Camp Weekend!

So the schools are out, we’ve attended the necessary graduations and we had our camp that I mentioned in the previous blog post. The camp was draining and I was sick during most of it, but it was also so much fun! There were 4 messages during the weekend that fit together so that the students could gain a real understanding of the Good News. Tommy’s role was to speak on the character of God and help the students understand His holiness and hatred towards sin, yet also His intense love for each person on earth. Tommy and I were also in charge of setting up games for the students! It was a challenge since we had little time to plan ahead as our supervisor would typically come up to us and say, “hey, can you guys have a game ready after the message?” So that would give us about 30 minutes to plan something while we’re sitting and listening to the speaker. But thankfully God gave us different ideas that the students seemed to enjoy! We had a race to fill up buckets with water from the ocean, we had a relay game where the teams were broken up and had to work together to win and of course volleyball, the all time favorite of Filipino’s I think. It was great to just spend time with the students. Even though there couldn’t be much communication due to the language barrier, we enjoyed teaching them UNO and sitting at meals with them. Our supervisor gave a message explaining the Gospel and then had a type of survey/evaluation afterward for them to fill out so that we could see if they truly understood what he had told them. Only one of the students bluntly replied that “Jesus was not God”. None of the students came to know Christ, but they ALL said that they wanted to do more to learn about Jesus. It’s small steps, yet they really have heard the truth and only the Holy Spirit can take it from there. At the end of it all, they seemed disappointed to be leaving. The team is trying to set up a time that they could continue to meet with them over the summer months. The day after we finished the camp we had our day off and went to Tinago Falls… probably one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen! There were about 400 steps leading down into a valley and some of the local boys that lived there ran down them so fast. As we went deeper and deeper, the falls got louder and louder! Once we reached the bottom we looked up at multiple waterfalls cascading down the sides of cliffs. As soon as the local kids were there they climbed a tree that went at least 30 feet high and just dove straight into the water! It took me a little longer to get into the cold mountain water. Tommy climbed the sides of the cliff, following the kids’ directions to the top. He dove into the water from at least 20 feet up, maybe more. The picture we posted was him jumping from only half way up but it was one of the best pictures we got. We were able to climb up into small caves where the water was running in front of us. All in all, after such a stressful weekend, it was relaxing to do something so fun. Although the climb back up the 400 steps was a little stressful.

The beautiful sunset at the resort for the camp.

Some of the kids acting out the creation story.

At the end of the weekend with the students and our team.

Tinago Falls. The picture definitely does not capture the beauty of it.

Tommy jumping off the cliff. I love the kid in the background smiling!