You Rock!

I’m home! How sweet it is!

Thanks y’all for visiting my renter while I was gone, I’m sure she appreciated it. I’m up for rent again so feel free to bid. I’m not going away this time, I promise. The break away from the Internet was pretty sweet though. I noticed a lot of people bashing going on just before I left and I was thinking how easy it is for people to be rude to each other and not worry about feelings or consequences. I don’t know, maybe it’s just more difficult on the net to avoid the prats that you would easily avoid in real life.

Camp was totally good! I was leading on an HSC (Higher School Certificate) Study Camp run by Crusaders. It pretty much entailed making the students study for about 6 hours a day and then hanging out with them, telling them about Jesus in discussion groups and by listening to talks from a speaker. We were also available to answer questions about their HSC stuff if they needed it. I got to help one girl a bit with Visual Arts so that was cool.

My discussion group was good. It started a bit hostile with some questions raised and then heated discussion on them. As we got to know them and figured out ways to facilitate the discussion in a good way they really opened up, told us about their lives and experiences and what they thought about God and how he has worked in the world. I don’t know if any of the non-Christians took things to heart and will decide to follow Jesus in the future, I think that the ones that consider themselves Christian were encouraged and maybe consolidated their thoughts on God.
One girl in the group wrote on her feedback form that she isn’t going to ever become a Christian and that she thinks we talk about Jesus too much to others. I guess that’s fair enough, but we believe that the bible is true and given what it says about Jesus being our only way back into relationship with God, it’s pretty important. She was still respectful to the people in the group and she even made some friends on camp despite her initial determination not to.
Another guy in the group started the week hating the group and thinking that we were complete idiots (or telling his friend that at least) but he asked heaps of questions and we had good talks in discussion group largely due to the questions he was asking. I think he didn’t think we were so bad by the end of the week. To be honest I was a bit afraid, especially of the boys. They were hostile and stubborn to begin with and I’d never taught groups with people of their age before. We got on though and I’m really glad I was there.

I also did a free time activity of jewellery making with beads. It went well. Surprisingly, heaps of boys joined in. There was a bit of stuff left over that went to Crusaders, I hope it doesn’t go to waste. I hope Eddie doesn’t get into trouble for exceeding the budget either!
There was a band on Thursday night called Garage Hymnal which was pretty cool (although don’t love the website that much… red and pink?). I’d be tempted to buy their album. It seems Andy Judd (pianist and seemingly band manager as well) seems pretty cool, he goes to a local church and one of the guys told me he got a UAI of 100 (they’re all thinking about it since they’re doing their final exams) and he was really good on the piano.

I guess that’s it for now. I’m tired! I might try to stay awake for a while longer and cook dinner then get an early night so that I don’t wake up in the middle of the night. Ugh, last night was so horrible, it was hot so I couldn’t cover up and mosquitoes ate me alive and kept buzzing around my head. Eventually I had to get off the top bunk, turn the air-con on and spray the room with insect spray it was better after that. Thank goodness the campers packed their stuff up efficiently in the morning!