#studycamp

Ok so now that I am finally home and I can have a few days of holidays, plus the fact that I am waiting for movies to download means I have enough time to give detailed descriptions of my past two weeks, which haven proven to be full of physical, emotional, religious and self-realising growth. I thought about the best way to write these posts and I figure that two consecutive posts that cover the two separate trips I took would be the best way. They'll be long, but will have pretty pictures so bear with me !

I led on a Crusader's HSC study camp at Fitzroy Falls from the 1-6th of July and it was mind blowingly amazing.

Day One

The day we left for camp certainly set the tone for the week that was to follow. After picking Jaynell up at like 8.30 in the morning with an estimated time of departure being 9am and having to make a round trip due to a certain someone forgetting items from her luggage, my mother loaded up the car and we were on our way.

The first obstacle being a car crash outside the national park. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burning rubber causing us to take a rather long but fantastically scenic detour through the national park. We eventually arrived, full of junk food and pies thanks to a quick pit stop and empty of sanity after a treacherous stretch winding road at the site half an hour late.

The day went by in a whirl. In between getting assigned the job of helping with signing laptops out and supervising study sessions it was no surprise that the night activities crept up on us. Joyful to meet our new discussion group we played a few games including Queen Lizzie and some form of chair game which involved racing around the room. 

Night duty was definitely a highlight - not being good at telling people to go to bed I ended up giggling more than sending people on their way, but finally all the girls (I hope) were tucked in and I was free to hang in the leader's cottage. My roomies were amazing -Jaynell, Hollie and Bek and of course us female leader's sat up just talking for a while in the leader's lounge (No boys allowed). 

This was probably the earliest night for bed for us and it was probably a good thing considering how long the week ended up being.

Day Two

I think we literally fell out of bed in haste to get the girls out of the cabins and hit the breakfast room ASAP. Which of course we did (though admittedly there was more than one stifled yawn and hastily tied back bed hairdo in the room). Breakfast on the first day was interesting - we didn't really know the students yet but it was time to start letting God work through us to plant seeds in their souls and begin the process of opening their hearts. It was only appropriate that we began the morning with a Talk.  The first talk we heard was on the Old Testament. We learnt about What happened in the beginning and started to tackle a few of the hurdles to overcoming faith. Our first talk was on scripture and its meaning in the bible and we were privileged enough to hear our speaker's testimony as well as Nicolle's ! They were so inspirational and encouraging to hear.

After the talk it was straight to the first of 6 hours of compulsory study for the students and the first leader's meeting for us. After a haphazard distribution of laptops and a quick debrief about how the day would run, we were left with enough free time to let the leader's scatter far and wide in a desperate bid to find some reception (yay Optus), to chat, read by the fire or of course, go exploring !

The rest of the day followed similarly until we got to discussions groups.

Our group met up in one of the empty girl's rooms and we had our first real chance to chat to the girls. We had a few ice breaker activities, Bec and I shared our testimony and then we settled into a deep conversation about religion. I have to say it was tough, though encouraging. It was disheartening to see that my girl's didn't know how badly they needed God in their lives, but encouraging to see the two strong Christian girls talk about how much they needed Him. I was worried about answering questions but praise God that he was able to take the reigns and provide answers I didn't even know I could give. I have to say that the session left me feeling more optimistic and hopeful than the ones that followed !

Our night activities gave me the first real opportunity to get to know some of the kids. We had an avengers themed wide game that involved going between 'Avenger characters' to collect Clues that eventually led us to rescue Sam. The scene was set well when three of the boys dressed in hoodies actually kidnapped Sam to begin with and the students shrieked and giggled as the lights went off and during the 'explanation' giving by our very own Agent Holbeck. Bec aka The Black Widow gave us an interesting challenge involving climbing over, through or under holes in a spider web made of ropes, passing the entire team bar leaders through (Bek and myself) with each member only being allowed through one hole once. Mike aka Thor had an interesting eating challenge which resulted in me consuming a combination of spread cheese, sardines, honey and a biscuit due to every answer my team mates got wrong. I was happy to do it, but I definitely regretted it later thinking I was going to vomit ! (on the plus side during supper I was able to use that as a way to initiate myself into the Group of Alos boys on camp !). Jono M aka Iron Man gave us a challenge to answer physics questions which turned out to be redundant as his answer key was mixed up and we gained the point automatically. Jono L was the Hulk and gave us a 200 push ups challenge, which we nailed in about 3 minutes ! Finally Rob aka Captain America tied us all in a line and said to gain the point we had to stay still and connected for five minutes. Unfortunately for him the coordinators of the game said it was over and I made him cut us off early and give us the point anyways ! 

We didn't end up winning but I did feel very happy at the end that the students seemed to be getting along so well !! 

The night ended fairly similarly to the previous night with huge d and ms and giggling when Jono M awkwardly came into the room while we were sitting around in pjays !! 

Day Three

Day Three started much like Day Two. Our talk was on Science and the Bible. Massively controversial, intense and maybe not as well run as we'd all hoped. But praise God that our discussion group took off as we talked about why we NEED the Gospel. 

That night we ran seminars. The historicity of the Gospel run by Bec only had 1 person show up, but at least that's one person that can defend the Gospel more clearly now !! I ran a suffering seminar with Alex and Lyzzi in which I gave my testimony and God used Alex to smash out a really solid talk about suffering. We fielded alot of really tough questions about Hell, Purgatory, Limbo, death and sin but I think God definitely used us to work through the issues and I think we did a pretty sound job. From what I heard the Sex and Relationship talk went OFF. There was heaps of Q&A and plenty of tears !! 

After everyone went to bed I started feeling pretty sick and unfortunately missed out on Breaky the next morning due to being faint and nauseous. I perked up eventually though !

Day Four

The fourth day saw the first of the tears to be shed about how emotionally draining discussion groups could be. Questions were hard to answer, students hard to open up but I think on the whole my team was sooo supportive. Mads, Mike, Merrilyn, Bec, Bek, Holbeck, Jaynell, Rob, Jono M, Jono L, Sam, Nicolle, Lyzzi, Morgan, Hollie, Alex, Claire and Lachie your prayers and love helped me grow so much during the week and I honestly am so thankful that you are my family in Christ and we have eternity together. Day Four morning passed pretty much the same as the previous two, but with out talk focussing on miracles and whether or not they really happened. It was segued amazingly into discussion group talk about the greatest miracle of all being that of the ressurrection of Christ. It was a hard topic to discuss but thankfully Bec was able to field alot of the questions about the evidence given in the Gospel. It was interesting to hear the barriers the girls had to coming to Christ but again disappointing that certain girls seemd less likely to make it work than others. I wanted so badly to talk straight up to the girls but found it hard to remain respectful ! 

That night was pretty chilled. Half the crowd watched the origin and the other half just chilled around playing Board Games. One to note was some crazy game with flash cards that made us do silly things like spray Rob in Cherryblossom perfume or steal branches from the outside world.

At this point in time camp was starting to wear on me. I was getting stressed that I was becoming too familiar with the male campers and they seemed very joking around me, but boys will be boys and I wasn't overly concerned !!

Day Five

Ahhhh TODAY WAS THE DAY. Stressing like CRAZYYYY because the talent show was going to be a flopppppp we had to come up with alternatives !! We decided to run a movie instead. And can I Just say the Hall looked AMAZING with the decorations. Check out my Facebook for photos of the night !! SOOOO GREAT !!

Our talk this morning was about the laws of the Bible. Bec and I were getting soooo freaked out. We had no idea what to talk to the girls about during discussion groups because we seemed to have taken a step backwards and we both were just emotionally drained as one of the campers seemed hell bent on destroying any chance of anyone else becoming a Christian in our group. We tried to talk to them again but the girl made things so hard. We both just broke down into tears. And we needed the whole camp to support us and pray for us. Which was of course AMAZING.

The eighties night went down spectacularly with a fashion show and a few inappropriate moments/comments but on the whole it was just amazing. 

Day Six