Fire a volley! (HALLELUUUUUJAH!!!!!)
I'm sorry, but I have nothing on Matt when it comes to firing those volleys... oh well. But yeah, does that give you a semi-sense of how SA Easter Camps tend to go? Haha... fun was had by all. Sleep was had by few. The speakers were awesome, the band rocked as per usual, the company was terrific and God was definitely around. The only problem with these big divisional events is that you realise pretty soon how big the division is, and how the cool people tend to live far away ish. Gutted, really. It was cool to see the Wanganui girls, esp. Emma coz I've known her for years now, back from our General’s Guide Award days... I made her come sing with me in the Songsters when we visited them last August. That was funny :)
Run down of what happened. Arrived at camp on Friday night, and things just kicked off right then and there. We got ourselves into teams – ours was “Chocolate Fish”. No real reason why. We were given these blood-rags - a piece of linen covered in red stains - with the instructions to wear them the entire weekend. We were also told there would be consequences if we were caught without them. (I’ll explain later…) Anyway, dinner was had, grace was sang loudly accompanied by very loud table slapping, and then we had the first Session. I have a lot of session notes, so I’ll kind of summarise what I got out of each one as we come across them.
Session 1 – The Last Supper (Lucy)
Lucy had some cool things to say – she talked about how Jesus was the ultimate freedom fighter (and didn’t walk around on the toilet block yelling “freedom!” to get His point across). Because of what he did for us, we’re called to be freedom fighters, too. We need to start acting like the victory is ours. I think what I remember most about it was the question the disciples asked Jesus when he predicted his betrayal: “Surely not me, Lord?” Lucy made the following point: where have we sold out? Where have we betrayed Jesus? The last thing I have written in my notes: the cross – absolute freedom!
The Vatican did the worship all weekend, and they were, as usual, excellent. The only thing that sucked was that Isaac, the bass player, had his last gig with The Vatican this weekend. He will be missed L. Anyway, Friday night after the first session, I ended up having a good old chat to Daniel til about 1.30am, then went to bed. Only for 2 hours, though, coz at 3.30am I found myself awake to go into the prayer room with Suzie at 4 for 24/7 prayer. Easter Camps all over the country did 24/7 in a kind of tag-team style. We got a 1am to 8am slot, so each team who wanted to got an hour slot. We had 6am-7am, but I really wanted to do a middle of the night one, so I went with Suzie’s team (the Jamaican Sheep) at 4am. Candy came, too. It was awesome – I don’t think I’ve ever chatted with God at that time in the morning before. Anyway, at 5am I had a shower, then went back to pray at 6am with Charlene and Mirjam.
Breakfast revealed that no one had really lost enough sleep to be half-dead, in fact, everyone was just hyper, as per usual. We got through breakfast, then headed off to the auditorium for the first session of the day.
Session 2 – The Garden (Kieran)
First things first – BIG UPS to Kieran for his first sermon! His sermon was mostly focused on finding the reason why Jesus sweats blood while in the garden. (This is something I don’t usually notice when reading the Easter story, so I found it really interesting) Jesus knew what would happen – he would be deserted by his friends, tortured, crucified… but he also knew he’d take on our sin and therefore be separated from God. That’s what made him sweat blood. He did it to make the world perfect again – and now it’s our job to continue his work. Kieran’s biggest challenge to us was to think about the two S’s on the Salvation Army uniform epaulets – they stand for Saved to Serve. Are we?
A quick break for morning tea, then straight back into it. On arrival at the third session, it was revealed that Lance had been caught without his blood-rag. What followed was a good laugh – for some reason, Barry knows a lot about wax strips. Anyway, waxing guy’s legs is always fun, right? LOL… Lance then made the point that girls shouldn’t complain about spiders when they wax their legs… I don’t wax my legs. Mostly coz I don’t enjoy pain. A razor works fine. But I digress…
Session 3 – Arrest and Trial (Lance)
Lance told us he was quite happy to talk on the subject of arrest and trial because he’d experienced both. An amusing story followed, which I don’t remember enough details of to tell. (He’s a worry, that boy…) I really liked the thoughts he picked out of this story. I’ll kind of summarise them:
- Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. The word “worship” in Hebrew is actually to kiss. So when we worship on Sunday and do our own thing during the week, we’re kind of doing the same thing as Judas.
- Peter was following at a distance. What’s the point? If you’re at a distance, you’re almost out.
- When Peter denies Jesus, his accent gives him away. Does ours? Can people tell we follow Jesus?
- Pilate stepped back and let it happen. If we do nothing, something terrible could happen.
- Judas vs. Peter – after betrayal, Peter reached for Jesus. Judas reached for the rope. What are we reaching for?
Lunch followed after that, and then an afternoon full of fun activities. We got changed into scungy clothes so we could take part in catapult games that seem to be a fixture of Easter camps. Picture this – a catapult, paper towels, eggs and flour. Just imagine what chaos ensued… I got flour in my hair! And then it started to rain, so it turned into glue!!! Yuck!! I had a nap afterwards, but there was a paintball challenge. Rachael in our team did pretty well. Only 4 hits. We didn’t win, though. Barry took a few hits, though, which everyone seemed to enjoy. You’ve gotta have a sense of humour to be a DYO.
Anyway, dinner happened, and pretty soon we were all back for session 4. The Vatican rocked on again, everyone seemed to have pretty much survived the afternoons activities, we were all set for Nathan’s sermon!
Session 4 – Crucifixion and Death (Nathan)
I can honestly say that this particular session is one that I will never, ever forget. There isn’t much I can say about it because it was really a “you had to be there” experience, but one thing I will say is that Nate, you did Tawa very proud, and you seriously touched people that night. The shoes that Nathan tried to put us into were those of one of Jesus’ followers who thought He was about to start the rebellion, and was waiting for Him to break free of the torture and the agony and fight. Yet He didn’t. He just let the crucifixion happen. Looking at Him on the cross, the followers must have been thinking “how are you going to save me if you can’t even save yourself?” But when He died, and the ground shook, one of the most significant yet overlooked events of the Easter story took place. The curtain was torn. The curtain that separated us from the most holy place was torn – which meant everyone could come into God’s presence. Jesus’ death on the cross – this is how He set us free.
/ The enemy’s been defeated
Death couldn’t hold you down
We’re gonna lift our voice in victory
We’re gonna make Your praises loud
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
Shout unto God with a voice of praise
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
We lift your name up
We lift your name up /
That night, they screened The Passion of the Christ. Mirjam went to see it again (third time that week) – I decided I couldn’t handle, so I went to bed. We were given the instruction, though, to be at the auditorium for a 7am meeting. Before breakfast, even! I got a lot of sleep that night, and was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6.30 to get dressed and ready and presentable and whatnot. People kind of drifted in as the meeting progressed, but by the time Sam came up to speak everyone appeared to be functioning.
Session 5 – Resurrection (Sam)
For those who are interested, Sam fired the first volley of EC05. Good on her, I say. And she also revealed the mystery of the blood rags. But I’ll get to that. I want to give huge ups to Sam for her honesty with all of us. It was a real privilege to hear what she had to say, and to have her share her experiences with us. She talked about what was left in the tomb after Jesus’ resurrection:
- The myrrh they used to clean his body represents our being cleansed from sin. Sin is like an infected wound – it’s icky and smelly and it spreads if it’s not cleaned (Sam’s a student nurse, so she could speak from experience). Because of the resurrection, we’re clean
- The aloe is used for healing properties. Because of the resurrection, we’re healed from our pain. Sam was really honest and told us about some of her pain, to show what God can do. All I have to say is “FIRE A VOLLEY!”
- The linen – here’s where the blood rags come in. He was bound in the tomb, and we’re bound, too. The blood rags represent the things that prevent us from reaching out to God. We get ourselves into them, but only God can remove them.
- The face cloth – covering your face represents shame. Because of the resurrection, we have freedom from shame.
We all put our blood-rags in the tomb, and left them there. Everyone had something their rag represented – I’m not really sure I wanna share mine, but let me say now that I think I’m starting to feel the effects of leaving it behind, you know?
We had morning tea after that, and then we did something which I think was up there with the EC05 highlights – the cross scenario. What happened was that everyone got a piece of paper and was told their role in the crowd as we carried the cross into the place in the bush we put it up. Some of us were Roman soldiers (Matt, Mirjam, Phil) some of us were Religious Leaders (Stewart), some of us were Jesus’ followers (me, Suzie, Jenn), some were disciples (Char, Stuart) and some were in the crowd. Everyone was shouting and screaming as we carried the cross in their individual roles. The bit I remember the most was when Matt made me carry the cross. I carried it through this big muddy puddle – it was really, really heavy. I don’t know how anyone could carry it alone – it’s so, so heavy. Imagine having it on your back after a beating. Yikes. When we all got to the site, Matt nailed blood rags where his hands and feet would have been. Everyone was quiet – it was just a really surreal moment. “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross” - far out, it sent shivers up my spine. We never think about it like that. We all had a chance to pray together – then headed back to camp.
The afternoon’s activities consisted of the BIGGEST piece of black plastic I’ve seen in my life and lots and lots of soapy water. It was great. Mirjam has a ton of non-flattering photos. Once Mirjam, Char, Candy and I were good and soapy, we decided to go hug Nathan. He seemed to appreciate it. Matt P didn’t, though, and slapped me with his sandal. Argh. Anyway, it was good fun. After that, we had the boat race. Every team made a boat out of cardboard and duct tape. Ours sunk. But it looked really, really pretty. That’s what counts, right?
We had dinner, and then headed off to the Sunday night session. My parents came, our CO’s did, too, and so did Teneke from my Youth Group! It was cool to see her! Worship was nice and jumpy, and then we settled down to hear our last sermon of the weekend.
Session 6 – So What? (Major Lyndon Buckingham)
Our big name speaker for the weekend! I’ve got a ton of notes on this, so I’m just gonna try to make it short and simple.
So What? Jesus’ death and resurrection changes everything! It means that:
Everything He said about God is true – God is powerful, awesome, the Creator of the universe, the Giver and Sustainer of life… and God loves me. Jesus is the proof!
Everything He said about Himself is true – He’s the way, the truth and the life. The resurrection is God’s vindication.
Everything He said about US is true – we’re sinners, and we need Him. We’re lost, and we need a Saviour, a purpose, to be reconnected with God.
So what? What does God want from me? He wants me to be a star (Carol, you’re gonna love this ;) ) – my purpose is to shine! But I can only do it in His Spirit. God’s method for changing the world is US! And he will empower us! Rise up, o youth, for mighty winds are stirring…
More worship finished off the night, and then we were informed that we were gonna have a dance party at 9.30. Cross dressing was acceptable. Lucky Mum and Dad went home, coz let’s just say that my brother was definitely showing his feminine side. Nate and Bucko have photos. Stuart had better not mess with them. He’s SO paying for the therapy I’m gonna need after this! What didn’t help were both Bucko and Scott’s comments about how hot my brother looked… ugh.
I borrowed Warrick’s guitar, and we ended up kind of jamming until about midnight. Char, Candy and AJ showed up, too. Mirjam, Daniel and Scott, too, for awhile. Anyway, went to bed but there were a few stupid pranks going on. Like the sellotape web outside Barry’s door. Turning over the tables was funny. The many party popper pranks were alright. The music ones were okay. Just in general, I was disappointed with the calibre. Nothing really jumped out and hit as a good prank… *sighs* Oh well. Maybe next year?
Monday morning we were all well and truly exhausted, and we had one last session. People shared, and that was really cool. It was cool to be able to talk candidly in front of people you’d been with the whole weekend – in general, it was cool. Isaac had his big send-off, and played us bass backing to the many terrible photos being shown on the wall. After that followed the big cleanup, lunch (a cake eating competition – where’s Kim when you need her? She would’ve kicked butt?) and going home. Gutted that people were jetting off to their respective homes, but everyone really needed to recover. All in all, an excellent weekend. (Far out I wrote a lot. Oh well, it’s EC05 in a nutshell – just a rather big nutshell)
Best be a-jetting!
ALP,
Rosie
Run down of what happened. Arrived at camp on Friday night, and things just kicked off right then and there. We got ourselves into teams – ours was “Chocolate Fish”. No real reason why. We were given these blood-rags - a piece of linen covered in red stains - with the instructions to wear them the entire weekend. We were also told there would be consequences if we were caught without them. (I’ll explain later…) Anyway, dinner was had, grace was sang loudly accompanied by very loud table slapping, and then we had the first Session. I have a lot of session notes, so I’ll kind of summarise what I got out of each one as we come across them.
Session 1 – The Last Supper (Lucy)
Lucy had some cool things to say – she talked about how Jesus was the ultimate freedom fighter (and didn’t walk around on the toilet block yelling “freedom!” to get His point across). Because of what he did for us, we’re called to be freedom fighters, too. We need to start acting like the victory is ours. I think what I remember most about it was the question the disciples asked Jesus when he predicted his betrayal: “Surely not me, Lord?” Lucy made the following point: where have we sold out? Where have we betrayed Jesus? The last thing I have written in my notes: the cross – absolute freedom!
The Vatican did the worship all weekend, and they were, as usual, excellent. The only thing that sucked was that Isaac, the bass player, had his last gig with The Vatican this weekend. He will be missed L. Anyway, Friday night after the first session, I ended up having a good old chat to Daniel til about 1.30am, then went to bed. Only for 2 hours, though, coz at 3.30am I found myself awake to go into the prayer room with Suzie at 4 for 24/7 prayer. Easter Camps all over the country did 24/7 in a kind of tag-team style. We got a 1am to 8am slot, so each team who wanted to got an hour slot. We had 6am-7am, but I really wanted to do a middle of the night one, so I went with Suzie’s team (the Jamaican Sheep) at 4am. Candy came, too. It was awesome – I don’t think I’ve ever chatted with God at that time in the morning before. Anyway, at 5am I had a shower, then went back to pray at 6am with Charlene and Mirjam.
Breakfast revealed that no one had really lost enough sleep to be half-dead, in fact, everyone was just hyper, as per usual. We got through breakfast, then headed off to the auditorium for the first session of the day.
Session 2 – The Garden (Kieran)
First things first – BIG UPS to Kieran for his first sermon! His sermon was mostly focused on finding the reason why Jesus sweats blood while in the garden. (This is something I don’t usually notice when reading the Easter story, so I found it really interesting) Jesus knew what would happen – he would be deserted by his friends, tortured, crucified… but he also knew he’d take on our sin and therefore be separated from God. That’s what made him sweat blood. He did it to make the world perfect again – and now it’s our job to continue his work. Kieran’s biggest challenge to us was to think about the two S’s on the Salvation Army uniform epaulets – they stand for Saved to Serve. Are we?
A quick break for morning tea, then straight back into it. On arrival at the third session, it was revealed that Lance had been caught without his blood-rag. What followed was a good laugh – for some reason, Barry knows a lot about wax strips. Anyway, waxing guy’s legs is always fun, right? LOL… Lance then made the point that girls shouldn’t complain about spiders when they wax their legs… I don’t wax my legs. Mostly coz I don’t enjoy pain. A razor works fine. But I digress…
Session 3 – Arrest and Trial (Lance)
Lance told us he was quite happy to talk on the subject of arrest and trial because he’d experienced both. An amusing story followed, which I don’t remember enough details of to tell. (He’s a worry, that boy…) I really liked the thoughts he picked out of this story. I’ll kind of summarise them:
- Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. The word “worship” in Hebrew is actually to kiss. So when we worship on Sunday and do our own thing during the week, we’re kind of doing the same thing as Judas.
- Peter was following at a distance. What’s the point? If you’re at a distance, you’re almost out.
- When Peter denies Jesus, his accent gives him away. Does ours? Can people tell we follow Jesus?
- Pilate stepped back and let it happen. If we do nothing, something terrible could happen.
- Judas vs. Peter – after betrayal, Peter reached for Jesus. Judas reached for the rope. What are we reaching for?
Lunch followed after that, and then an afternoon full of fun activities. We got changed into scungy clothes so we could take part in catapult games that seem to be a fixture of Easter camps. Picture this – a catapult, paper towels, eggs and flour. Just imagine what chaos ensued… I got flour in my hair! And then it started to rain, so it turned into glue!!! Yuck!! I had a nap afterwards, but there was a paintball challenge. Rachael in our team did pretty well. Only 4 hits. We didn’t win, though. Barry took a few hits, though, which everyone seemed to enjoy. You’ve gotta have a sense of humour to be a DYO.
Anyway, dinner happened, and pretty soon we were all back for session 4. The Vatican rocked on again, everyone seemed to have pretty much survived the afternoons activities, we were all set for Nathan’s sermon!
Session 4 – Crucifixion and Death (Nathan)
I can honestly say that this particular session is one that I will never, ever forget. There isn’t much I can say about it because it was really a “you had to be there” experience, but one thing I will say is that Nate, you did Tawa very proud, and you seriously touched people that night. The shoes that Nathan tried to put us into were those of one of Jesus’ followers who thought He was about to start the rebellion, and was waiting for Him to break free of the torture and the agony and fight. Yet He didn’t. He just let the crucifixion happen. Looking at Him on the cross, the followers must have been thinking “how are you going to save me if you can’t even save yourself?” But when He died, and the ground shook, one of the most significant yet overlooked events of the Easter story took place. The curtain was torn. The curtain that separated us from the most holy place was torn – which meant everyone could come into God’s presence. Jesus’ death on the cross – this is how He set us free.
/ The enemy’s been defeated
Death couldn’t hold you down
We’re gonna lift our voice in victory
We’re gonna make Your praises loud
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
Shout unto God with a voice of praise
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
We lift your name up
We lift your name up /
That night, they screened The Passion of the Christ. Mirjam went to see it again (third time that week) – I decided I couldn’t handle, so I went to bed. We were given the instruction, though, to be at the auditorium for a 7am meeting. Before breakfast, even! I got a lot of sleep that night, and was up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6.30 to get dressed and ready and presentable and whatnot. People kind of drifted in as the meeting progressed, but by the time Sam came up to speak everyone appeared to be functioning.
Session 5 – Resurrection (Sam)
For those who are interested, Sam fired the first volley of EC05. Good on her, I say. And she also revealed the mystery of the blood rags. But I’ll get to that. I want to give huge ups to Sam for her honesty with all of us. It was a real privilege to hear what she had to say, and to have her share her experiences with us. She talked about what was left in the tomb after Jesus’ resurrection:
- The myrrh they used to clean his body represents our being cleansed from sin. Sin is like an infected wound – it’s icky and smelly and it spreads if it’s not cleaned (Sam’s a student nurse, so she could speak from experience). Because of the resurrection, we’re clean
- The aloe is used for healing properties. Because of the resurrection, we’re healed from our pain. Sam was really honest and told us about some of her pain, to show what God can do. All I have to say is “FIRE A VOLLEY!”
- The linen – here’s where the blood rags come in. He was bound in the tomb, and we’re bound, too. The blood rags represent the things that prevent us from reaching out to God. We get ourselves into them, but only God can remove them.
- The face cloth – covering your face represents shame. Because of the resurrection, we have freedom from shame.
We all put our blood-rags in the tomb, and left them there. Everyone had something their rag represented – I’m not really sure I wanna share mine, but let me say now that I think I’m starting to feel the effects of leaving it behind, you know?
We had morning tea after that, and then we did something which I think was up there with the EC05 highlights – the cross scenario. What happened was that everyone got a piece of paper and was told their role in the crowd as we carried the cross into the place in the bush we put it up. Some of us were Roman soldiers (Matt, Mirjam, Phil) some of us were Religious Leaders (Stewart), some of us were Jesus’ followers (me, Suzie, Jenn), some were disciples (Char, Stuart) and some were in the crowd. Everyone was shouting and screaming as we carried the cross in their individual roles. The bit I remember the most was when Matt made me carry the cross. I carried it through this big muddy puddle – it was really, really heavy. I don’t know how anyone could carry it alone – it’s so, so heavy. Imagine having it on your back after a beating. Yikes. When we all got to the site, Matt nailed blood rags where his hands and feet would have been. Everyone was quiet – it was just a really surreal moment. “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross” - far out, it sent shivers up my spine. We never think about it like that. We all had a chance to pray together – then headed back to camp.
The afternoon’s activities consisted of the BIGGEST piece of black plastic I’ve seen in my life and lots and lots of soapy water. It was great. Mirjam has a ton of non-flattering photos. Once Mirjam, Char, Candy and I were good and soapy, we decided to go hug Nathan. He seemed to appreciate it. Matt P didn’t, though, and slapped me with his sandal. Argh. Anyway, it was good fun. After that, we had the boat race. Every team made a boat out of cardboard and duct tape. Ours sunk. But it looked really, really pretty. That’s what counts, right?
We had dinner, and then headed off to the Sunday night session. My parents came, our CO’s did, too, and so did Teneke from my Youth Group! It was cool to see her! Worship was nice and jumpy, and then we settled down to hear our last sermon of the weekend.
Session 6 – So What? (Major Lyndon Buckingham)
Our big name speaker for the weekend! I’ve got a ton of notes on this, so I’m just gonna try to make it short and simple.
So What? Jesus’ death and resurrection changes everything! It means that:
Everything He said about God is true – God is powerful, awesome, the Creator of the universe, the Giver and Sustainer of life… and God loves me. Jesus is the proof!
Everything He said about Himself is true – He’s the way, the truth and the life. The resurrection is God’s vindication.
Everything He said about US is true – we’re sinners, and we need Him. We’re lost, and we need a Saviour, a purpose, to be reconnected with God.
So what? What does God want from me? He wants me to be a star (Carol, you’re gonna love this ;) ) – my purpose is to shine! But I can only do it in His Spirit. God’s method for changing the world is US! And he will empower us! Rise up, o youth, for mighty winds are stirring…
More worship finished off the night, and then we were informed that we were gonna have a dance party at 9.30. Cross dressing was acceptable. Lucky Mum and Dad went home, coz let’s just say that my brother was definitely showing his feminine side. Nate and Bucko have photos. Stuart had better not mess with them. He’s SO paying for the therapy I’m gonna need after this! What didn’t help were both Bucko and Scott’s comments about how hot my brother looked… ugh.
I borrowed Warrick’s guitar, and we ended up kind of jamming until about midnight. Char, Candy and AJ showed up, too. Mirjam, Daniel and Scott, too, for awhile. Anyway, went to bed but there were a few stupid pranks going on. Like the sellotape web outside Barry’s door. Turning over the tables was funny. The many party popper pranks were alright. The music ones were okay. Just in general, I was disappointed with the calibre. Nothing really jumped out and hit as a good prank… *sighs* Oh well. Maybe next year?
Monday morning we were all well and truly exhausted, and we had one last session. People shared, and that was really cool. It was cool to be able to talk candidly in front of people you’d been with the whole weekend – in general, it was cool. Isaac had his big send-off, and played us bass backing to the many terrible photos being shown on the wall. After that followed the big cleanup, lunch (a cake eating competition – where’s Kim when you need her? She would’ve kicked butt?) and going home. Gutted that people were jetting off to their respective homes, but everyone really needed to recover. All in all, an excellent weekend. (Far out I wrote a lot. Oh well, it’s EC05 in a nutshell – just a rather big nutshell)
Best be a-jetting!
ALP,
Rosie
posted by Rosie @ 9:41 am
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