WEC Highschoolers Camp 2007 ~ Working on the Mission

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What a week. What a great week - It was a big week, and a big weekend, so this is the first chance I've had to mention about how great the WEC Highschooler's Camp was this year.

I was lucky to get to spend a night up on Camp A, see some of the leaders and campers who I spent time with last year. It looks like they had a great time.

Camp B though was where I spent all of last week. Camp Bornhoffen is a beautiful place - set in a long valley right on the QLD/NSW border it's a stunning landscape to hold a week long camp. The campers were great - we were able to create a really unified atmosphere where everyone got along, and everyone was included.

My cabin boys were all in grade 11. My co-leader Patto was a champion, and I'd have to say we probably had the most fun over the week doing our group stuff. I've never had 8 boys in my cabin before, and the larger number was a different dynamic - but because they were such a great bunch we just connected so well. Our focus country was Sri Lanka and we looked at all the things WEC are doing there (I can't say too much more due to sensitivity issues).

We decorated our room with pictures of Sri Lanka, and Dilmah tea - we had tea bags hanging up and a picture of the Dilmah man on our front door. The memory verses were learnt well - it was great to see the whole cabin helping out one of the guys who hard a bit of a hard time remembering - working as a team we were able to help everyone learn the verses and figure out a short Mission Focus skits each morning.

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God" Matt 5:8

"As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, Oh God" Psalms 42:1

"Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things." Philippians 4:8

"I can do all things through him who gives me strength" Philippians 4:13

We sang our memory verses - putting Matt 5:8 and Psalms 42:1 into Breakfast at Tiffany's (the verse as Matt and the chorus as Psalms), Philippians 4:8 fitted nicely into Ronan Keating's You Say it Best When You Say Nothing At All (with a nice little tag on the end having a go at a competitive cabin next door :-P).

Maybe we dropped the ball a bit with the cleaning of the dorm part of the comp, but we gave it a red hot go. We didn't win the competition overall, but we had some fun trying so there are no complaints.

The music and message times were just awesome - God spoke through so many people. We heard from Amy who has been working as a missionary in Cambodia, also Jono told us about his short term trip to Nepal and trekking to Everest Base camp (while handing out Bibles along the way). Patto spoke on the first night about "What is a Christian", and my brother Brett gave an amazing Gospel message one night. About 20 young people either recommitted or made a first time committment to God. There was no 'selling God', there was no emotional hype, there wasn't even a fancy sound system, good lighting or plasma screens - all we did was build a relationship with the campers over the week and then let God talk through Brett and present a simple Gospel message of 4 points

1. God wants to have a relationship with you

2. Nothing can separate you from God's love

3. Your price has been paid

4. God is knocking at your heart

I love the way WEC Camps happen... you meet your campers, you muck around with them - you work with them to clean the dorm and learn the memory verse, you play stupid games with them, you sit and do a Bible study with them.... all this builds an awesome relationship in a short period of time - then when God starts to talk to them during a message like Brett's they know they can turn and talk to you. Every year it works so well and young people's lives are changed... maybe it's why I cringe a little at the huge productions Youth Alive put on - but that's a totally different topic...

Talking of stupid games and mucking around - our ice slide this year was manic! 800kg of crushed ice, strategically placed on a grassy hill - then boogie boards to slide down on equals hours of fun... well until someone decides to use some rocks and another boogie board to make a wicked jump - then it just becomes insane funtimes!!!!

The jump was fantastic - some of the things the guys were doing were just crazy - there were some great spills, but when Patto started pulling off barrel rolls we knew we'd found something special....

2007 would have to be up there with some of the best WEC Camps I’ve been on. Even having to perform as God in a Ballet about the story of Gideon and the Midionites didn’t lessen the fun I had (it made a lot of people laugh though believe me!!)

I’ve put a heap of photos here in this blog post but go to the WEC Camp Photo Blog to see a whole heap more (not just mine) and hopefully soon some videos of the ice slide as well.