Awesome 3 weeks Camp Cameron 2010!

Three weeks of my life. Three weeks of life-fulfilling lessons. Three weeks of fellowships forged. Three weeks of listening to God. Three weeks of reflecting 21 years of existence.

I was kinda anticpating eagerly for this 3 weeks Camp Cameron because I just had a feeling that it'll be one major milestones in my life. At the same time, I'm kinda nervy because I was picked to be the group leader and it would mean that I would have extra responsibilities in the camp. Hmmmm..but as I mentioned later, it turns out to be a good experience. I won't be going to narrate day by day on what happens since the photos at my facebook will explain..lol. So, I'm gonna give an overall account of my experience after going it through it.

The place were staying at was at Habu, Lutheran Lakeview Chalets. My chalet was a little different in the sense that we were separated from the main campsite since the main campsite could not accomodate all 81 people together. So, for every session or activity, we either have to walk 10 minutes down to the main campsite or take a car ride if it's too late or dark at night. We are however compensated with our own kitchen, eating utensils, fridge, a large hall and dining table for ourselves. Foodwise, we had lots of vegetables for each meal and meat do not always appear in every meal. So, we had quite a healthy diet there except that our grandparents and uncle tend to 'spoil' us by buying us goodies like maggi mee, ice-cream and even KFC! Lights out is at 12am and we get up early at 6.30am every morning.

The camp had various main segments to it, the first being Lectio Divina, then Chronicles of God and His Kingdom (CGK), Wordylicious Investigators (WI) and Redeeming Relationships. Lectio Divina was something new that I encountered in camp which requires me to be really silent and let the Word speak to me instead as it is being read out. I love CGK session in the morning although it is quite taxing for some of them becaus it reminded me of all the Bible stories that I learn in Sunday School only that this time, I am mature enough to dwell deeper into the meanings of the passages. WI was something which we already did at ICF during CG time, and I get to witness first hand on how it should be conducted to its full potential. Of course, it requires the participants to take initiative in the first place to ask questions and be curious about the passage they are investigating. In between the time to night sessions, we have rotation of things such as leisure, games and outing day on Wednesdays. The first Wednesday was Boh Tea Plantation while the second one is going to Tanah Rata. The third one is up to each and every chalet to plan and mine decided to stay back and cook up a feast instead..lol.

The night sessions were called Redeeming Relationships and it involves 3 stages. 1st week was with God, next with the people around us like friends and family and finally was with the world. Basically the idea is that we learn how to get our relationship right with God first and then patch up any broken relationships that we may have with those surrounding us. The most emotional one was on family because many of us came from challenging situations. Grandma Annette did a fantastic job in presenting us the second week of redeeming relationships session where we get to confront critical issues such as gender differences and courtship. I love the last session too with Sivin Kit who reminded us that our role as Christians should translate to the community where we should operate as agents of change to make our country and community a better place to live in. The main focus of all these sessions point back to the fact that God is our Yahweh Elohim, which means our personal God who will travel with us in our personal odyssey.

I made lots of good friends over there and Malaysia seems to be quite small out a sudden when I got to know that a few of them there knew some of my campus friends..haha. The moments of Yeaaaaaahhh! and BKB were really memorable and the fellowship I had with my D'Villa family is fantastic. I think we are craziest and loudest chalet lots especially with Richard and Enoch running around. We are blessed indeed to have both Grandma Wan Ling and Annette with us. Annette herself has already attended 22 years worth of Camp Cameron and this would be her last one since she would be going international. We are priviledged to be her last grandchildren and to have the opportunity to have a share of her wealth of experience..haha.

For me personally, when we go up Cameron Highlands, it reminded me of Moses' journey up to Mount Sinai to speak with God. Many of us left the familiar things that we know and away from distractions to have this very rare opportunity to focus fully on God and reallign ourselves to Him. The question next is then what will we be doing with the message once we return back to the people below. There's alot of time for self-examination up in Camp Cameron and I get to organise my thoughts on my life properly and to have an even clearer direction on what to do with my life down the road. It's a period of rededication of my life to God, make firm decisions and also to renew my committment vows with God. God keeps His covenant with His people afterall :)

Next year, there won't be a Camp Cameron since the FES is taking a break. I really recommend for any young undergraduate who wants to get serious with God to at least take the opportunity to attend Camp Cameron when the opportunity comes. There's alot of things that God will speak within that 3 weeks. I am honoured to have the chance to listen :)

Away at Cameron Camp

If you don't hear from Stan for 3 weeks already or so, don't panic. He ain't dead in some ditch. It's just him being at Cameron Camp from 9th May to 29th May and he would most probably have no Internet connection over there. He has no idea how he's going to survive being cut off from his basic neccessities of communication but he's hoping that there would at least be wi-fi up in the mountains or his phone would prove to be a useful modem in the end. In any case, here's adieu and will catch up with everyone 3 weeks later

Title almost Blue?

As the Premier League decider goes down to the last match, the title looks set to be in Chelsea hands. Liverpool was given the task to stop the Blues and they had the best chance and capability to do it in the remaining matches and they failed miserably with Gerrard gifting the match to Chelski with a boo boo. It was a rollercoaster ride of a season. United found themselves in a leading position at the starting months of the year only to undone it with a miserable streak starting from the Bayern loss. A promising season looks to be a disastrous one as many of the decisions seemed to be fatefully unfavourable to United and although there were moments of brilliance from the attackers, they were still undone by mistakes and unfortunate moments of absent-mindedness, be it referees or United's very own defenders.

At one point of view, it can be said that United was the architect of their own doom by committing grievous crimes such as losing to Burnley at the start of the season and struggling to a goalless draw against Blackburn. If all those had been rectified earlier, United would not need to be dependent on a very high impossible level of Chelsea slipping up at Stamford Bridge against the likes of Wigan eventhough the Latics are pretty famaous for their giant-slaying technique. As Gary Neville had said, leaving it to the hands of others will be costly.

Still hoping for a miracle though..haha.

Camps and more camps

Another torrent of activities occupied my time after my trip downsouth as I made preparations and plannings for the CF camp during the last days of April. There was little time to slack around and so by 30th April or so, all things were more or less prepared with the baits and goodies in place. Since some had their exams ending late, the camp bus can only leave at about 7.30pm. I had planned to drive there since there's quite a handful of camp games equipment to carry. Alas, just as I was going to leave, I discovered to my dismay that my tyres were flat and had to be replaced immediately. That delayed some time for the bus departure too since it needed to wait for me to follow.

We reached the campsite just in time for dinner and to settle down. The pathway to the farm is just plain ulu, with pitch darkness and rocky terrain which makes my Proton seemed to be rather inadequate in handling the bumpy ride. Thankfully, the remaining tyres are alright. Maddie and I got everyone started with the ice-breaking games and distributed them to their respective groups using the cartooon theme song. It's rather amusing to see the cheers that they can come out with. The next day was heavy-going for the activities planner as we had to organize a tresure-hunt like game called Cabin Clue. It did get some people on their nerves as even we the facilitators forgot where we threw the items..lol. Night time was also spent with another set of games. As a facilitator, I feel drunk with power with the bag of points and a Santa too. With an evil set of mind, it's interesting to see the stuff that people will do in camera for some extra points..lol. But, I would have to say it's worth it to grind for the points because the goodies that we offer for exchange are really really good stuff with a black market in place. The last day's pencil game was super hillarious as we get some rather funny photo moments.

I would have to say that the food at camp is really fantastic. It's homecooked on the spot and there's ice for every meal session with fruits and dessert. It's easily one of the best camp meals I've tasted. Although the sleeping areas are kinda cramped with open air, there's still a good night's sleep. We were back by Sunday evening and on the next day, after saying farewell to Emily and Karen, I packed my stuff and prepared to go to the southern island once more to pack the stuff in my room. Once I'm back on Wednesday evening, it was a straight trip to Damansara where it'll be my lodging base until I fly off in mid-September. Looking at the schedule ahead, there'll be helping out at the committee retreat, the 3 weeks Cameron camp, family holidays and a road-trip up ahead. Ahhhh..it seems that I won't be staying stationary in one area for long. I felt like an experienced nomad out of a sudden..lol.

Farewell and Birthday Weekend

Exams had ended a long time ago but I could only find time now to blog since I spent a majority of my time clearing my hostel room in order to vacate it. But first of all, let's have some recollections back first on the final week before the exams where we had the final week of CF activities with the farewell meeting on Wednesday. I would say that this last farewell meeting has seen the most amount of leavers in recent years. A total of 16 or so are departing and basically, the night is catered for a time of sharing, farewell speeches and testimonies. The highlight is of course the video compilation of all the leavers. Anyways, the JPA ladies dressed up specially for the ocassion while the boys were just dressed..plainly..lol. After a night of whacky fun time of taking photos, it was back to revision.

Then on Thursday night was pork burger CG outing at Seremban. We had a grand total of 4 cars going and we rampaged through the restaurant like a hungry mob. Lol, the Fireworkz restaurant should thank me for bringing them new business all the time! With such a big bunch, we were quite a notable presence in the place and in addition to that, there were some of them who actually went to pack pork burgers for their friends back in campus. With the group photo session, then that's it! All CF activities officially ends and I felt glad that some of them managed to make a 'pilgrimage' to pork burger before their time at Inti ends..haha.

Well, the one week of exams was a real hectic time. I kept turning down dinner invitations and most meal times were kept to a minimum so as to ensure maximum time is allocated to revision. JPA mode was switched on and well running in turbo charge. I was fortunate to have started at least a small percentage of revision before the study week, so the remaininding amount to be consolidated was not too much for me to bear like what happened in mid-sessionals. Land law was a decent paper and tort was the longest one which I prepare and it's the one which I felt I won't be doing as well in proportion to the big amount of preparation that I had made. Ironically, I find my equity and trusts paper to be the most well-done of all the exams and I even have 3 mintes to spare at the end. And finally, the Public International Law paper was also decent although I thought I could have done better if I had started earlier. I've only started my full PIL revision 2 days before the paper itself and throughout the study week, I didn't even touch on it at all. The first time that I revised on PIL was 2 days before the exams..lol. I was planning to consolidate more by waking up early in the morning at 5am but it ended with me waking up in a rush at 7.30am, just in time for me to download a few vital article provision numbers in my mind. Thankfully, I did all the revision was neccessary before I slept.

The day of the PIL exam was also my 21st birthday date. Previously last year, the CF folks stopped themselves from giving me a "watery" surprise because my last exam fell on my birthday. This time, they had to withold themselves from pranking me because my last paper was on my birthday again! Haha..Anyways, it won't be easy for them to pull a surprise evil plan this time considering that I've been part of most of the previous plans and have seen it all. I felt kinda liberated after the paper, because that will be the last time I'm doing exams at Inti and yea, JPA Mode was officially switched off on that day and that calls for double celebration! Well, I rested at my room first before proceeding on to prepare myself to go to Seremban for an Easter Drama Production at Lynne's church. I kinda predict that some kind of surprise will occur at Seremban and it may probably be happening at dinner table. But still, I was in for some mini surprise later on.

We had to go to Lynne's house first to pick her up. I was thinking of just a quick pick-up but then Jonathan suddenly said that he had to toilet, so I thought that it was no biggie to just stop by at the house. So everyone went in, and we went to chill at the living room. Jon started to play some usual songs at the piano for about 10 minutes or so and suddenly, he started playing the Happy Birthday tune. I thought he was doing it cheekily but then suddenly I spotted Madonna coming out with the cake. Ahhhhhh! I'm caught off-guard! Lol..so it was a plan afterall to get me into the house! Anyways, I would like to thank everyone who had wished me on Facebook and through SMS and also those that celeberated my birthday with the cake in the house! It's a fitting personal 21 guns salute on a 21st birthday :)

Wow, I can't believe I'm 21 already. I ain't young nowadays and I've passed the final critical age mark after 16 and 18. For starters, this meant that I can vote already and sign my own papers but more is gonna be expected from me in terms of responsiblity and decision-making. It's the start of adulthood and I do look forward for the challenges that will be placed in my way in the future and by God's grace, I'll do well in them :)

Exam hiatus

It's the dreadful time of the year again. This time, it's the final hurdles for my 2nd year. 4 major exams starting tomorrow with the last one ending on the 17th on Saturday. It's one week of anti-socialness as Stan desperately's retreat to his hostel hole to consolidate as many cases and statutes in his head. Too much of wasted time, and he has yet to even start his revision for equity and Public International Law. As of now, this blog shall be silent till the desperate hour of shoring up the preparations for the incoming exam war is over.

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

The nail pierced hands that dripped blood 2000 years ago. I can think of no other noble man who would bear the weight of sin of the whole world on his shoulders. The gift didn't come cheap, but it was made available to all those who wanted to accept it.

The most amazing thing:
He loved you eventhough you rejected Him.
He forgave you eventhough you spat at Him.
He died for you eventhough you didn't know Him.

The question is:
Do you accept Him and invite Him into your heart?

Have a Good Friday and blessed Easter everyone ;)