SUIS Camp – Em’seni (Dec. 1-19th)
Hello everyone!
No I’m not dead yet. Just kidding. I have just started my lecture phase of my
YWAM DTS training. For the past 16 days
I have been working on a camp in the Drakensburg called Em’seni near Winterton
(not that that means anything to my American readers) BUT it has been an
amazing, amazing, AMAZING experience!
I’m sorry I am not able to put pictures up
quite yet, because I still have 3 more days until we will be going back to our
base in Kloof and then we will be heading off shortly after to Assagay to be celebrating
our Christmas week going on a hike and just chilling with some people from a
rehabilitation center. Then in even
shorter period of time after that we will be going to Lesotho for a month and
then Swaziland for a month. So in other words, I have been quite busy and will
be busier.
BUT for the camp, I want to just say a few
things about my experience here. When we got here we spent the first two days
going through leadership training to prepare us for the next 7 days on camp
(Dec 1-2). The way they have the camp set up is that Xavier our camp main overseer/manager
is in charge of the camp and is the “permanent legal adult” you could say, but
all the “leaders” that I was working with were freshly out of high school or just
a few years into college. So the camp is actually run and coordinated by a
bunch of college kids! It has been such a coolest thing to be a part of!
One big part of the camp is worship. I was
so excited to see what they were doing, because it was always something I had
wanted to try but never did! They took the stage and minimized it to be as
simplistic as possible; then they placed it in the center of the room. After
that they place projectors on either walls so no one has to look one way so
that they band is really just part of the whole group rather than being the
main focus or eye source. But they went even further! We then set up around in
different corners of the room different ways to worship (because worship is not
just singing songs). There were places where people could self-reflect, where
people could pray for their country, community, or loved ones, and where they
could praise God by writing love letters to Him or looking at pictures and
facts of galaxies just to get an image of how big he is.
It is cool they got that image from Exodus
32 when the Israelites took the gold that God had given them as a reminder of
how amazing He is and what He had done for them (rescued them from Egypt), but
instead they turned and worshiped the gift rather than the giver. And it’s
crazy that we do that too with worship. We worship worship sometimes. Unless we
get something out of “worship time”, then we feel dissatisfied, but worship
should be taking place all the time and it doesn't matter what we get out of
it, but what we give through it.
So there was worship and then there is the “Rap
Groups” which I have been a leader for. The rap groups are just split up groups
that we do devotions in and have a more focused time of teaching/discussion and
openness that you wouldn’t get maybe in just a lecture.
The first week I co-led with a guy called
Mash. It was awesome! It would make us laugh every time because we were really
unified in our thinking you could say. He would start talking about something
and I would open up the scripture he was thinking about before he got there or
had mentioned it yet, and it was just really fun! Our group was also super
cool! We had six 11th and 12th graders and all 6 of them
were amazing, and I love them all to death! This week for our second camp, I
have been leading with a guy named Robbie who is aspiring to be a comedian.
Definitely an amazing dude! He carries his Bible EVERYWHERE! It is the coolest
thing and our group is just as cool! We went from having 6 campers (2 guys and
4 girls) to having 11 campers (8 guys and 3 girls). It’s crazy! But we have had
sooooooo much fun!
The camp’s theme has been “The Lord is my
Shepherd”. And of course the scripture we have been using has been Psalm 23. It
really is so true that God’s Word is living and active, because after reading
this scripture one billion and fifty three times, I have gotten so many new
things from it just in a few days (not including the 2 weeks total)! But
specifically the fact that if God is my Shepherd and if He is leading me in
right paths, then I do not need to be afraid of the future that He has for me,
because He is preparing the way for me. So with that in mind, God has given me
a peace about my plans for after YWAM even though I don’t know what He has
planned in those plans (if that makes sense).
So we still have a few more days in this
camp, but I am so excited to see what else God is going to do in this time for
the campers, my team, and me.
Thank you everyone for putting up with my
lengthy blogs :D
Love you guys!
Shannon ( or after this camp also known as
Cray Cray, Craynon, Flo Rida, etc!)
