V. Long Post coming up.
Mum has a quota for the number of the camps I can go each year, and apparently, I was about to exceed the limit of the number of camps I could go if I went to CF camp this year. This is largely due to the two compulsory prefect camps and also due to the fact that I’m a, to quote Mum, “social butterfly flitting here and there”. So yes, I was lacking in spiritual camps this year so when the Senior Sunday School said they had YCC Camp for us, I immediately signed up without even checking if anyone I knew was coming.
I regretted it initially. Because I never stopped to think that my family and I would be coming back from our
five day vacation in Langkawi directly before the day I would be setting off to camp. Which means I came back from the airport at around elevenish, pack up new clothes and then slept, thinking about how exhausting the camp would be. I’m ashamed to say that I
secretly hoped that the camp would be cancelled.
Thinking back right now, I’m glad it wasn’t.
I arrived at church by 9 (ugh. Too early for my liking). I’m glad to see that I knew quite a number of people. My roomies are
Veronica and
Lydia and I belong to a group called Lighthouse.
We left for
Gua Tempurung and arrived at 1. Had very cold lunch and then travelled into the cave, which
mercifully didn’t reek too much like guano. It was okay, though it was uber hot. We then proceeded to the
Grand Kampar Hotel and discussed about the cave. Yes, the first day is uninteresting, so I’m just going to leave it at that.
Then Saturday came. We had Mr Selvaraj as our camp speaker and he started talking in Session 1 about
Shining and our Mindset. We then broke into groups for Workshop 1 to apply whatever he said … with a game. It involves carrying people’s feet and cramped muscles so I’d rather not talk about it. We then had group dynamics, and where we had to
carry out various tasks in 8 different stations, doing stuff like push ups, jigsaw puzzles, passing on the flame of a candle and other forms of torture. Haha I exaggerate, it was fun and each game has a different message that basically means one thing:
to be a good church, we had to stick together, work hard and uphold one another.
I love free time in the camp; the camp itself was stretched out for four days so you can imagine how much free time we had. I didn’t go swimming like the others because frankly, I’d enough of that in Langkawi. So any free time I had I usually spent it with James
playing Snap until I became pro at it :D
We had
Steamboat Dinner that night. I think there was something in the soup that night, because Veronica and Shaan got really high and started laughing hysterically. We later had worship and then
Session 2: Shining and Maturity. Then about 10 of us went and played
Mafia and
Snap till really late at night. Later that night, I received a phone call…
Person: Hello, this is the reception. I would like to inform you about something regarding your room…
Me: Oh um okay. What’s wrong?Person: Yes. I would like to order 2 large pizzas… [the rest of the sentence was drowned out by the voices of people laughing in the background]
Me: [realization dawning] Oh okay sure.
Person: Who’s this?Me: I’m Monica (A/N: too much
Friends)
And we pretty much left it there. Apparently James blurted out my room number to the guys and Sharan told Albert to prank call us. Yes, for the rest of the camp, both them and the Girls Brigade girls (A/N: these GB girls are not from our school, FYI) tried to prank call us.
The next day, we had the usual workshops and Session 3: Shining and Ministry. We then had group dynamics, which unfortunately didn’t involve games, but we all gathered to watch ‘The Guardian’, starring Ashton Kutcher. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, truth be told, but by the end of it, I found it to be an inspiring movie. I would totally be a coast guard if I weren’t afraid of drowning in the middle of the ocean.
Then night came. And this is the highlight of the entire camp. It was night, and our last major activity was the Spiritual Spa. I’m going to explain about this the next post because it deserves a whole post to itself.
SO. Later that night, we all went out to makan outside the hotel because I was complaining that I was hungry and who could blame me since the hotel only serves cold food? So about twenty of us went out to the Fire Café (or something like that) and ordered food. I patiently waited for my garlic bread even as seemingly more complicated dishes arrived first. Then as everyone was about to finish, Shaan checked on my order and we found out that there wasn’t any garlic bread left. I was left instead with an unclaimed plate of French fries.
Shearn: Wow. Jesus turned water into wine and now the garlic bread turned into French Fries! It’s a miracle!
….I don’t even like French Fries.
After we went back, we played more card games, then I went back to my room to sleep with my growling stomach demanding for some garlic bread.
We had evaluation the very next day. And I’m glad to say that the only thing that I dislike about this camp was the food (if it weren’t for the amazingly awesome waffle in the rest stop on the way home, I think I would have died). We took a group photo and went on home.
As we journeyed back, I thought about how I was dreading about this camp before and now my mind can’t even wrap around the idea of not being here.
In conclusion:
YCC Camp was the epitome of awesome.
