Livin Da Life - Past Tense

Thats the theme of the OCF camp for this year. don't ask me why, shern ren thought of it.

after months of preparation and prayer, finally, we got our camp underway!

Saturday 12 April, the first day of our hols we met at bruce Hall at 8.30. ok its more accurate to say we planned to meet at 8.30, cos we had to wait till about 10 am for everyone to get there and for all the cars to gather and stuff.

And there i was rushing to get things done by 8 because i thought everyone would leave without me lol.

and we were off! around 30+ of us, squeezed into 5 cars and a van. but lucky me, i got the car with only 4 people!...

This is Jesslyn and Alstrid in the back, with me and Shern Ren in the front, driving Willy's car.

..i should have known better to be in a car with shern ren as driver. we had an accident! hmm. i can't really describe it here, but we were trying to cut in just after overtaking on the fast highway lane into a side road on the other side! so after narrowly missing one car in front, we got hit in the back by another car! and thats after our car stalled and stopped in the middle of the inner lane! siao.

alstrid was in hysterics, going all mental on us. my and jess were in like, um, quiet shock? and shern ren was just stunned. but i really thank God that no one was hurt or injured. because it could hve been much worse.

so after continuing settling stuff with the driver of the other car, we continued on. and our first stop: Hungry Jacks!

lol at first i thought it was Mac D, cos it looked excatly like it! it was all red and yellow and they even had Mc Flurry! ok it wasn't, but i asked the counter for a Mc Flurry and they gave me this weird look and said "you mean a Storm?" and i was like huh?

and then i realized i wasn't in Mac D lol.

  and then we continued. after the highway was a long windy road, going through some cool scenery, and we were there! Stanwell Tops!

so the first thing we did was to get our rooms and put our bags there. lucky me again i got the room with only 4 people! others had to squeeze in about 6 or 8 people in a room. and there was intro and everything. Andy and Claire were our gamemasters and were in charge of all the icebreaking and stuff. We were divided into 3 teams, Awesome One, Team Tams, and Three Little Pigs. we were also told we had a play to do at the end of camp and were given three words to include in the play: gorilla, crawling, and cheese. =_="

So after getting to know each other, and camp intro and everything, it was time for dinner!

Dinner is umm.. a little better than hall standard. just a bit better. or maybe cos it was different. who knows?

After dinner it was our first bible study session and stuff. And Ps. Matthew came ! Needless to say, i dozed off about halfway through the bible study and the talk! but it was a good lesson overall. i liked it. or maybe cos its such a different environment than the stuffy central common room.

And that was the first day. everyone was tired from the long crazy drive and most of us fell asleep around 11.00   

Day 2, Sunday 13 April, and i was the only person stupid enough to wake up at 4 AM to watch the sun rise.

Only thing was, the sun came up at 5.30. AND from the other side. and i was like WAT THE! so i waited for almost an hour in the freezing cold aussie morning for NOTHING. oh, and my roomies were quite irritated by my techno alarm. Imagine Darude's Sandstorm at 4 am in the morning. =P. The only reason i have those kind of music is cos it gets me up, anyway.

Soon after, God was like "Why did you go there?"

"I went to watch the sunrise!"

"Why?"

"umm so i can just marvel and your amazing greatness and spend time with you?"

but even as i said this, it was like i had the wrong purpose. I realised that it doesn't take a spectacular sunrise for me to marvel at God's creation, or to worship Him. God let me know that i can just as well praise Him every single moment, when theres nothing spectacular tosee, or something awesome to gawk at. I learned to praise Him everytime, every moment.

"God, You make me wait in the half ice rain for almost 1 hour to tell me that?? Tell me la earlier!"

God has a sense of humour.

After breakfast, we had quiet time. =). i don't call it quiet time anymore, so its really nostalgic for me, reminding me of precious camps and such.

  then praise and worship. the p & w is done on a rotation, so everytime its a new team that has to do it. Then we had our bible study and teaching session. and strangely enough this time i didn't feel sleepy at all! i think its cos of all the Lipton green tea i drank. hmmm.

during free time i hanged out at the rope tower! it was soo cool! the moment i saw it i had to climb it, or i can't die peacefully. =) The kiddie playground was kinda fun too..

after lunch we watched a video called the christ files. the session was a bit like my lab sessions for psych if you ask me, with the discussions and all. it was narrated by some fat mousy guy who was like, a bit too over. but it was a very compelling documentary that actually taught us that Jesus is real, not just by faith, but by historical evidence.

That afternoon Clandy prepared for us some water games! the highlight was an all out water balloon fight trying to destroy each other's flags. lol. our flag a a double defense layer with sharp sticks around it, and a waterproof plastic bag wrapping the flag itself!

one of our games had to be cut short because Marisol got attacked by a killer leech. hmm..

and then just before dinner, it hailed! really really hailed!

i think the hail showed us a few things. one of it is just how much God is in control of events. We could see His influence in these things. i think even though we plan and plan, we can't do it alone. And now i realise that maybe that killer leech attack was also God's planning. because if we went ahead with the games, we would have been caught in the hail. instead, we were all in the buildings getting ready for dinner. poor leech. we killed it after pulling it of. Reminds me of Jesus like how he died for us =P. ok thats too far lol.

That night, i didn't feel sleepy at all during bible study and talks! i can confirm that green tea has amazing eye opening effects.. =) my new favorite drink. 

Heres a pic of me doing an ice angel. didn't quite turn out right. my jumper was soaked through the moment i touched the ice.