The third time is the charm, except if you're the president. [Part Deux]

Hm, the past few days, here we go:

Well the setup is this: Around the general area of Fresno, California, exists a place called Hume Lake. A very integral part of this is Hume Lake Christian Camps, which hosts thousands of kids every summer, and has an event going each week of the year. One of the things that HLCC does is travel all over the world, doing international camps for missionary kids. Every two years, Hume Lake comes to Chiang Mai to host one.

I had been two years ago, so none of this was new, but the experience proved to be quite worth it.

Day 1: The usual camp necessities: Registration, finding people you know, etc. Due to the sheer amount of people that showed up (over three hundred, which is fairly impressive), the resort did not have enough room for the amount of people that were coming. I was among the unfortunate few assigned to room at a different resort about five minutes down the road. The worst part? All of the other guys that were also assigned were from one of the international school, and I didn't really know any of them. I had requested a person as a roommate, but instead had to sleep next to two people I had never met before.

I say all this not to complain, but to describe what happened, because in actuality it turned out to be alright. My roommates didn't turn out to be too strange, and one in particular was very friendly and open to me. It was still uncomfortable, but not unlivable.

Day one really kicks off with the first night session in which we get introduced to our speaker for the camp. It was the same speaker as last time, but I didn't mind. The speaker, Chris Simning, has such an impacting testimony and speaking style that it becomes quite difficult to take notes because you're so wrapped up in his words. Chris isn't one of those people who took drugs, had sex, and caved his soul out before coming to Christ to fill it back up again. In fact, he's been a Christian most of his life. But his whole life literally changed overnight in the eighth grade when he got out of bed, his head fell forward, and he couldn't lift it up again. He was subsequently diagnosed with a rare muscle disease, and it's stayed with him since then. His limbs are twisted, and he can't speak normally, and this lends to his testimony: Not the fact that Christ is amazing and healed him, but that as a person he's had some extremely rough times, but Christ has helped him through that. He still suffers through insecurities and the confines of his condition, but strangely enough, that just makes him seem more normal, only his problems are more easily seen than other people's might be.

Another thing that makes Hume Lake what it is, is the theme. While always silly, it masquerades as a Bible lesson teaching tool underneath. This year the theme was Mulletia, the story about a town whose hairstyle was killing them, and a government agent is sent to save them. It also doubles as the story for Jonah, which Chris greatly expounded on.

After the first night, we had some free time before we had to haul out and go to bed, and there were optional activities: dodgeball and open mic night. I, being the person that I am, immediately opted for the latter. And while there were some cringe-inducing acts (I felt an incredible amount of pity for this poor girl whom someone lied to her when they told her that she could sing, and she went up on stage twice) it remained pretty enjoyable. After some self-coercion I actually ended up participating. Twice. The first time I played and sang a worship song with some other girls that are in our youth band, but the second time it was me, all by my lonesome, playing a song that I wrote. It was definitely a new experience, and I got some incredible encouragement out of that, so despite my shaking legs, I think it was a win situation.

Thus concludes the first day of camp, and this blog. I was going to describe it all in one, but then I realized exactly how huge it would be, so there will indeed be a part trois.