Beware: Really long post! Finally got around to finishing it!
Last Friday (10th July) finally marked the beginning of our two and a bit day Oddfellows Youth Group camp, the first one for our group! There was a bit of a crisis the night before with the clothes that we had put in the wash still not being fully dried. Our clothes dryer doesn't work so we had to put all our clothes near the fireplace and hope they'd dry! We also realised that one of our camera batteries wasn't fully charging and so we were scrambling to find somewhere that would sell one, which wasn't a success! We'd just have to make sure we had at least one of the two other batteries charged at any time.
We didn't end up starting packing till late Thursday night. We had to watch 24 first of course!
We arrived at church late on Friday morning to discover everyone was already there! As soon as we got there though the teams were announced and we started loading the cars with our baggage. I was in charge of Group 4 (with the help of Youth Group leader Fiona), which had Jireh, Carmen, Daisy and Ben. We were the ultimate group and we were determined to make sure our team won all group competitions!
Last Friday (10th July) finally marked the beginning of our two and a bit day Oddfellows Youth Group camp, the first one for our group! There was a bit of a crisis the night before with the clothes that we had put in the wash still not being fully dried. Our clothes dryer doesn't work so we had to put all our clothes near the fireplace and hope they'd dry! We also realised that one of our camera batteries wasn't fully charging and so we were scrambling to find somewhere that would sell one, which wasn't a success! We'd just have to make sure we had at least one of the two other batteries charged at any time.
We didn't end up starting packing till late Thursday night. We had to watch 24 first of course!
We arrived at church late on Friday morning to discover everyone was already there! As soon as we got there though the teams were announced and we started loading the cars with our baggage. I was in charge of Group 4 (with the help of Youth Group leader Fiona), which had Jireh, Carmen, Daisy and Ben. We were the ultimate group and we were determined to make sure our team won all group competitions!
Our first opportunity was the Digital Scavenger Hunt - each team had to take pictures of certain things on the way to the campsite, such as a yellow car, a school, gorse, etc. Our group had the SLR so we had a bit of an advantage! (You've gotta take whatever you've got in order to ensure your team wins right??) The only problem was sometimes when we went past something we needed to get a photo of, such as a police car, and by the time I was ready to shoot, it was already gone! By the time we got to camp though we were pretty confident we had taken photos of most things on the list though!
Once we all arrived, we held off on unpacking as the cabins hadn't been cleaned yet, so Lyndon, the camp manager took us on a tour around the campsite. He showed us the lake and the kayaks, the flying fox, the confidence courses, the archery range and the go-kart track. The recurring theme seemed to be 'be careful or else you can get injured or even DIE!'. Apparently some boy drowned in the lake because he was wearing denim shorts, so that was a big no-no. Pointing a bow and arrow was also a big no-no. So was treating the kayaks like bumper boats...
Lyndon understandably went over-time taking us around the campsite and telling us all the rules and dangers (sooo many!), but that was OK. He became an icon to us! By the time the cabins had been cleaned, we returned to the cars to get our stuff and take them to the cabins before having shared lunch. Us older guys got Cabin 3, which was on one side of the common room, while the older girls got the cabin on the other side of the common room. The younger guys and girls got the two cabins across the lawn from us. Our cabin had seven beds, but there was a bit of a problem. While there were seven guys, there was also the adult in our cabin - On. He ended up having to sleep on the couch!
We went to enjoy the shared lunch that each of us had contributed to before going into the common room, which would end up being our makeshift hall for the camp. We played a quick game of 'roll the car across the room' relay, where you had to push a toy matchbox car across the room with your head without using your arms. I was first to go for my team and I think I broke the car when I pushed hard down on it! Our team managed to win that game though and Jireh decided he'd go another few more times while the other teams tried to finish!
Jenny and Lisa then announced the rules to this ongoing game we'd be playing throughout the entire duration of the camp, where each of us would pick a slip of paper. The person who gets the slip of paper that is marked with a cross will be the 'murderer'. He/she will then try to claim the magnet on the table and for the duration of the camp have to show the magnet to people in order to 'kill' them. Those who die then have to write their name down on the 'Murdered List' along with the time they got killed. Others who aren't dead yet could also put down the name of the person they think is the murderer and the time they list the 'suspect's' name. The winner of the game will be the first person to guess the murderer.
The game didn't exactly go according to plan! It was revealed later in the night that two people, Jenny and Claire both got a piece of paper with a cross on it, and also because of a bit of confusion as to what the murder weapon was (it was initially the magnet but the toy fish was also suggested as the murder weapon). After Claire killed a few people, Jenny and Claire ended up killing each other! Once it was realised, the game had to be reset. This time someone else was the killer...the only thing was Jenny was the first to be killed!
Anyway, back to Friday afternoon, after we finished the game, we all set off outside. The first activity was trust building games. There was an area with several different little activities for separate groups. The first activity involved half of the group members each standing on wooden posts at one end, and the other half of the group members standing on wooden posts at the other end of the row of wooden posts. The task was for both halves of the group to get to the opposite end, which involved climbing over group members! The challenge was not to step off the wooden posts and touch the ground. There was a similar activity but instead of standing on wooden posts, group members had to stand on one long wooden log.
Another activity involved trying to get all group members to walk along a cross wire. This meant team members had to support each other to the end! Another activity involved having to create a bridge using the correct planks of wood and then getting group members to cross the bridge. ANOTHER activity was like a scale. Group members had to work out how many members needed to stand on either side of the log to balance it.
Once we completed those activities, it was time to split up - we could choose to either try out go-karting or archery. The go-karts were little trolleys that you can sit in and steer. There are no brakes, so you roll down the hill and as the hill gets less steep you slow down and stop...or that's what is supposed to happen! Most of the guys chose to try out the karts, no surprises there!
Claire had warned us earlier that when she went on this camp at Rangeview (like a lot of us had done), someone at her camp tried the karts injured themselves badly! This made us all a little weary of what to expect. As it turns out, it wasn't actually too bad! There were three tracks, the red, blue and yellow track (in order of increasing difficulty). The red track was not very fast, and everyone managed to master the blue track. However, when we all moved to the yellow track, that's when things started to get a little crazy! Hamish only travelled around one corner before flipping over completely in his kart! He looked a little shaken and was holding his hand. We were afraid he might have broken something, but fortunately the blood on his finger was from a graze. Andrew flipped in his kart too, while Ben suffered from two crashes, one right at the end when he flipped his kart, and one when he drove into the tyre barrier!
We joined the girls at the archery. Apparently quite a few of them got bulls eyes! They let us have a go at it before we moved onto the obstacle course. Lisa the pro helped us out! I wasn't good enough to get a bulls eye, but at least I hit the board!
And now it was time for...THE OBSTACLE COURSE! Once again there were three levels - red, blue and yellow, with red the easiest and yellow the hardest. The obstacle course involved swinging on a rope to a net, climbing a net, swinging on tyres and walking along balance beams all over a dirty stretch of water!
Claire got things going and she didn't do so badly! She completed the red level in just over 5 minutes! After that we sorta lost track of how fast people completed the course as we tried getting as many people completing it before it got dark. I was trying to film as much as I could before the battery died.
We had a few long sticks that were named 'encouragement sticks' which were used to help people get through the course, like helping them across the balance beam. I tried to be as encouraging as I could with the camera, even though I couldn't help but film people dangling and falling into the water!
Once the battery died though I did take on the encouragement stick and tried helping people! Daisy, this girl in my group got stuck in a dangling tyre and just sat there for a while, causing a jam with all these other girls waiting for her to move! By then it was starting to get dark. I still hadn't had my turn yet. Lisa, the score-keeper hadn't had her go either and I was doing my best to exert some peer pressure on her but she wouldn't budge! She said she was going to do it the next day. Lucky for her it was raining the next day so she didn't have to!
After the last of the girls went (after a little while of encouraging them), I finally had my turn. I was originally going to attempt the yellow course in order to get enough points to tie our group with the leading team, but it was dark and cold and so I just went with the second hardest level. I managed to make it halfway through the course with not much problem, but when I got towards the end where I had to climb up a pole, then climb back down a rope to tyre steps along the side of the river, I was too tired to climb down the rope! I just decided to fall straight in the water! After having a little rest in the water and then the net, I managed to make it to the end!
I quickly ran back up to the cabins. I got inside our cabin to find the girls standing around talking. Jenny, a girl I sorta teased (in a friendly way of course...I just asked her if she could fall in the water again after I missed recording it on camera!) after she fell in the water, noticed I was all wet and laughed at me! I guess I deserved that one...
After a nice warm shower, dinner was ready in the common room. We had rice, soup and vegetables. Karvin, one of our youth group leaders had kindly prepared it for us!
The first worship singing was after dinner and was led by Aonghas, Gabrielle (another youth group leader) and me. We sang four songs, which were mostly upbeat songs. We had taught a few of the songs to some of the youth group members at the baking night earlier in the week, so they were familiar with a couple of them. The new song we taught involved a bit of competition between the girls and guys, which turned into a shouting match! Aonghas played on the keyboard while I tried jamming on the ukulele!
The evening's programme involved playing a couple of games. We played Spotlight, where everyone had to hide around the campsite outside, and one person (Daisy) had to find and catch people with her torch. I first hid under the porch, and she came by and shone her torch at me. I thought she would've seen me but she just walked off! After that I hid behind the cabins and just looked under the cabins for anyone or any lights approaching. I just happened to be crouching right outside the girls' toilet, and so whenever they flushed it was a bit scary! I was there for a long time, and heard some noise coming from the bushes, like burping and rustling. I tried to ask if anyone was there but got no response. After a while, I decided to just give up as I wasn't sure if the game was over yet. It turned out it wasn't over yet, but fortunately Jireh, who was in my team, was one of the last people to get caught, which meant we scored some points anyway!
We also played this game where each team was given some string and a spoon. You had to tie the string to the spoon, then the spoon and string had to go down the clothes of one person, then up through the clothes of the next person, and so on. We were taking our time till Gabrielle reminded us it was a race! It was really funny. I hope no one mistakenly used those spoons without washing them first!
Once the games were over, we were free to do whatever we wanted for a while. Aonghas, Hamish, Cleo, Claire and Lisa had formed their own little group and had a very intense bonding session. I'm not too sure what they talked about but it seemed to be pretty amusing (going by the laughing going on!).
I was with On (another youth group leader), Jireh, Jenny, Miriam, Stephanie, Gabrielle and Andrew having a little singing session. On had brought some lyrics with him so we were doing a bit of singing. Miriam also impressed us with her really good classical guitar playing! Once On went off to sleep, Jireh, Miriam, Andrew and Jenny played a bit of the Chinese music they had on their phones for us to listen to. Once I got hooked, they decided they'd try teach me how to sing a Chinese song! The lucky song - Kiss Goodbye by Wang Lee Hom! Only after they started teaching me did they realise they had just taught me a break-up song!
It was really cool though. They typed up the lyrics on the laptop, and then tried teaching me the characters and getting me to figure out what it all meant in English. It was really nice of them! It was about 3am by the time I had learnt the chorus! We did a bit of the first verse, but it got a bit late and we decided we'd try get some sleep!
My brothers and I sneaked back into our cabin, trying not to wake the others and On, who was sleeping on the couch. We were in a separate bedroom and a bit of a crisis as Hamish, who was in charge of the duty roster, had not printed it out and neither did Gabrielle! Aonghas managed to find it on his phone though and wrote it out.
I have to say the sleep was pretty terrible that night! I only got a few hours, and the time I slept it was not too great. For a start, I'm pretty sure my sleeping bag is a children's sleeping bag! It was also so cold my nose was freezing by the time I woke up!
I was one of the last to wake up, and by the time I had gotten up everyone was already well into their breakfast. While we were eating it, Claire had the music turned up and we just sang along as we ate.
After breakfast Cleo and I were leading worship, with Cleo playing the guitar and me doing a little on the ukulele. We sang a few songs, including Shadowfeet by Brooke Fraser. We had practised the song a bit the night before during our little singing session and everyone was into it, so we were counting on them to sing up with us! They did sorta, but they did sound quite dead! It must've been the late night.
Straight after worship we watched a video about this guy called Nick Vujicic, who was born with no arms and no limbs. The video was of him giving a speech to high school students on being nice to others, making the most of what you got and so on. It was very inspirational and it really did strike a chord with most of us! We had a bit of group discussion before our group had to leave early to make lunch - macaroni and cheese!
I did the odd job around the place, while Carmen and Daisy diced the bacon and Ben cooked it. While we were doing this, we came up with our skit for the concert that would be held later that night. We were going to get at least each person in youth group to do something they wouldn't usually do!
Once we finished preparing lunch, we went back into the common room to see the other groups working on their skits while Karvin and Claire slept upright on the couch with jackets covering their bodies!
After lunch, it was decided that the weather was too bad for us to go outside, so we would just stay inside for the rest of the day and have group competitions and games. Some of the games included a roley-poley race, where two members of each group had to roll across the room but with their feet always touching at any time. We also played a game where we got into a circle and Gabrielle was in the middle shooting people. If they ducked fast enough the two people on either side of that person had to try shoot the other person. Whoever was the slowest was out. I was too slow and got shot! The final showdown was between Lisa and Jenny. I was cheering on Lisa as I originally thought her team had less points. It turns out I should've been cheering on Jenny! We also played a game where two team members held a piece of string and other team members had to blow pieces of paper from one side to the other the fastest. Our team was accused of cheating the first time! We didn't cheat the second time though!
After the games we had some free time to practise our skits before dinner, worship and the concert. Since our group didn't need to practise as it was going to be on the spot, Jireh, Miriam and I did a bit more Chinese singing. I swear I had that Kiss Goodbye song stuck in my head all weekend!
We had burgers for dinner, and after dinner Lisa, Aonghas and Gabrielle led worship. The keyboard malfunctioned a bit while Aonghas was playing it and created bit of a techno-remix sound! Fortunately he managed to regain his place and we made it to the end!
After worship, it was time for our camp concert! It started off with Aonghas and Claire's group combined to perform a skit about Aonghas being late for university. All the others involved were Aonghas's ever-changing props! We saw Jenny as Aonghas's fridge and car, Hamish as Aonghas's bathroom mirror, schoolbag and a motorcycle, and Vanessa as a chair! In the end Aonghas tried to have a drag race with the motorcycle, crashed in to a barrier arm and died. The main message: do not speed!
Alvin, Robert and Brendan were next to impress us with their shuffling skills! They were pretty good!
Finally, it was our skit! We called it the 'Who's Your Favourite...? Gameshow'! We started off by getting On to do a Britney Spears impersonation, which he's famous for! We also got to see Aonghas attempting some ballet dancing, Rebecca and Robert doing shuffling (coincidence?), Brendan and Stephanie singing a Cantonese song together (or lip-syncing anyway!). We tried to get Andrew and Vanessa to do stand-up comedy, but that didn't go so well. Andrew was left on stage trying to get Vanessa who wouldn't come up. It looked a bit like a drama involving a husband to come back! Similarly, we had a bit of trouble getting Lisa and Justin to beat-box, and Claire and Hamish to rap about grass. Claire was game though and rapped a few lines, while Hamish just stood there silent while we were all anticipating something to come out of him!
Things were a bit better with Gabrielle and Jenny having to do krumping. Once I showed them how to do it (just going spastic!) they did a little before walking off! It was funny when it was announced that we wanted Jenny to do krumping. She got up, stormed towards me, pointing at me saying this was all because of me! I think it must've been when I joked to her before camp about krumping!
Cleo and Alvin were called up to do gymnastics, but when they just stood there doing stretches, Jireh got up and started showing us some somersaults which landed with some pretty loud thumps! He didn't even look injured by them either!
The grand finale was Karvin and Miriam doing the robot. They actually did it too!
The final concert item was...me singing in Chinese! I managed to bring my back-up band up (Jenny, Andrew, Jireh, Gabrielle, Miriam and Stephanie) with me to sing! I had people shouting out
"I LOVE YOU CALUM!!!"
and someone presenting me with bread (hey, it's the next best thing after a bouquet of flowers!).
And now it was free time! It didn't start off as well as Friday night though. While Aonghas, Hamish, Claire, Cleo, Gabrielle and Andrew got into some deep conversation that started off about religion and then got into some other more personal stuff, Jireh and I had nothing to do!
Some of us played Twister though! The girls had a go first. I jumped in when the game only had three people and was going nowhere. I ended up having to lean over this other guy Ben, which didn't look too great! I ended up falling over and landing on everyone!
After Twister died down, Jireh and I tried finding stuff to do. We created our own version of Twister DDR, before I noticed the stack of unused chairs, and remembered how the engineering students like to build chair pyramids! We then first created a maze with the chairs before we got Jenny to join in and we built out very own chair pyramid!
We dismantled it after a while so as to avoid any accidents. That's when Jireh, Jenny, Stephanie, Vanessa, Miriam, Ben and I formed our own little circle! The conversation started off in a very weird way, when we got Ben to tell us about some stuff.
Jireh and I ended up trying to steer the conversation in another direction (let's just say...at a higher level?). We wanted to get to know the girls a bit more as we still don't know as much as we'd like about them!
After a noodle break, Ben showed us a game of Land Owner (apparently there are two versions...). Jireh and Andrew tried to predict how each person would move before even making a move, which pretty much meant the game was over even before it started! The girls and I were just lying there on our pillows watching, and waiting for the game to start/end!
Eventually we passed Friday's sleeptime and by 6 am Aonghas's little circle decided they'd power nap. A few of us didn't really want to sleep so while we switched the lights off in the common room and they slept, Miriam and I just sat there together for a while till we decided we'd lie down and get a little rest!
Not too long after a few of us got around the heater and sat there under our blankets while the others were sleeping. Gabrielle had woken up and went around taking photos of people sleeping! I just did a little filming...nothing too bad! Because the girls in my group didn't help with supper the night before, Jireh and I decided we'd go and wake the girls up with heaps of loud noise and make them prepare breakfast! The rest of the girls who were up with us decided to join us, so we stormed their bedroom and woke Carmen and Daisy up! Carmen looked so funny as we woke her up! She was wriggling around in her bed! They claim they were already awake but we're not so sure...hmmm....
During breakfast, word spread that the 'murderer' was going on a killing spree! I just happened to see the 'murderer' kill Claire (by showing her the magnet!). It was...Robert!! I decided to avoid any eye contact with him for the rest of the morning, which meant walking backwards and keeping my eyes away from him while cleaning up the cabin, until he was declared the murderer!
Once the cabins were cleaned, Jenny and Miriam led a very beautiful worship with Miriam on guitar, before Gabrielle gave some emotional last words.
We headed outside for group, cabin and combined group photo before we got in our cars and headed home.
The ride home was completely the opposite to the ride there. Nearly everyone was falling asleep in the car I was travelling in! I would've let myself fall asleep, but I had leaned forward and the two guys beside me had fallen asleep behind me, so I couldn't lean back!
We got back to church, had some sandwiches for lunch before saying goodbye to everyone.
Overall camp was an awesome experience. We had so much fun and our youth group got so much closer together! They're all really great people and I can't wait till our next camp!
Jenny and Lisa then announced the rules to this ongoing game we'd be playing throughout the entire duration of the camp, where each of us would pick a slip of paper. The person who gets the slip of paper that is marked with a cross will be the 'murderer'. He/she will then try to claim the magnet on the table and for the duration of the camp have to show the magnet to people in order to 'kill' them. Those who die then have to write their name down on the 'Murdered List' along with the time they got killed. Others who aren't dead yet could also put down the name of the person they think is the murderer and the time they list the 'suspect's' name. The winner of the game will be the first person to guess the murderer.
The game didn't exactly go according to plan! It was revealed later in the night that two people, Jenny and Claire both got a piece of paper with a cross on it, and also because of a bit of confusion as to what the murder weapon was (it was initially the magnet but the toy fish was also suggested as the murder weapon). After Claire killed a few people, Jenny and Claire ended up killing each other! Once it was realised, the game had to be reset. This time someone else was the killer...the only thing was Jenny was the first to be killed!
Anyway, back to Friday afternoon, after we finished the game, we all set off outside. The first activity was trust building games. There was an area with several different little activities for separate groups. The first activity involved half of the group members each standing on wooden posts at one end, and the other half of the group members standing on wooden posts at the other end of the row of wooden posts. The task was for both halves of the group to get to the opposite end, which involved climbing over group members! The challenge was not to step off the wooden posts and touch the ground. There was a similar activity but instead of standing on wooden posts, group members had to stand on one long wooden log.
Another activity involved trying to get all group members to walk along a cross wire. This meant team members had to support each other to the end! Another activity involved having to create a bridge using the correct planks of wood and then getting group members to cross the bridge. ANOTHER activity was like a scale. Group members had to work out how many members needed to stand on either side of the log to balance it.
Once we completed those activities, it was time to split up - we could choose to either try out go-karting or archery. The go-karts were little trolleys that you can sit in and steer. There are no brakes, so you roll down the hill and as the hill gets less steep you slow down and stop...or that's what is supposed to happen! Most of the guys chose to try out the karts, no surprises there!
Claire had warned us earlier that when she went on this camp at Rangeview (like a lot of us had done), someone at her camp tried the karts injured themselves badly! This made us all a little weary of what to expect. As it turns out, it wasn't actually too bad! There were three tracks, the red, blue and yellow track (in order of increasing difficulty). The red track was not very fast, and everyone managed to master the blue track. However, when we all moved to the yellow track, that's when things started to get a little crazy! Hamish only travelled around one corner before flipping over completely in his kart! He looked a little shaken and was holding his hand. We were afraid he might have broken something, but fortunately the blood on his finger was from a graze. Andrew flipped in his kart too, while Ben suffered from two crashes, one right at the end when he flipped his kart, and one when he drove into the tyre barrier!
We joined the girls at the archery. Apparently quite a few of them got bulls eyes! They let us have a go at it before we moved onto the obstacle course. Lisa the pro helped us out! I wasn't good enough to get a bulls eye, but at least I hit the board!
And now it was time for...THE OBSTACLE COURSE! Once again there were three levels - red, blue and yellow, with red the easiest and yellow the hardest. The obstacle course involved swinging on a rope to a net, climbing a net, swinging on tyres and walking along balance beams all over a dirty stretch of water!
Claire got things going and she didn't do so badly! She completed the red level in just over 5 minutes! After that we sorta lost track of how fast people completed the course as we tried getting as many people completing it before it got dark. I was trying to film as much as I could before the battery died.
We had a few long sticks that were named 'encouragement sticks' which were used to help people get through the course, like helping them across the balance beam. I tried to be as encouraging as I could with the camera, even though I couldn't help but film people dangling and falling into the water!
Once the battery died though I did take on the encouragement stick and tried helping people! Daisy, this girl in my group got stuck in a dangling tyre and just sat there for a while, causing a jam with all these other girls waiting for her to move! By then it was starting to get dark. I still hadn't had my turn yet. Lisa, the score-keeper hadn't had her go either and I was doing my best to exert some peer pressure on her but she wouldn't budge! She said she was going to do it the next day. Lucky for her it was raining the next day so she didn't have to!
After the last of the girls went (after a little while of encouraging them), I finally had my turn. I was originally going to attempt the yellow course in order to get enough points to tie our group with the leading team, but it was dark and cold and so I just went with the second hardest level. I managed to make it halfway through the course with not much problem, but when I got towards the end where I had to climb up a pole, then climb back down a rope to tyre steps along the side of the river, I was too tired to climb down the rope! I just decided to fall straight in the water! After having a little rest in the water and then the net, I managed to make it to the end!
I quickly ran back up to the cabins. I got inside our cabin to find the girls standing around talking. Jenny, a girl I sorta teased (in a friendly way of course...I just asked her if she could fall in the water again after I missed recording it on camera!) after she fell in the water, noticed I was all wet and laughed at me! I guess I deserved that one...
After a nice warm shower, dinner was ready in the common room. We had rice, soup and vegetables. Karvin, one of our youth group leaders had kindly prepared it for us!
The first worship singing was after dinner and was led by Aonghas, Gabrielle (another youth group leader) and me. We sang four songs, which were mostly upbeat songs. We had taught a few of the songs to some of the youth group members at the baking night earlier in the week, so they were familiar with a couple of them. The new song we taught involved a bit of competition between the girls and guys, which turned into a shouting match! Aonghas played on the keyboard while I tried jamming on the ukulele!
The evening's programme involved playing a couple of games. We played Spotlight, where everyone had to hide around the campsite outside, and one person (Daisy) had to find and catch people with her torch. I first hid under the porch, and she came by and shone her torch at me. I thought she would've seen me but she just walked off! After that I hid behind the cabins and just looked under the cabins for anyone or any lights approaching. I just happened to be crouching right outside the girls' toilet, and so whenever they flushed it was a bit scary! I was there for a long time, and heard some noise coming from the bushes, like burping and rustling. I tried to ask if anyone was there but got no response. After a while, I decided to just give up as I wasn't sure if the game was over yet. It turned out it wasn't over yet, but fortunately Jireh, who was in my team, was one of the last people to get caught, which meant we scored some points anyway!
We also played this game where each team was given some string and a spoon. You had to tie the string to the spoon, then the spoon and string had to go down the clothes of one person, then up through the clothes of the next person, and so on. We were taking our time till Gabrielle reminded us it was a race! It was really funny. I hope no one mistakenly used those spoons without washing them first!
Once the games were over, we were free to do whatever we wanted for a while. Aonghas, Hamish, Cleo, Claire and Lisa had formed their own little group and had a very intense bonding session. I'm not too sure what they talked about but it seemed to be pretty amusing (going by the laughing going on!).
I was with On (another youth group leader), Jireh, Jenny, Miriam, Stephanie, Gabrielle and Andrew having a little singing session. On had brought some lyrics with him so we were doing a bit of singing. Miriam also impressed us with her really good classical guitar playing! Once On went off to sleep, Jireh, Miriam, Andrew and Jenny played a bit of the Chinese music they had on their phones for us to listen to. Once I got hooked, they decided they'd try teach me how to sing a Chinese song! The lucky song - Kiss Goodbye by Wang Lee Hom! Only after they started teaching me did they realise they had just taught me a break-up song!
It was really cool though. They typed up the lyrics on the laptop, and then tried teaching me the characters and getting me to figure out what it all meant in English. It was really nice of them! It was about 3am by the time I had learnt the chorus! We did a bit of the first verse, but it got a bit late and we decided we'd try get some sleep!
My brothers and I sneaked back into our cabin, trying not to wake the others and On, who was sleeping on the couch. We were in a separate bedroom and a bit of a crisis as Hamish, who was in charge of the duty roster, had not printed it out and neither did Gabrielle! Aonghas managed to find it on his phone though and wrote it out.
I have to say the sleep was pretty terrible that night! I only got a few hours, and the time I slept it was not too great. For a start, I'm pretty sure my sleeping bag is a children's sleeping bag! It was also so cold my nose was freezing by the time I woke up!
I was one of the last to wake up, and by the time I had gotten up everyone was already well into their breakfast. While we were eating it, Claire had the music turned up and we just sang along as we ate.
After breakfast Cleo and I were leading worship, with Cleo playing the guitar and me doing a little on the ukulele. We sang a few songs, including Shadowfeet by Brooke Fraser. We had practised the song a bit the night before during our little singing session and everyone was into it, so we were counting on them to sing up with us! They did sorta, but they did sound quite dead! It must've been the late night.
Straight after worship we watched a video about this guy called Nick Vujicic, who was born with no arms and no limbs. The video was of him giving a speech to high school students on being nice to others, making the most of what you got and so on. It was very inspirational and it really did strike a chord with most of us! We had a bit of group discussion before our group had to leave early to make lunch - macaroni and cheese!
I did the odd job around the place, while Carmen and Daisy diced the bacon and Ben cooked it. While we were doing this, we came up with our skit for the concert that would be held later that night. We were going to get at least each person in youth group to do something they wouldn't usually do!
Once we finished preparing lunch, we went back into the common room to see the other groups working on their skits while Karvin and Claire slept upright on the couch with jackets covering their bodies!
After lunch, it was decided that the weather was too bad for us to go outside, so we would just stay inside for the rest of the day and have group competitions and games. Some of the games included a roley-poley race, where two members of each group had to roll across the room but with their feet always touching at any time. We also played a game where we got into a circle and Gabrielle was in the middle shooting people. If they ducked fast enough the two people on either side of that person had to try shoot the other person. Whoever was the slowest was out. I was too slow and got shot! The final showdown was between Lisa and Jenny. I was cheering on Lisa as I originally thought her team had less points. It turns out I should've been cheering on Jenny! We also played a game where two team members held a piece of string and other team members had to blow pieces of paper from one side to the other the fastest. Our team was accused of cheating the first time! We didn't cheat the second time though!
After the games we had some free time to practise our skits before dinner, worship and the concert. Since our group didn't need to practise as it was going to be on the spot, Jireh, Miriam and I did a bit more Chinese singing. I swear I had that Kiss Goodbye song stuck in my head all weekend!
We had burgers for dinner, and after dinner Lisa, Aonghas and Gabrielle led worship. The keyboard malfunctioned a bit while Aonghas was playing it and created bit of a techno-remix sound! Fortunately he managed to regain his place and we made it to the end!
After worship, it was time for our camp concert! It started off with Aonghas and Claire's group combined to perform a skit about Aonghas being late for university. All the others involved were Aonghas's ever-changing props! We saw Jenny as Aonghas's fridge and car, Hamish as Aonghas's bathroom mirror, schoolbag and a motorcycle, and Vanessa as a chair! In the end Aonghas tried to have a drag race with the motorcycle, crashed in to a barrier arm and died. The main message: do not speed!
Alvin, Robert and Brendan were next to impress us with their shuffling skills! They were pretty good!
Finally, it was our skit! We called it the 'Who's Your Favourite...? Gameshow'! We started off by getting On to do a Britney Spears impersonation, which he's famous for! We also got to see Aonghas attempting some ballet dancing, Rebecca and Robert doing shuffling (coincidence?), Brendan and Stephanie singing a Cantonese song together (or lip-syncing anyway!). We tried to get Andrew and Vanessa to do stand-up comedy, but that didn't go so well. Andrew was left on stage trying to get Vanessa who wouldn't come up. It looked a bit like a drama involving a husband to come back! Similarly, we had a bit of trouble getting Lisa and Justin to beat-box, and Claire and Hamish to rap about grass. Claire was game though and rapped a few lines, while Hamish just stood there silent while we were all anticipating something to come out of him!
Things were a bit better with Gabrielle and Jenny having to do krumping. Once I showed them how to do it (just going spastic!) they did a little before walking off! It was funny when it was announced that we wanted Jenny to do krumping. She got up, stormed towards me, pointing at me saying this was all because of me! I think it must've been when I joked to her before camp about krumping!
Cleo and Alvin were called up to do gymnastics, but when they just stood there doing stretches, Jireh got up and started showing us some somersaults which landed with some pretty loud thumps! He didn't even look injured by them either!
The grand finale was Karvin and Miriam doing the robot. They actually did it too!
The final concert item was...me singing in Chinese! I managed to bring my back-up band up (Jenny, Andrew, Jireh, Gabrielle, Miriam and Stephanie) with me to sing! I had people shouting out
"I LOVE YOU CALUM!!!"
and someone presenting me with bread (hey, it's the next best thing after a bouquet of flowers!).
And now it was free time! It didn't start off as well as Friday night though. While Aonghas, Hamish, Claire, Cleo, Gabrielle and Andrew got into some deep conversation that started off about religion and then got into some other more personal stuff, Jireh and I had nothing to do!
Some of us played Twister though! The girls had a go first. I jumped in when the game only had three people and was going nowhere. I ended up having to lean over this other guy Ben, which didn't look too great! I ended up falling over and landing on everyone!
After Twister died down, Jireh and I tried finding stuff to do. We created our own version of Twister DDR, before I noticed the stack of unused chairs, and remembered how the engineering students like to build chair pyramids! We then first created a maze with the chairs before we got Jenny to join in and we built out very own chair pyramid!
We dismantled it after a while so as to avoid any accidents. That's when Jireh, Jenny, Stephanie, Vanessa, Miriam, Ben and I formed our own little circle! The conversation started off in a very weird way, when we got Ben to tell us about some stuff.
Jireh and I ended up trying to steer the conversation in another direction (let's just say...at a higher level?). We wanted to get to know the girls a bit more as we still don't know as much as we'd like about them!
After a noodle break, Ben showed us a game of Land Owner (apparently there are two versions...). Jireh and Andrew tried to predict how each person would move before even making a move, which pretty much meant the game was over even before it started! The girls and I were just lying there on our pillows watching, and waiting for the game to start/end!
Eventually we passed Friday's sleeptime and by 6 am Aonghas's little circle decided they'd power nap. A few of us didn't really want to sleep so while we switched the lights off in the common room and they slept, Miriam and I just sat there together for a while till we decided we'd lie down and get a little rest!
Not too long after a few of us got around the heater and sat there under our blankets while the others were sleeping. Gabrielle had woken up and went around taking photos of people sleeping! I just did a little filming...nothing too bad! Because the girls in my group didn't help with supper the night before, Jireh and I decided we'd go and wake the girls up with heaps of loud noise and make them prepare breakfast! The rest of the girls who were up with us decided to join us, so we stormed their bedroom and woke Carmen and Daisy up! Carmen looked so funny as we woke her up! She was wriggling around in her bed! They claim they were already awake but we're not so sure...hmmm....
During breakfast, word spread that the 'murderer' was going on a killing spree! I just happened to see the 'murderer' kill Claire (by showing her the magnet!). It was...Robert!! I decided to avoid any eye contact with him for the rest of the morning, which meant walking backwards and keeping my eyes away from him while cleaning up the cabin, until he was declared the murderer!
Once the cabins were cleaned, Jenny and Miriam led a very beautiful worship with Miriam on guitar, before Gabrielle gave some emotional last words.
We headed outside for group, cabin and combined group photo before we got in our cars and headed home.
The ride home was completely the opposite to the ride there. Nearly everyone was falling asleep in the car I was travelling in! I would've let myself fall asleep, but I had leaned forward and the two guys beside me had fallen asleep behind me, so I couldn't lean back!
We got back to church, had some sandwiches for lunch before saying goodbye to everyone.
Overall camp was an awesome experience. We had so much fun and our youth group got so much closer together! They're all really great people and I can't wait till our next camp!
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