I guess this would be the highlight of the year for me. Coming back from Kem Puncak Permai, Bau really gave me tons of new experiences and friends. Within just 4 days, I conquered 5 of my fears. I'm just amazed.
11 Dec 2008
Arrived at church around 8am. Surprised to hear that i am one of the 8 group leaders for the camp. The teams are Bau, Lundu, Kuching, Matang, Serian, Kota Samarahan, and Santubong. Mine is called SINIAWAN aka, Sini Awan.. haha.. a group of 37.
Arrived at the NS camp around 10 something. Strolled around camp for a little while. Lunch at 12. Pleasantly surprised to see the NS toilet. 100 times better than the NS camp in Serian. Can't thank the Lord more for the toilet..
2p.m.: Icebreaker starting. The other leader of my group from Sibu has not yet arrived. She is Rev Tie's daughter. Even before she arrived, i already have feeling of respect for her. The game started. As group leader i was supposed to carry out the games with the group. Games????!!!!!! Anyway, to cut the long story short, i managed to lamely finish the games. Fear number one----- CONQUERED!!
After the games, Jan, Rev Tie's daughter approached me to say hi. I was a little taken aback and don't know what to sat so i just said hi and "See you Around". Felt a bit pai sei, it was her who approached me first and not the other way around. Wwhat kind of guy am i?
The night was the introductory talk and P&W by SIB church.
12 Dec 2008
Had morning devotion with the guys in my dormintory. 19 of us altogether, including advisor Derek which looked quite young. Had mistaken him as one of the participants had he not hinted unintentionally that he is an advisor. Devotion went well. Some only woke up at the last minute though.
Breakfast was satisfactory although not enough to fill my stomach nor the other 200-odd participants. Flies are high in population. Where are the frogs and lizards when you needed them? hmm.. anyway.. i expected that.. thank God no cockroaches. :)
Morning had the first talk, followed by a workshop. I chose the workshop on identifying your spiritual gifts. The analysis showed that i am gifted to compassion, shepherding, serving and encouragement. I saw that some participants were gifted in tongues and interpretation, something i didn't expect.
The afternoon we went to Mt Singai! Had my first test as group leader. 2 went missing even before the trip started. I searched high and low for them. I counted and recounted at least ten times, thinking i miscounted. But I didn't. Alas we left without them. I didn't check by ticking the names because i forgotten thier names and was a little pai sei to ask.
In the evening, i was shocked when i find out the last night would be what they call the Challenge Night. We are required to come out with either a sketch or or song to present on that night. What?! Me? Directing a sketch? During the night my mind was already in slumber mode. I barely could think. I told Jan about it. I prayed to God for help. Miraculously, the group members had ideas and by God's grace i was able to process the ideas and create a whole sketch! Praise The Lord! With further discussions with some of the members, the rough daft is completed. I had to leave the discussions early because I had P&W practice.
13 Dec 2008
PRayed that i'll wake up early. God woke me up at 4:50a.m. Went back to sleep though. Was really tired from the lack of sleep and energy consuming activities during the day.
Did devotion with the Siniawan boys team again. They seem pretty receptive and not many yawned throughout.
Breakfast was not enough again but i still praised God that i can eat. In any other camp, whatever goes in will surely come out. Today, I had a lot on my mind. The sketch details weren't fully finalised, the members are still in the dark on what is going on and there hadn't been any practice yet. Pressure! (For the 1st time in the camp)
After the talk, i joined another workshop. It was on BGR. The workshop is done by Auntie Grace and it was superb. Learnt a lot. One thing i learnt is that if someone said to you, "If you love me, you will have sex with me", just tell him, "Go to hell!"... well... at least that is what the speaker said.
I learnt a few things about girls too. They are:
- talkative
- expressive while listening
- relational-oriented
- intuitive but not good in spatial (direction) skills
- multi-tasker
- better liars
- stimulated through their ears
- Girls want relationships, stability and love.
BGR is just such a complex issue.
In the afternoon, right after lunch, I immediately went up with team and started telling them thier roles. Problem was, I lost the paper that has the details!! Like i would always tell people, Jeremy don't lose things, its just that they can't be found at that moment. True enough, I found it 2 days later.. he he.. anyway, luckily some of my members remembered the details so we were off to work. we set the practice time at 430p.m.
Then we had some games. It was divided into 3 parts. The first part for our team was the futsal, ping pong and netball part. SOme of us decided to skip this part to focus on the prep for our sketch. Then, we had the kayaking segment. My favourite! At first when i went into the boat, i felt like the boat was going to overturn. I was soooooo scared. After a while, i got used to it. Then my partner and i started to row freely., nearly bumping into the shores, humans and fellow kayakers. It was fun. I wished it was longer.
The last segment was the obstacle race. The 1st part was balancing on a moving plank. I had some problems but fortunately did not create history by becoming the only one from my group to fall. The we had to climb a wall of my height. No sweat! The next was to walk on top of a narrow wall also somewhere my height. A piece of cake--NOT! There was a hole in the wall. You had to cross from one wall to another wall while balancing yourself on a narrow walkway of around 20cm! My team mates walk across as if it was nothing. The moment i arrived in front of the "hole" I froze. I just couldn't move. The moment i lifted my leg, my whole body became weak. No exagerration. Then, i heard people shouting at me, encouraging me to cross. One even called me "si ai bin"! By God's grace i crossed not just one, but two holes, to the claps of my team members. Phew! My fear of heights is conquered!
Up next is the monkey bars which was easy. The we had the tarzan swing. Using a rope, we had to swing from one end to the other without crashing into the pool underneath. I thought it was easy. I was wrong. I tried 4 times and each time i crashed straight into the pool. It was already almost 5p.m. I retimed the practice to 5. I knew i was running out of time but i didn't want to give up until i conquered the tarzan swing. I finally did. On my fifth try. It was 4:55p.m.
After rushing through my bath, i arrived at the practice place only to find 5 of my members there. The rest was nowhere to be found. Only at 5:45p.m. did we manage to gather everyone there. Even then, we did not have even time to do a run-through. Iwas just so nervous.
During P&W, I was totally exhausted. While people was jumping thier way in worship, i went to the side to catch a shut eye. Alomst immediately, the sound system couldn't work though i doubted if it had anything to do with me. After 10 minutes, it resumed to normal. I only went back towards the end of the worship.
The sketch went on quite well. Praise the Lord!
14 DEC 2008
Was super nervous before my turn to lead worship in my church. The Youth Convention was shifted there on the last day. Throngs of blue t-shirts filled the sanctuary with a touch of youth. Didn't do much jumping though. Wasn't inspired to.. but also nervousness got the better of me. But praise God I wasn't over-nervous.. if you know what i mean... bet you don't..
After church we went to Doulos. Was raining. In the bookstore, it was humidly, superly, agonisingly hot. Was sweating more than i can read. Imagine more than 300 people suddenly in the bookstore the size of a mini mph in spring without fan or air-con! We then went to a small hall to an event called "One-Step". Praise God there's air-con. But after a while all the oxygen got sucked up by 300 people so i became dizzy again. One of my advisors was leaving early so i immediately hopped out with his family. The moment i stepped out of the boat, i felt refreshed. Caution: Bring oxygen tanks into DOulos.. hehe..
Conclusion
I learnt a lot through this camp. Sounds very cliche right? But its through. Didn't regret coming or leading this group. God has worked wonders. My only prayer is that this experience will stick and spur me to be better and better.
My group and i.. not clear but hope you can see me..
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