2 posts from April 2009

Today is not the greatest of days. I usually am the one to get upset by things that other people do that I find unacceptable and inconsiderate. However, today I am upset at my own unacceptable and inconsiderate actions. Today I only had one class, that is stats. It's one of the few classes that I share with my friend. But today I said something that I thought at the time was just a silly joke, but I guess she didn't take it so lightly. She stopped talking to me for the time when we went into class and till the end of class, and really, I felt rejected and uncomfortable with her. Even though she still answered with a nod or shake when I questioned her, she refused to communicate further with me, but still spoke with other people. I persistently tried to speak with her, but still no luck. Is this what it feels like to be hated by someone you care about so much? And why am I so careless. I realized that my words are definetely two-edged swords, and that it can so easily cut away at others. I didn't notice that I had wounded someone so close. And yet, when I noticed that I had done something wrong, why was it so hard to actually know what it was exactly?! And so, my friend's confession came after when she said straight out exactly what I searched for, my answer to why she would not speak to me. I was so hurt, even tears started to well up in my eyes. But why?! Surely she was hurting more? My friend, I am so sorry! I say with sincerity, please don't take this to heart, and I hope that I can change to become a better and more caring person.

Easter camp was last week. Although I call it OCF camp, (overseas christian fellowship) it includes more than just OCF. It is actually TSCF camp, with other groups like KYCF, AUTCF, the groups from unitec, massey, etc.. were also present. OCF just happened to be the majority. Well, I went there by ferry. Although Eastern Beach is only a bit further than howick and it is likely that it would be easier getting there via car than car to ferry to car to camp. (That is, car to town, walk to the ferry, ferry to the east, get picked up by someone there and then get to the camp..) Anyway, it was a fun ride there and so it was worth the trouble. It means that I didn't have to drive there without knowing how to get there. And it means I get to talk to other people taking the ferry there with me. It was nice.

Arriving at camp, it was already beginning to get quite dark. Dinner was not prepared that night, so I had bread bought from the classic bake house (or commonly known as the nice asian bakery). We went around that night looking around the camp, visiting the worship team as they practiced for the worship later that night, finding the mini golf course at the end of the field, playing ping pong, jumping on the trampoline, kicking a rugby ball in the dark, chatting to people that we knew, and chatting to people that we didn't know.

Later that night, we had worship. It felt replenishing. The worship team were great too! After that, we had ice breaker games. One of them was especially fun and entertaining. It was called telephone charades. A bit like chinese whispers, except done with actions. We were divided into four groups. The first group went up, stood in a long line. And then the organiser of the game went to the first person in line, whispered a sentence to them. They then acted out the phrase to the next person in line, while no one else in the line could see what was being acted. All the while, us, in the audience, were watching them as the actions were transferred to each next person, becoming different with each person. It was hilarious actually! What started as a skydiver turned into.. a jumping starfish?! When it was our turn (my group), our sentence managed to change from a fireman resuing someone from a burning building, into someone climbing up rapunzel's hair and falling?!?! How did that happen!? But seriously, it was so much fun!

Here is the rest of my camp story.

The next day, we had worship in the morning, and a sermon given by Nigel Pollock. Throughout the camp, we had him giving a series of sermons about Joseph and his 11 brothers, from the book of Genesis. There was so much to learn. I'm not going to go into detail about what we learnt, but I can say that Joseph amazes me. To be able to be so forgiving of his brothers even after such betrayal, being sold into slavery, then going to jail. It is hard to understand how he did not become miserable after such an unfortuneate life, yet God was with him and he knew that!! It is amazing that he was able to be faithful to God even in such harsh events, yet he was able to see the full picture of his life and follow God's plan. I admire him for that!!

Anyway, that day, we had activities and games that we played after lunch. Lunch was good by the way, it was healthy with lots of vegetables, but it was delicious too! The games were quite fun, we had games where we threw waterbombs at the other team blindly, "battleships". And other games where we play paper scissors rock, and winner tries to pour a bucket of water over the other player, that player tries to run to the other side with an umbrella! Other games like drinking disgusting (but healthy) vegetable juices containing things such as beetroot, onions, parsley.. It really did taste disgusting ><;; There was also a game where you guide a blindfolded team mate across to the other side of a mini obstacle course. There are people distracting the blindfoldee and making them walk into obstacles. If that happens, there is a punisher that throws flour and water onto the blindfoldee. It really made me think about how easy it is to be distracted from your actual path in the walk with God, with all the distractions close to you. And when you get off your path, you fall into a big mess XD Except this game had it literal!!

On the next day, we had worship in the morning again. We actually had it the night before too. It was morning and night, which I liked a lot because I had never had so much worship sessions in such a close (time) proximity before. This day's activities were sports. I played badminton in the gym at the camp with some of the people =] It was fun but I got very tired and dehydrated so I stopped. ^_^;; Other people played rugby or soccer. We also sussed our talent show item. We were sorted into 12 teams, named after the 12 sons of Jacob, or the 12 tribes of Israel(?). My team was Asher. However, our teams were paired with one other team for our talent show item. We did a skit with 2 acts, and a small introduction of each son, Joseph and his brothers. I played Zebulun. It turned out very impromptu, I said "Hi my name is Zebulun! Its a very cool name XD It means honour!!" Haha.. I had a bit more to say but I couldn't remember it so.. I just stopped there XD There were ones like, Levi, "I make jeans!!" and Reuben, "I'm a bum!" (because the guy that played Reuben, Johnny, he was wearing a shirt that said B.U.M on it!!!) So, we were very random. But it was fun seeing what other people had. There are photos and videos of some of the skits that other groups did. We also had a general knowledge quiz that night which was very hard and not general knowledge at all! But still very fun when we knew the answers =D There were questions like recognizing songs, songs from musicals, flags, finding the next part of a sequence, etc etc.

This was all the final night of camp. And as it was the final, there were many of us that decided to stay up and make it better. We played korean games with thigh slapping and lots of laughing and back massaging (it might be a good idea to watch some facebook videos to see what I mean, though there is no coverage of the thigh slapping..), singing songs around a campfire (almost.. just missing a campfire), learning how to break dance but failing, chatting and asking/answering questions. We did many different activities until about 6.30am, when we went out to watch the sunrise at the beach 5 minutes walk away from the camp. We had lots of fun taking pictures, doing random things like sitting in the middle of the road, jumping around on the beach, etc.. I had a really nice talk with a guy that I hadn't a chance to talk to before. He was a friend of my brother's and said they played bball together last year. It was really nice to talk to him, it was strange. The atmosphere of the sunrise made it feel special. I was able to open my heart and talk about personal things and it was nice to have someone there to listen. I talked about my walk with God and relationship with my brother and relationships in general. It was reassuring to hear the feedback from someone older, even though I just met him, it was comfortable. It felt as if God was sitting next to me listening to our conversation =D I think that is the first time I've actually talked about my relationship with my brother to anyone. Well, to that degree. 

Anyway, that morning, we sat at one of the dining tables after coming back from the beach. The sleep deprivation somehow made us all quite high, and we became the good-morning committee! Each time someone walked out from the dorms we would sing a goodmorning to them, starting with low goodmornings, going up in pitch through an arpeggio, until it reached a squeaking level!! However, 8 oclock arrived, time for breakfast! And people were still not coming out for breakfast!? And so, we ran through the dorms singing kumbaya and the national anthem, very LOUDLY!! It was all good fun and nice to see who would get annoyed at us ^.~ Then sometime, I went and packed everything, then came down for breakfast. After breakfast, we did a clean up of the camp and prepared to leave. A friend offered me a ride home so I didn't have to take the ferry. Everything was good. Actually, I was offered the ride home the day before but forgot to mention it earlier. Anyway, it was goodbye to the time at camp. We took a camp photo, of everyone that was there, and then people started to go home. The whole camp photo is not that good though =[ everyone that was at the beach likes the beach group photo in front of the sunrise much better!! But.. that was our goodbye.

At the end of a long dark night, comes the beautiful rising sun, a light like no other, a creation like us, a creation of none other than our beautiful God.