Faith. Hope. Love.: November 2011

Oasis Youth Camp 2011: 28-30 November 2011

Looking back at the times we’ve spent in camp, I really think it was pretty unbelievable how something that I had initially dreaded (somewhat), became a truly heart-warming time spent with friends both old and new. The sugar highs, night games, meals shared—are all memories that will have a special place in my heart, like a little oasis in the vast desert of IB (^^).

27^th Nov 2011—the day before camp

Personally, I did not really look forward to attending this camp as I hardly knew any of the youths, even after having visited the centre twice with the Primers on the monthly Saturday visits. Opening my email inbox at 2a.m (on the day of the camp itself) to search for the packing list and instead finding the devotionals glaring accusingly at me…..well, yeah that contributed to the overall pre-camp anxiety, which would have been motivating if it was a day before the camp. Not at 2 a.m. Bleh.

29^th Nov 2011—Day 1!

Day 1 Morning: Welcome to Boot!

Reporting time on day 1 for us Primers was 8a.m, for pre-camp games briefing. At least, that’s what I….suspect it was (tragically deprived of the unhealthily-high levels of caffeine needed to jolt my still snoozing brain into consciousness). The Oasis youths only came in bus-loads at 10 am, and the sight of all the unfamiliar faces triggered a mild jolt of paranoia. Some looked sleepy (one girl was actually clutching her soft toy!), while others looked bored and large clusters were huddled in groups and chatting amongst themselves. After running around like a mad person caught up in adventure stuff for most of the year, the prospect of being a “da jie” and a….role model, was unnerving, to say the least; and I had serious doubts at that point of time about agreeing to come for this camp at all.

Hai there Glenis and Hello Kitty, welcome to boot camp!

After the Oasis youths arrived, we were herded towards the LT4 where we had an opening briefing for the newcomers, and the introduction of the Angel-and-Mortal game. We were then sorted out into our groups to play a round of icebreakers to get acquainted with each other.

Briefingz: entertaining and lighthearted

ICEBREAKERS! The name in itself is a bit of a misnomer, and I wonder if anyone else has noticed that a particular phenomenon faithfully occurs at camps where groups are split up to play icebreakers: the “it-sounds-like-the-other-groups-are-having-more-fun” syndrome. The acute sense of awkwardness between strangers smiling nervously at each other (or looking bored) congeals into more awkwardness and occasional displays of brave (forced) cheerfulness as another group’s raucous laughing can be heard in the backdrop. This can only be alleviated by one or two valiant souls that lead the pack in a round of self-introductions, before proceeding to kick-start the ice-breaker games.

In the case of my group, Tung-Lok Desert Food, I can only say I felt incredibly lucky to have Anna, a member of the Oasis staff, in my group. The other two Primary 5 girls were too shy to share much, but I was pretty much starting to warm up to my group members. What a bunch! There was a boy who insisted on being called “Hilbert” (and later on “Prince Ishmael”, when he got more comfortable with us), to much amusement. We played the usual “pish” game, but what really broke up the ice floes of awkwardness was the game Andre came up with, in which everyone contributed to a story one word at the time. Eventually, we ended up with a sci-fi epic that involved alien abductions, exploding mushrooms, and a lot of giggling.

Audrey the art student #likeaboss

Multiple 'eye-power' bosses appeared during flag making

Another part of our ice-breakers consisted of…the making of our group flag! Penguins, seafood, chili peppers and the rather dubious-sounding “OI” all featured in our flags; and considering how the theme of the camp was “desert”, I can only say we have all done our geography teachers proud, no? ;) Nevertheless with serious painting and discussions aside, we all had fun unleashing our inner kids smearing others/getting smeared with paint ^^ Our proud creations were left to dry, and then we proceeded on to board the buses to head out for the campsite.

Pre-sugar Ivy

Teamwork is crucial in making flags. Thankfully we're all teamplayers ^^

Okay Nic...okay...

Day 1 Afternoon: Station Games!!

We had lunch before checking in to our dorms, which had double-decker beds (much to our glee and excitement!) J By then, I found myself much more relaxed than I was at the start of the camp, the warmth and cheerful friendliness of the girls made Audrey and I feel as if we were one of them. I have no idea why they liked us so much, but it was a nice fuzzy feeling to be liked and accepted into their inner circles as friends, and not just talking to them in a facilitator-attendee manner.

GAMES!!

Up next, was STATION GAMES! In the next one and a half hour or so, we ran up and down the block we were occupying doing absurd things that are rather unfortunately, captured on camera. There were the usual run-of-the-mill games like Charades, coming up with a group cheer and etc. ; and there were the weird ones like the station that involved carrying the heftiest group member around the atrium.

Amy! Act your age please! You're scaring the little ones!

More games!!!

GOOOD times :)

Interacting with each other~

After running around for pretty much half the day, we had a session of quiet time and group devotions before dinner. The devotion groups we were split into were all-guys/all-girls, and in smaller groups than our usual activities groups; so it was a pretty good arrangement for sharing and discussion on the devotionals.

Dinner was a lively one, happily tucking into our food and enjoying each other’s company is always one of the best things about being in camp. After that, we had short session of worship, and a message by Uncle David, who shared on the topic of having God’s wisdom in our lives.

QT~

Day 1 Night: Night Games!

To wrap up the fun and games of the first day, we had…..NIGHT GAMES! Each group had to earn points through the completion of each station game, in order to accumulate sufficient points. The objective of the night games (other than having tonnes of fun) was to build a catapult as a team, but the building materials had to be “purchased” with the points earned from the station games.

Games proceeded after a briefing by Kai Zhou!

Running around to station to station, we had to duck a couple of ninjas, search for coloured slips of paper to piece together a very lame joke, play a very nerve-grating counting game, etc, etc. Even though catapult-building was not everyone’s cup of tea, and that it was past bedtime for the p5 girls in my group (the days of primary school where one could afford to sleep at 9pm); everyone in my group participated fairly enthusiastically, contributing in whatever ways we could. I was especially impressed by the younger girls whom were obviously tired out by the day’s events, but still cheerfully volunteered to help out any way they could in the catapult building process, even ferrying back and forth running errands to get the materials needed to build the catapult. In the end, we had a….functioning catapult, launching a Pepsi can by a mind-blowing distance of…1 METER! Whoooooaaaaa!

Teams planning and building their trebuchets

With the end of night games, thus was the end of Day 1 as well. Tired out and happy, pasta for supper was a pretty awesome way to end the day (albeit fattening too). After a short debriefing session, we washed up and turned in to get some much-needed recharging.

29^th Nov 2011—Day 2!

Day 2 Morning: Human Foozball!

Day 2 started out with a simple breakfast of bread and assorted spreads, and the important lesson to keep certain small, hyperactive girls far, far away from the Nutella jar *ahem*Ivy*ahem.

Of course, we couldn’t just have our fill of physical nourishment—after breakfast was a session of quiet time as, our (more important) spiritual nourishment to last us through the day.

The fans are NOT disappointed

Our first activity for the day was FUTSAL! This was greeted with much enthusiasm by the guys, and very much less enthusiasm by the girls (duh). By then, the sun was up and gleefully scorching us into sunburnt human fritters—not exactly the thing to get anyone into the soccer fever. However, with some persuasion (aka pleading/nagging) the girls somewhat reluctantly joined in the game…..and actually had fun! So maybe there were a few embarrassingly off-mark kicks (I had my fair share of those), but embarrassment has never killed anyone so I guess it was fine. ^^

MVPs in the making

1. Kick ball 2. Ball goes into goal 3. Score!

Lydia and Petrina <3

Day 2 Afternoon: Multiple CTF!

We had lunch next, followed by…CONQUER-THE-FLAG! At last, the flags that we created were put into use, and after the briefing conducted by Nic the groups were all set to go forth and conquer. Each group carries their flag and can choose to attack another group by challenging them to a game; or stay at their base to defend their flag against other groups that choose to challenge them. We played games like the (done-to-death) “pish” game, scissors-paper-stone, charades and the Animal Game; nothing new or particular challenging. However, while the games were no big surprise—the scores were: one group had actually managed to hit a stunning score of…. -- 410!

Afternoon games briefing and preparation time!

Teams had time to prepare prior to the starting of the game

The flag games lasted roughly one and a half hours, after which we had a siesta/wash up session/time for Night Special preparation; before dinner. This was to be our last dinner in camp, I don’t know how it was like for the other groups but for mine, we were laughing so hard half the time that we couldn’t eat without risking choking. David Teh and Andre were heckling each other in their funny mandarin accents, Jon Lee and some others were swopping stories of people getting trolled, in short—it was almost as if everyone was trying to make up for the lost time earlier on in the camp, joking and laughing as if we were all old friends and not just people from different walks of life thrown into one camp. It was awesome, just awesome :)

Groups had a great time playing the INTENSE games

Games required a lot of teamwork and communication

If you're happy and you know it...

PSSSSH

Petguin kidnapper CAUGHT IN THE ACT!!!

With dinner settled, up next was worship followed by a message by Anna. She shared a story about horses, to drive home several important points in her message; and we split up into our devotions groupings to pray for each other.

Day 2 Night: Night Special!

At last, we came to the finale for the camp: Night Special! All four groups had prepared skits to entertain the audience and win the hearts of the judges. There were imaginary birthday cakes, oversized pokemons, chili-eating penguins and a whole host of funny characters that made the whole experience both highly amusing and memorable. In the end, the judges awarded prizes to all groups for the effort and creativity that went into the making of all those funny little skits :)

Night Special Preparation...supposedly

Night Special was under the charge of Jonathan Wai, who also took all these lovely photos!

Everyone sorta went crazy that night..

Her majesty Queen Petrina and her penguin marshmallows

The prizes all had sugar inside...DON'T GIVE ANY TO IVY!!

A whole buncha camwhores..TSK

Group 1: Tung Lok Desert Food

Group 2: Desert Penguins

Group 3: OI

Group 4: Chop Chilli

Somehow, we’ve come to the end of the second day, instead of getting ready to sleep many of us stayed up in spite of the fatigue of another tiring day; to write little notes of thanks/appreciation/encouragement to our friends. It was with some reluctance and a tinge of sadness that I went to sleep that night (morning, actually) because waking up meant that the last day of camp had finally arrived L Eventually, I slipped into the blissful oblivion of sleep while listening to the gentle snoring of my bunkmate, and the chorus of crickets chirping outside the window.

Angels and mortals board

TROLLING IN THE DEEP

30^th Nov 2011—Day 3!

Day 3 Morning: Adieu!

Well, so this is it—the last day of camp. There were no activities lined up, it was just breakfast followed by checking out of our dorms, before proceeding with a final session of worship together in camp. The Year 4s as well as some youths from the Oasis centre came forth to share testimonies on how they’ve been blessed by the experiences and new friends throughout these three days spent together. It’s been a very “happening” camp with all the fun and games that we’ve had fun playing, but more than anything else it was the warmth and fellowship with one another that have truly made this camp a very meaningful one.

At last—Auld Lang Syne! We took a group photo as the youths of Oasis Youth Camp 2011, before parting ways. Saying all our goodbyes and promises to keep in contact was much harder for me than I thought it would have been three days ago, but I was sure I would see some of my new friends again soon. And thus was the end of OYC2011, and awesome experience for many of us and quite possibly the best non-UYO camp I’ve attended in a long time.