July 30, 2015 Sarah Carrick

Last full day of camp – 30th of July 2015

Last full day of camp before we leave! How quickly time flies – we can say it again and again but there is nothing we can do is try to hold on to every precious memory of the time we have spent here. In the course of the five days, I have gained so many brothers and sister. It really feels like one big happy family here -- with the Staff, Campers and counsellors- and really enraptures our camp motto “E pluribus Unum” -- Out of Many, One.

That morning we were served both breakfast and dinner, by one of the campers who wanted to give us all a true taste of Jamaica. So we breakfasted upon chicken stew with green bananas, dumplings, fresh mango, and omelettes cooked on order. 

 
After breakfast it was Rachel and my day to present our Christian living class to the group. Chuck introduced our topics and the daily memory scripture with a moving story of how a convicted man turned his life around after finding Christ, and with courage and strength is living a Christian life in prison preaching to others. Then Rachel continued with her topic of the value and importance of youth, before I ended with the Courage -- discussing what it is, why we need it, the acquisition of it, and concluding with a reiteration of the week’s scriptures (2 Corinthians 10:5; Proverbs 3:5; Proverbs 15:29; and Joshua 1:9) and how we need to have the courage to apply them to our lives. 

The day activities were very much focused today around team building and growth. The campers begun with watching a selection of the previous day’s interviews, discussing potential improvements and additional interview aspects not previously covered. Following this was a particularly requested match of Tug-of-War with this being very much gender team specific. There were a number of males against female rounds, with the female staff winning a number of times until the boy campers need to prove themselves and won the last round. Team ball games then followed, with it turning into a game of hot potato to keep at least 5 balls in the air in the circle before lunch. Pool time followed as tradition -- mostly a way to cool down from the mid-day heat, as well as sports and spontaneous dancing on the grass. Afterwards the team building continued with “walking on water” and trust falls activities all based in the pool. It was astounding to see the determination and care the campers had to complete these activities and ensure that everyone had a go and was involved. To wrap this session up we unleased a water balloon fight in the pool and our 30mins of filling water balloons quickly turned into a 7 min activity, but we didn’t mind for the radiant faces.

 
Dinner of traditional chicken jerky, peas and rice (or was that rice and peas?), and vegetable and fruit salad went down well for all. We councillors decided to jump in and serve the campers and staff as a thank you to the hard working and dedicated kitchen staff. Talent night soon followed with the campers dashing about and getting ready. Performances included a number of songs, dance performances, and skits, and created a great deal of laugher and joy for all -- particularly the candy shop skit by the kitchen staff where our camp director was called on spontaneously to act out being a quirky milkshake maker and received roars of laughter. Following this were our last dorm chats, where we wrapped up what they learnt over the course of camp and how it went, ending with our traditional group prayer and hug.

 
The day ended with a midnight swim, involving a lot of glow sticks and collective jumping into the pool -- some of it fully clothed. It was a full moon, which provided a happy glow over us as we celebrated our few days together, the friendships, the memories, the spiritual nourishment and growth we all had experience. I know that I will not be able to look at a full moon again without remembering the happy and sad faces as we said good night for the last time (and for many goodbyes due to early morning departures), and thinking of camp Jamaica and the good it provided. There is a scripture which sums up the camp and the youth corps project completely for me as a counsellor as I sign off for the last day... "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). And I can only hope that the campers learnt as much as us staff did from them.