Christmas Fun Camp

Camp was a great success. We had lots of Thais, a bunch of Chinese, a group of Singaporeans, a handful of Kiwis, a few UKians, two Aussies and a Brazilian. Definitely merited its title as an “international” camp.

We had… lots of silly games… skits and studies about the true meaning of Christmas… coconut palms by the lakeside… crazy games… salty, sticky, ricey “porridge” for brekkie… little thatched-roof huts to sit in and eat the salty, sticky, ricey stuff… energetic games… a whole bunch of people learning about Jesus’ birth for perhaps the first time in their lives… carols… ice-breaking games… nice hard marble floors to sleep on, with rather thin “mattresses”… crafts… ba-ba-bo-bo games… punishment dances: the chicken dance and the cockroach dance… “secret Santas”… and a “creative” - and possibly very historically inaccurate - re-enactment of Samuel Marsden’s preaching of the gospel to the Maori people on Christmas Day, complete with Te Harinui and the haka, which people loved. Oh, and did I mention games?

“Why so many games?” you ask. Thai love sanuuk – fun – and it’s a great cross-cultural, cross-language, cross-any-other-differences way of building relationships.

On a deeper note, God was really at work: in the relationships which developed between students, as Christian students were built up in their faith and as non-Christians came to know more about our Saviour. It was really encouraging to see the number of non-Christian students who had been brought along by their Christian friends. The incredible campsite God provided at almost the last minute was a huge answer to prayer too. And one final highlight for me was seeing a Chinese student thank God for his first ever bible.

Alice