Friday night's alright for writing. (Part Trois)

Sorry this took a little bit to get out, but I figure I'd leave a little time for the last three ones to process.

Day 2: I get up, take a cold shower, and get anything I need for the day before taking a car down the resort that we were supposed to be at.

I should probably mention that it was freezing last night, as I wasn't exactly aware of how cold the air-con was turned down when I turned it on, and couldn't change it because my room buddy was sleeping right under it. Needless to say (why do people say this when we say what we're gonna say anyway..?) we all shivered that night, and I ended up sleeping in my hoodie.

We have an optional early morning worship (7:30..*.*) before eating a relatively pleasant breakfast and heading to the morning sessions.

This morning session was focused on the second chapter of Jonah (the second session, so..) and the theme word of peace. All the speaking aside, we also found out what teams we were all on and what games we would be competing in.

After that, we ate lunch before heading to the games.

Our team was the subtly named Ginger Vitis, and we took our gum infected mouths down to the swimming pool to play a good ol' fashioned game of tube wars. For those of you not in the know, tube wars is when you all get into inner-tubes and proceed to smash and bang the other team, trying to flip them over.

I preferred to stay out of the water, and come up with cheesy cheers instead. You know, we will rot you?

After this game we headed over to the field to play kajabe can-can, otherwise known as garbage can tag. If you've never played, each person holds onto a small strip of rope and forms a circle, with one or more garbage cans in the center. The objective is to get your opponent to knock into the garbage can and/or let go of the rope.

This was the only game that I ended up playing, but I didn't mind. I got out in the first ten seconds because my chest was being ripped into by the relatively big guy on my left and the OMGHE'SFRIGGINHUGE guy on my right. I didn't mind not playing the games because rather than encouraging teamwork and getting your mind off the heavy stuff, it seemed more of a distraction to what I was actually here for: Fellowship and community with both man and God. The other reason I didn't like the games was for the fact that because I wasn't playing, I felt obligated to scream my heart out, which I did. I'm not sure it's still quite yet back to normal.

After those displays of physical masculinity (we lost both) we had some free time to hang out before dinner and the evening session, as well as an optional seminar. Since I've already somewhat described both, let me just skip to the interesting stuff.

After dinner Hume Lake held a massive kajabe can-can tournament. I didn't participate in that either, but one of my best friends ended up winning for the guys. I just mulled around and maybe possibly dressed up like little red riding hood (no, I'm not going to explain). We took the van back to our cabins, ahd our guy-time devotions and went to bed. Which was awesome about my cabin because while everybody else was getting wasted by drinking Red Bull and staying up late, we remained relatively subdued. Friendly, but subdued.

Day 3: Repeat of day 2, get up, take a cold shower, get in van for other resort, have early morning worship, and then eat breakfast before heading off to the morning sessions.

This morning to give Chris a break from speaking, they decided to do things a little differently by having several mandatory seminars that you could choose from which to go to and spend your morning. I found it incredibly difficult to choose, but I ended up going to a seminar taught by a different Chris entitled 'Why do I love sin more than God?' I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was a rewarding experience. The purpose of the seminar was not to convict you to turn from your sin, as so many of those experiences is all that they accomplish, but the seminar was about loving God completely and totally, even more than your own life, your family, and everything going around you. This Chris also had a personal and powerful testimony to share, but I don't think I will labor to type it out.

After the morning seminars we had lunch (wasn't it just breakfast..?) and more games. I didn't play them, so I won't bother explaining, but they both involve balls. *cough* spheres, Ben, didn't you get the memo? So, yeah. I screamed my heart and lungs out, again.

After the games we had more free time and maybe one or two optional seminars. I sort of hung around the worship one, but after about five minutes with the bass player and me mastering the most complex thing she played in worship, I figured I wasn't going to learn a whole lot. But after that I had an interview, but I can't really divulge what it was about or for at this moment. Not because it's sensitive information but because I want to keep it a surprise.

We had a short(er) evening session before they divided the group in boys and girls and took us to separate rooms where we received the purity talk, by far my least favorite experience in this camp, and any other situation. It didn't make it any better that the speaker was fairly awkward about it, and beat around the bush, and basically amounted to 'don't have sex, kids!' Sure. I don't mean to be crude, but maybe this very mantra would have prevented us from having this talk from you anyway. <.<

After that it was the usual hang out before heading to the other cabin to have devotions and go to bed. In my personal opinion, the discussion we had in the devotions after the 'talk' was far more rewarding and helpful than anything that man could have said. *sigh* Oh, well.

Day 4: I woke up, finally figured out the hot water on my shower, packed all my stuff up, and heading to the other resort.

We had breakfast, and then one final short morning wrap-it-up session before having to drag all our bags out to the road and get our ride home. It turned out that our ride thought the camp ended at one, but it reality, it ended at eleven. So we got to spend some awesome extra time with the leaders there, and it made for a really good end to an excellent couple of days.

Thanks for reading, I'm out.

Ben