Its been a great day at East Camp, although it’s also fair
to say that the activities in the middle of the
day involved some difficult
walking. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 
The day began with the leaders meeting and then a prayer
meeting. I’ll always say how encouraging I find these gatherings. Firstly I
enjoy meeting together with the leaders early in the day. It is such an encouragement
to this old bloke to see a group of young adults (and a few even younger) who
have given up whatever else they might have been doing for three days to be
here where they can serve the campers. I am grateful for them. Secondly, I love
to see a group of young people get together to pray in the morning. If it’s
good to do this at home, it’s even better to do at camp.
Breakfast was more than good – our team in the kitchen are
spoiling us today with a cooked breakfast, and the food got better as the day
went on. Lunch we had soup, bread, and lamb rolls. And a roast dinner tonight!
Absolutely brilliant. The kitchen team really are the unsung heroes of camps
like these.
Our pre-session study group get-together seems to be working
wonderfully well. The feedback so far seems to be that it is helping the teenagers
to be better prepared and better focussed on the sermon as they hear things
they’ve already discussed. This then leads into some better discussions when
the groups meet after the talks.
Today’s talk led us to consider the person behind the
Gospel. Dave pointed out that when we talk about ‘the gospel’ we make it sound
like a thing. But it’s more than a thing – the gospel is the good news of Jesus
Christ. The gospel is a person.
After lunch we went into our long afternoon activities
session. There are two things you should know about the activities at East Camp.
The first is that they are based around the theme of ‘mission impossible’, and
each group is seeking to find the clues and solve the puzzles to lead them to
the answer they need. This took us to various points around the campsite with a
good walk in between each point.
The second thing to know is what the campsite is like. I
didn’t come to East Camp last year, so when people talked about how steep the
hills were, I thought they might have been exaggerating.
They weren’t!
And the walk from the final clue back to the main camp was .
. . well, let’s just say it’s a while since I’ve walked up a hill that steep
and that long. (But I made it)
Our costumes were put on before the camp photo and, not
surprisingly, there was a lot of black jackets, black pants, and sunglasses. There
were other ‘secret agents’, and some that were a little more creative. I have
grown to love the costume photos from camps, and to see the creativity amongst
many of our young people.
After a long and wonderful dinner, we were back to some more
sleuthing to solve the final puzzles that would lead a team to “the files”.
Congratulations to all the teams for getting so involved, and to T.A.N.G.O. for
winning the chase.
Tomorrow is our final day. And I am sure it will be a good day.
I hope your children will have a lot to talk about when they get home.
(Sorry there's no photos on this post.)
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