The second camp

There’s a slight problem in writing about this camp, in that I can’t write anything that might be indentifiable. In other words, I can’t say anything that might lead to anyone realising who these people are, where we were, etc. etc..

Therefore, I present to you the highlights of my diary of the week:

Day One

The camp begins with a change of plan: I’m with the youngest boys rather than the older ones. The main memory I have of working with this age group is of a chemistry class I helped with last year:

Kid: What’s this?

Me (quickly figuring out what’s gone into the test tube previously): Oh, that’s a kind of weak bleach.

Kid: Cool! (Throws bleach across table at me.)

What fun.

Day Two

This day is themed on the Stone Age. This conversation took place at breakfast:

Dorm member: Hmm, I need some Stone Age clothes… (to Fellow Leader) hey, can I borrow some of yours?

…I think the first time I really noticed there was such a concept as “style”, I hated the mere thought. I mellowed, but I was at least fifteen before I really started to care a bit. That said, these guys’ concept of style seems focussed around non-sleeved basketball tops, silver necklaces and hair gel.

Day Three

I’m still recovering from my previous camp, so ask for a bit of time off in the afternoon while all the kids go off site to various activities. The morning passes in a slight haze – I get to sing African music (the person leading doesn’t know any more specifically, but I guess probably central to south) with no Western time signature, leading to great fun teaching the rhythms to non-jazz-trained ears.

Due to tiredness I forget most of what we talk about at lunch, and as the kids go off site I end up lying on two beanbags in the leaders’ room while the designated on site leaders watch Narnia (ostensibly looking for talk illustrations). I fall asleep soon afterwards.

The evening meeting has the theme of “Judgement”, lead by my Fellow Leader. It’s not an easy subject. We all deserve death, and we all deserve separation from God. Why? When Adam sinned, all sinned.

Not easy, really, but the evidence stacks up. There is no-one in the world whom you can look at and say “this person has never sinned”. The idea of original sin (Romans 5:12) makes complete sense of this. It’s hard to accept, though, because we all think we’re okay. In the sermon I gave in Japan I talked about how important the concept of spiritual death is in evangelism. Without an understanding of the depths of depravity (we use simpler words with the kids), the death of Jesus means nothing.

We all need to accept that we are sinful and in need of rescue. It’s something that only God can show to us; not something we can logically deduce, because it’s completely against our nature to admit it. God has to change our hearts to reveal this to us. As a result, we’re praying loads for the kids. One in particular hates the idea. He keeps on talking about “rescue”, but his idea of rescue is God helping him out in every day life – rescue from bad results, bullies and things like that. He has no concept of a far greater rescue that’s needed, or indeed Jesus’ promise that the world will hate those who love him, and that persecution is part of being a Christian.

Day Four

The afternoon heralds activities in the pedestrianised shopping centre of nearby city. Half the leaders dress up in funny costumes (gorilla suit, leopard skin and top hat, sackcloth etc.) and wander round the streets while the members look for them in dormitory groups. I’m responsible for my dormitory, as Fellow Leader is off wearing the leopard skin somewhere.

Somehow, as the coach arrives to take us to our destination, all the boys manage to sit at the back together. Cue coach ride of football chants and irritating repetitive songs (“Hail to the bus driver”, various “songs” insulting various football teams, World Cup/European Cup chants that are so old I remember people singing them when I was nine, and “I’ve got a song that will get on your nerves”, that ironically got on the singers nerves so they stopped singing after a couple of verses). Half way there, the girls decided to fight back by singing “Old MacDonald had a farm”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Do Re Me” amongst others. The boys laughed at the girls when they heard Old MacDonald, then later realised they’d run out of songs and started singing it themselves.

Once in the city, we start work trying to find the various leaders. Each leader has a token we have to collect, but in order to collect it we have to complete an activity. We discover Fellow Leader in his leopard skin almost straight away, so he runs away, weaving in and out of the shoppers to get away. I then have to not only keep up with the boys without bumping into shoppers myself, but also make sure that they don’t send anyone flying.

Our first task is to act out a scene from history. Luckily, we’d caught Fellow Leader on a side street, so our enactment of the parting of the Red Sea doesn’t get in the way of shoppers. We do, however, have to pause and wait for a car to go past.

One of the tasks set for us by Mrs Supremo (the wife of Mr Supremo, who runs the camp) was, using only questions with yes/no answers, find out who the Bible character she was thinking of was.

The answer was Goliath, but for some reason it took us absolutely ages to come up with him. I’d asked “Was the character around before the time of David?” to which the answer was “yes”, as technically he was. However this threw me and so all my questions were to do with Abraham, Moses, Joshua etc.

One of the other activities was to sing part of a Christian song with actions. Our dorm chose “Lord I lift your name on high”:

Boys: “You came from heaven to earth, to show the way;
From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay;
From the cross to the grave,
From the grave to the sky,
Lord I lift your name on high.”

The shoppers got a gospel message from a bunch of kids who possibly don’t even believe it themselves. Impressive.

The rest of camp

(In which I run out of diary-writing time at camp and have to summarise massively.)

Day Five includes an interview with the Bible (portrayed by Fellow Leader in black clothes with black face paint, and “Holy Bible” written across his t-shirt in silver ink). I hear the following comment from a twelve-year-old girl afterwards:

I think the Bible is my favourite superhero.

Day Six includes the following statement in our dorm Bible study from one of the kids:

Jesus died for everyone. Well, he died for those who believe, anyway.

He’s eleven years old, and already he’s decided he’s a Calvinist.

Day Seven found me up front, giving a book review of a book I’d bought when a member of this camp six years ago (Mr Supremo was my dorm leader at the time). Unfortunately I had no party trick to do for the group (as was required of all interviewees/book reviewers), so was asked to gargle “Bob the Builder” instead, along with a fellow reviewer. When she (being South African) asked how the tune went, the entire camp erupted into song. Apparently there are actual verses – I never knew. Luckily I didn’t have to gargle them.

Later in the evening was the entertainment. I performed (with various people) the African songs I’d learnt earlier in the week. I also took part in the ancient game of “Topple”, which involves squatting on the ground in a ring and using palms only to knock the opponent out of the ring. (I got off lightly. Mrs Supremo and another female leader had to “sock wrestle” – in other words, attempt to get the others’ sock off before she gets your sock off you.)

Day Eight brought with it the camp photo, farewells, and the journey home. Hopefully the kids have learnt something.

Matthew @ 20:40, September 7, 2006 to Diary | Comments (2)