Youth Camp Behind Barbed Wire

St. John's Island. A grey cloudy day. A crumpling cockroach-infested bungalow behind 2 sets of barbed wire, in the shadow of a watchtower. Mozzies with bloodlust.

Not quite the ideal venue for a youth camp.

Still, the campers came. And the Word was preached, illustrated by various Lord of the Rings and soccer analogies. I suspect that we might have benefited more than the campers. What joy to hear the truth preached day in day out; morning, afternoon and night, and what joy to stay in a Christian household with the glorious freedom to talk about God and about living for Christ without censorship.

And the food and games were fab as well: curry chicken, spaghetti bolognese, banoffee pie, beef hash and fried onions and toast, the farewell barbecue, bangers and scrambled egg, real hot chocolate, the classic Chairs Game, Sleeping Queens, Saboteur, Bang!, Taboo in Mandarin (add non-Mandarin-speaking ACS boys and RGS girls for non-stop hilarity), Treasure and Traps, the befuddling dit-dit finger game and an evening of very corny jokes.

Thoroughly enjoyed that questions were being asked about the Bible, about God, about biblical history: eg. Who wrote the Bible? Is it merely a guideline for life? Why did Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden? Why did God send Adam and Eve out of the Garden if he was a loving God? If God was omniscient, did he plan for the Fall? Whom did Cain marry? His sister? Noah: did God make a mistake and have to reboot the world? What about dinosaurs?

Questions show that people are thinking for themselves and not just swallowing everything that's told to them lock, stock, barrel and banoffee pie. And if the Bible is God's authoritative word to us, then our answers, our formulations and worldview, should be based his revelation rather than ideas spun out of the top of our heads or what our relatives or friends or the media tell us, no matter how sincere they are. Sincerity of belief will be (has always been) a terribly useless excuse in the face of God's judgement and the fire of his wrath (see eg. 2 Thessalonians 1:7).