Except the seagulls. It’s hard to forget the seagulls.

In past years we have had a bit of a dance party in the hour or two before midnight. Over recent years we have noticed that the number of people getting involved in this has been reducing. So, daring to do something different, we made a change. This year we began to sing worship songs at 11.45pm. Our final song finished with three seconds to go before midnight, so we were able to celebrate the beginning of the year together as usual.

Then we divided into our study groups to pray together. Some people like to drink to celebrate. Some like to dance. Some like to do other things too. We pray. We worship. We encourage each other.

Friends, if you have been praying for this camp, and if you have been praying that God would glorify himself by transforming the hearts and lives of young people, then your prayers have been answered.

Thank you.