I suppose this better get written up to inject some vitality into this currently lifeless blog of mine. Blogging is almost foreign to me at the moment, so forgive my potentially inept approach to writing the exciting and exhilarating material that you my dear readers may have grown accustomed to. Nonetheless lets begin by following any good sermon structure of three points.
Preceding camp, I was not terribly excited about it. Being inundated by my dissertation and a whole bunch of other uni assignments, and this and that and what not that seemed to pile up in my cerebral to-do list and inbox tray. One of the this and that was planning for games for camp which I wish I could have put more effort in, but my blasted priorities prevented me from doing so.
All this coupled with my extremely strong personal conviction that I do not need to be set free. Because I’m already free. My freedom came the moment of salvation, and that is how I walk my journey, free from all spiritual chain and fetters. Thus if I enter camp expecting to be set free, would have meant that I was not already free, thus negating the good work achieved at Calvary. This is exactly the same position with me and sickness. I believe I’ll never ever get sick from here on end to my death bed. Why believe for healing when I’m sick, when I’m already healed when I received Christ? Similar to freedom, to believe for healing necessitates me falling sick first, of which I will not. I half jokingly jest that I’ll only ever need to go to the hospital 12 times from now till the day I die only to witness the birth of my children. Because of this, my only expectations were being able to hang out with Ps Russell Sage again, albeit fleeting and to give my Blackbook its debut on the music team.
During camp was when the fun really started. (Sorry I thought I attempt to use a P for my 2nd point in keeping with the good sermon structure). I was just about to write a chronological recount, but I think that may be too long winded. I only have a few key things that stood out for me during camp. First would be running games and getting a chance to exercise my “ideal role as a crazed dictator” as Lester aptly puts it. As much as I enjoyed it, my biggest annoyance was that when Matt and I were brainstorming ideas for the game, we had to assume ALL campers were to be involved, from the youngest to the oldest. This resulted in about 50 or so campers per team. I was disappointed on the first day when each team only averaged about 25 and were probably 90% young people. My anger culminated on Sunday when Aunty Michelle revealed to me that someone of the older generation told her that games were explicitly for the young ones, and they need not partake. If I knew that, games could have been more intense and more age appropriate. Definitely going to bring this point up with Ps Judy this Sunday. Regardless, as my mum says, they missed out. She admitted to me she was originally extremely adamant about participating, but after the first games session she was excited and couldn’t wait for the next day’s session.
Second was that camp highlighted to me how much I miss Ps Russell’s style of delivering God’s messages. I’ll be the first to admit, I have been disgruntled at the “quality” (for want of a better word) of the sermons delivered from the pulpit over the past half year, maybe even a year dare I say. Even though, I’ve heard pretty much most of what Ps Russell said in one form or another when I attended his World School course last year, it was refreshing. And the beauty of that was that it allowed me to stop being so critical as pretty much most of what he says is sound in my understanding of God and the way He works. Which overflowed into me finally re-experiencing what it’s like to be truly lost in worship. Something I’ve been craving for for so long, but yet could never quite get there, and the only moments when I manage to even scrape the surface of total abandoned in worship to Him is when I’m on stage playing keys.
And now this brings us back full circle to post-camp. It was a surreal feeling, I know that the time spent at camp was definitely not wasted, in fact I only wish there was more just to experience God so tangibly again. It was as I wrote in my Twitter, strangely nostalgic of my experiences in the home churches in China. I divert. Post-camp without going into too much detail was a downer of sorts. Don’t really want to write about it as I’m spent from ruminating over the details with others over the past couple of days. Just going to move on from it. But one thing that was pretty cool post-camp was just how lubricated I was to pray with my parents about some predicaments in my step-sisters’ lives.
And lastly, lest I forget, the inspiration to write this post that definitely benefited me to consolidate my thoughts of at least the past week. There are certainly more that I could write, but this giant wall of text is extremely daunting. Thus I’ll leave you with a picture that speaks of the fruit I reaped post-camp from the seeds I sowed pre-camp.
