It is early morning. I’m still groggy and have no interest in finding out what time it is. But I am awake and the reason for that is I can hear the activity going on outside. The kids who stayed over are singing, talking, playing. My father wasn’t joking when he said they wake up REALLY early. However it was nice to hear music first thing in the morning, sung sweetly by little children to their heavenly Father.
The day before we instructed the kids to come at 9am for two reasons. From the previous day we realised that the program went by really fast and we ended up with nothing for the kids to do. Secondly, we know the kids would definitely come early and so 9am was a safe time to ensure we dun get bombarded so early in the morning. After our usual morning devotions, we had breakfast with the kids who had stayed over. My dad told them they could ask anything they wanted about me, but they were too shy to say anything.
So here we were, day 2 of camp. We could hear the excited chatter of kids as they gathered downstairs or played in the playground. Due to the age group difficulty, we came up with a solution the night before that my father would take the kids aged 6 and below away for a ‘secret class’ when necessary.
First up was the morning devotion which Uncle William took. This was an evangelistic camp and this particular devotion was an evangelistic one. Uncle William made use of the memory verses that we had introduced to the kids. Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord
DOSA – sin in Indonesian. The message was clear, that we all had sin and we needed a God to save us.
After devotions, we moved on to the art and craft session which was to form a paper house by colouring the insides of the house. The kids were split into two rooms with each room containing two groups. The kids sat in a circle surrounding me and Darren came in to give the instructions on how to make the house. Aliman was nearby to help me translate when needed, but it was quite a simple activity that didn’t need much instructions. However it was interesting to observe how some of the kids didn’t want to start colouring immediately because they were afraid of doing something wrong. 7 year old Lince threw herself into action furiously colouring and decorating her house with windows and doors while 12 year old Reminis seemed stuck for a moment as to what she was supposed to do. I was in the center and decided to make my own house as well so it could be a sample for them. This made it easier for some kids who kind of copied what I was doing. Anyway I know how it feels... to feel afraid to do something wrong. Some of them kept on asking question after question whether they could colour in a certain section and I had to keep on repeating, “enga apa apa” (there’s no problem) in order to reassure them that it was okay to just be creative and design anything and colour anywhere they want.
That's Tari, she's super duper cute!
After that, we presented to them our skit about the wise and foolish man which Aunt Lucy introduced. The lovely sound effects that were supposed to go with the skit could not be heard from the laptop even though we connected the speakers to it. For some reason it just wasn’t loud enough. But that didn’t stop us and the kids from having fun. The kids had a good laugh as we did the celebration jig upon completion of the house. When it was my turn to do the foolish man with the mask, I attempted to speak Indonesian in the halting broken manner and was glad that skits were a lot of visual coz of the language barrier. Tina was great with the translating though and the kids learnt that their foundations were very important.
Lunch was as per normal, but this time in a more orderly manner as we lined the kids up before they collected their food outside to go to the other room. WE realised that throughout the camp, the meals were all very very similar....and there were no complaints. The portions were actually for adults but we realised that the kids, especially the young boys could really eat a lot.
Close your eyes. Imagine you’re on the beach. You see the waves, you feel the cooling wind and the sand beneath your feet. You’re standing on the beach. And then ... you see a white bird. ... it walks towards you ... Step by step by step... and then it talks to you. And it tells you.... that you are at the beach. ...
Okay a bit of exaggeration on my part, but after lunch, zh did a bit of quiet time with the kids. The kids lay on the cooling tiled floor and were to close their eyes and listen to the ‘story’ which my dad translated. As you can see from above, this was rather impromptu and I wonder what the kids might have been thinking (I think some just took an opportunity to take a nap). Well the quite time was rather interesting albeit some giggles from us... It was Darren who saved the day by mouthing from the entrance of the room, “FUBWI! FUBWI!” This was happening while Zhi Hong was busy trying to think up of a story to the kids, so I was the only one standing in front who was trying to comprehend what Darren was saying. In exasperation, he pointed to his foot and realisation dawned upon me. THE FOOTPRINTS STORY! That’s what Darren was trying to say, “footprints!”. Zhi hong was kind of desperate and was about to tell them to open their eyes and end the ‘quiet time’. Then I whispered the amazing revelation I had received from Darren, across the room, in the message of ‘fubwi’ that we could tell them the footprints story. At that point in time, my dad was translating in Indonesian that the kids could open their eyes.... “oh and guess what kids, you can close your eyes again!”. Yeah they had to close their eyes again after the message had finally come across.
Quite a number of kids put up their hands to indicate they wanted to believe in Jesus Christ
Zhi hong was still in white-bird mode, so I had to tell the footprints story on the spot. There’s a good thing about having a translator. It gives you that extra time to think to yourself and organise your thoughts. I told the story as best as I could and at the end of it, weaved the gospel message in and asked who would want to receive Christ. That was actually the main aim of ‘quiet time’. Quite a number of kids put up their hands. And it was a nice moment of being ‘still’ during the day where we had a bit of peace instead of endless chatter, talking or shouting.
After that was the afternoon fun games that Darren had prepared. Each of the groups had to come up with their own cheer and we marched outside shouting it out aloud in unison. You could see the rivalry between the teams as the competitive spirit in the kids showed forth. This spelt out tremendous fun as we played competitive games of passing down the rubber band(s) using straws. And you’d think that passing a balloon down a line would be easy peasy. Well the kids had to do it back to back and keep turning which was not easy at all. I ended up having to turn each individual kid to stop them from passing the balloon towards the front. Really funny. They were so focused on getting the balloon to the end that they forgot HOW they were supposed to do it. HAHA, but after a few tries, the older ones managed to get the hang of it.
THUMB vs LITTLE FINGER vs INDEX FINGER
I just love the expression on the girl's face in the background. Such excitement and joy!
It was a Sunday, which meant that some of the kids would have to go to church. It seems that the services on Sunday are in the afternoons. Even the one at the yayasan is at 4pm in the afternoon. Which posed a bit of a problem since it interrupted the flow of the camp. The kids were required to remain hush hush while the service was going on upstairs...and you know how difficult this is with a bunch of energetic kids. Well we were hoping that the number of kids would be smaller because some of them were leaving to go to their own churches. Like in my group, one of the boys, Hendra, who used the sign of the cross before praying, said he needed to go to church but would come back, while another girl had a birthday party of some sort to attend. We were hoping for less kids for easier facilitation, but I think the number was still too big.
Of course it's not really called that (i'm the only one of the 4 who isn't from AJC), darren learnt it in scouts before, long before he entered AJ. So there!
Aunt Lucy led a the role play which occurred in silent movie fashion due to the ongoing service upstairs. You could see that the kids had really retained a lot more from the skit because they could play it out pretty well. Giggles had to be muffled and it might have been a bit stifling for the kids. We then had a short session of stretch and flex... indoors. No choice. Then when we thought the service was ending, we recited memory verses again. However you could see the kids were pretty restless and they were demanding to bathe. Did I mention that it was also very hot?
Now, under different circumstances, we would have gladly let the children go and bathe and refresh themselves. It had been a long day, fun under the sun and tiring activities. Even keeping mum in a room for more than an hour can be quite tiring. However we only had 2 toilets, and the problem of water supply. A long debate ensued as Zhi Hong attempted to tell the kids the problem with Aliman translating it. My mom came in to try and settle things and this went on for quite a while. You see the problem was we had organised our timetable with the idea that the kids would be staying over and that they would have ample time to wash up before the night session that would contain the parable package. Turns out that most of the kids didn’t stay over and so we decided to do away with the bathing time since the kids could go home and bathe. We didn’t want the kids to miss out the session of learning the bible story. However, a decision had to be made and in the end the kids were left off early after dinner and a short briefing to review what they had learnt. So we skipped out on the story of the 10 bridesmaids and decided to put it on another day.
Debrief:
- We realised that during the quite time, we did not really take into account those kids who had put up their hands. We forgot that the main aim of the camp was to evangelise the gospel and for those who seemed to be willing to accept the gospel, more effort needed to be put in to talk to them personally.
- It was rather inconvenient to have a service that clashed with our camp because we were forced to restrain the kids when we actually had outdoor games for them that were really fun. It kind of put a grumpiness on everyone due to the restlessness and weather conditions.
- Bathing time was essential for the kids. The kids voiced out “mandi ka! Bau!” (bathe big sister, smelly). I think it was the restlessness that made them feel that way, but even during the helpers dinner, Aliman mentioned that we should have some time for the kids to bathe and freshen up. Then again, we learnt that we should just make it a day camp and make it easier for everyone.
Day 2 done. At night we had a little discussion about the mini finale that was going to be held the next day. Parents had been invited and the kids would be presenting what they had learnt.
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