?afta?: Anatomy of Holiday Youth Camp (Part 5): Daily activities

As we near the conclusion to this series of posts, I thought I would give a generic rundown of our camp schedule.

We broke our 12 campers into three workgroups, and assigned a group to breakfast, another to lunch, and a third to dinner each day. We had originally secured a camp cook, but he had to bow out the day before camp started (just another example of this post). It worked out well, and I was pleased with the way everyone pitched in to help. I didn’t hear a single complaint, and the kitchen duty went well every day.

After breakfast of hot tea, peanut butter crackers and fresh bread, we had our morning devotional. It consisted of singing some Bislama choruses, including several newly introduced ones, and a devotional thought. Our texts for the three mornings were 2 Timothy 2:22 (which was also our memory verse, and camp objective), Hebrews 13:4, and 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8. We went through the text in a discussion-based style, which prompted further questions and comments. We had a Question Box available to those who wanted to ask anonymously, and these were discussed during our morning devo time as well.

Next was sports. We divided the twelve campers and four adults into four four-man teams. The first day we started a volleyball tournament, the second day a soccer tournament, and the last day hosted the finals in both sports. There was a lot of fun and laughter, with Team 1 winning both events. They were awarded with two sleeves of cookies each.

Next up on the schedule was our group activities, which sought to apply the word study from the previous day. During these times the campers each wrote [a] a list of desired qualities they were going to be looking for in a potential spouse, [b] a list of activities they would/would not engage in during “friendship”, and lastly [c] we had a team trivia competition based on the concepts and texts we’d studied during the week.

Lunch and Dinner were prepared by the camp work groups as well, usually consisting primarily of rice and soup, with lots of fresh ingredients from local gardens. After lunch was our Word Study time, during which we discussed Marriage, Friendship (i.e. Dating), and Fornication. There was a significant amount of Q&A and discussion during each session. Following our marriage word study, I asked two two-man teams to prepare to debate the topic of modern marriage ceremonies, one being "for" and one being "against." I was so pleased with their preparation and delivery, as well as the lively discussion it prompted. They are really learning to think through things for themselves, rather than look to me for the "right answers" - refreshing!!

Up next was Group Game time. A favorite was the team scavenger hunt, wherein team members worked together to answer questions from a specified Bible verse, and then scavenged the area to ascertain the answer-item. There were 15 items, with 1st and 2nd place being decided with less than a minute between them. Other games included tug-o-war, water balloon volleyball, water balloon toss, water war, sorry kitty, and telephone, among others. We then had free time until dinner.

After dinner we had Movie Night, Game Night, and Island Night, respectively. We watched “Son of God” for Movie Night, which was a hit because as visual learners, they love seeing the Bible text come alive (oh, and for our pre-show, I showed an “Elf-Yourself” video using some of their faces… they LOVED it, having never seen anything like it before - fun!). During Game Night night we played win-lose-or-draw and balloon tag. Our final night was Island Night, which is their way of saying Talent Show. Funny story: Shawnda and I thought we’d steal the show by drawing eyes on chins, putting some baby clothes over our faces, hanging our heads upside down off the end of a table, and lip-syncing a funny song. We figured they’d laugh hysterically, but we completed the whole 3+ minute song without hearing a peep. Come to find out, they were so perplexed (they didn’t realize until we were almost through what in the world they were looking at) that they just sat there staring and asking each other what was going on. Fail! The youth, on the other hand, truly stole the show. There were meaningful skits and original songs (including a really cute one the boys wrote about Adam seeing Eve for the first time, following our marriage study). I was so impressed, and can view several of these on our YouTube channel. We concluded our island by introducing the kids to roasting marshmallows :).

During our closing, I praised the youth for their behavior and participation … they are such a good group of kids. We went around the circle with everyone telling their favorite part of the week, and any suggestions for next time. I was so encouraged that six or seven of them said the studies were their favorite part - music to this missionary’s ears. Everyone agreed that next time we need to invite youth from other congregations. We also presented Atison (cooking pot), Leimawa (tea kettle, material and cups) and Abu Iata (machete) with thank you gifts. After a deep clean and packing, we said goodbye to the campsite and headed for home. Everyone was worn out from lots of activity and heat, and not a lot of sleep, but I do believe we can chalk the effort up as a SUCCESS!

To be continued...