YF Camp

So as some of you may know, I went to a 4 day camp known as YF camp (Youth Fellowship) run by Jeri's church and designed to promote the christian faith and act as a social gathering to meet new people, learn about the bible, talk about morals, partake in activities and whatnot. This year I went again and decided to write an entry about it as last year I didn't really have a blog done up. So here goes... NB: All group names had something to do with fish because of the book of Jonah (the camps' theme)

Day 1 (Friday 27th)

Nothing really happened on the first day, met up with Damian (Ong) and Amanda Li. Drove all the way down to NSW, we were having interesting convos when all 3 of us were awake. A particularly interesting conversation regarding food popped up and we started talking about the strangest foods we had heard of or eaten. I think I took the cake by telling them about Casu Marzu and developed chicken/duck eggs (Check out #5 and #1, I've actually eaten #1 and have to admit that it's quite nice but #5 is just messed up, dunno how it didn't get #1). We ended up arriving at around 7pm to see everyone already playing games and enjoying themselves, lucky for us we also arrived just in time for dinner, our convo (as delectable as it was) made us all really hungry.

After dinner we had to form into our bible study groups (the one I was part of was called caviar aka the n00b group) and introduce ourselves, do an icebreaker etc. We had to introduce ourselves, tell everyone who brought us there, where we were from and what we wanted to be when we were kids. Me being the genius that I am, said that I wanted to be an inventor because the blue ranger from power rangers was one, but enough of that embarrassing story. We ended up playing a boys vs girls game called ASAP and we pretty much got shat on by the girls, yay boys! In our group, only G and I were the ones that were "returning" members, others had either upgraded or didn't return (with a place like "NSW" who could blame them lol). After that we had to pretty much hit the sack; now I dunno about you but when people talk I tend to reply despite needing sleep and/or whatever. We pretty much didn't get to sleep until around about 3am...

Day 2 (Saturday 28th)

Sleeping at 3am was a pretty stupid idea, breakfast was at 7am and we got up at 8... yes, we missed breakfast =( after our "large" meal we went to worship in song and talk, then morning tea (yes, 1hr after brekky), after morning tea came bible study and then lunch. I was about ready to die of overeating but managed to suck it in somehow. This day was somewhat special as 3 girls were getting baptised, all 3 gave their testimonies and were quite moving, with several people crying. I think it was here that made me think to myself that even though I don't particularly like organised religion, speaking out against it is an even worse thing to do as it does great things for people.

Get this though, the 3 girls got baptised at the BEACH... how cold would it have been, clazy. After that it was organised recreation and free time, our group was versing fishballs (I think), we were pretty much all about to leave when I sat down near Boris and Dylan who bloody picked me up and threw me into the water! BASTARDS! I put up a struggle but they got me into a position I couldn't get out of and put me in. Unfortunately for Dylan, he got thrown in as well and he got more soaked than I did... KARMA. After that I took a shower for about... an HOUR, trying to get sand out of my clothes at the same time, FRICK. I gave up after realising how long it was taking and decided to just let them dry (despite one not actually drying because I'm an idiot and threw it straight into a plastic bag).

Same deal happened here, but bible study went for longer and in worship we got told about our skit criteria. After that supper was to be served but since I came prepared with instant noodles while everyone had to settle with something else that I didn't like (probably redbean) mwahaha. Supper proved to be interesting because Brian decided to try out this popcorn trick he saw on youtube, looks believable enough... doesn't work though, save yourself the trouble and embarrassment. This was probably the worst night as I went to sleep and woke up at around 4am with an eyelash in my eye, couldn't get it out so I had to go to the toilet to flush it out and was wide awake after that =(

Day 3 (Sunday 29th)

Wow... we woke up in time for breakfast?!? What happened? Today pretty much ran in the same format, except there was a question and answer session (regarding life) combined with free time earlier in the day. The big thing for the day was pretty much skit night, for those of you that don't know what we do in skit night... we pretty much had to follow the criteria that were given to us and use it to make a show, this years' criteria was 1: use the group name; 2: use a verse from the bible; 3: use a random item in the skit which gets given to you literally right before you start. After bible study we pretty much had zero idea on what we were to do for the skit, nothing was coming to our heads and we just ended up deciding to redo a chapter in the book of Jonah in a very fobby fashion. Lots of ideas were getting tossed around, some great, some poor, but in the end we had to settle with this and it wasn't looking good because of the length of it...

Our problem was that the criteria was too "restricting" but it all ended up being random with heaps of fobby asian parts to it anyway. Think of everything stereotypically fobby asian that pops to mind... yum cha, fried rice, accent, fu manchu moustache, big 2, chinese whispers (ok, maybe not the last one) and that's what our skit involved. Words can't really describe this night, basically think of constant laughter at how lame/funny/random people can be and combine it into one night. Even though our skit was hella short... we managed to pull out a 2nd?!? Oh well, flukes are still wins =P

After concert night came supper again and this time we got proper food but I didn't eat anything (saving room for my 2nd bowl of instant noodles hehe) and pretty much left to go to the bonfire to chill with all the camp people. Lots of laughs, jokes and photos all around with people roasting marshmellows, seeing "shooting stars" and stargazing. Easily the best night of the entire camp and we stayed out until around 1:30, if people ever do plan to go to a big bonfire... beware the after effects.

Day 4 (Monday 30th)

We woke up at around 7:45, I had the groggiest voice because of the bonfire, everyone else was just being hella lazy, nothing major happened this day except for final photos, more good food and the traditional "food auction". It's pretty much what the name states, auctioning of the food that was leftover from the camps supplies, this years auctioning wasn't that great because of a lack of sweets, fruit juice, soft drinks and the like; can you say "yay vegetables"?

Highlights

- Someone getting raged at by a character from family guy
- Skit night
- Steve's rendition of a chinese emperor
- Organised recreation on the beach
- Jeri's alarm tone... man, that thing is hella annoying
- Bonfire night

All in all, great camp like last years (campsite wasn't as good though) and will be looking forward to YF Camp reflections night (this coming saturday). Might be looking into going back again next year as it was so enjoyable, better people this year for sure though.