#58 - Youth Gospel Camp report

The 3 Day Youth Camp is over (2 half day and 1 full day), it is very hard to describe our feelings as it is a mixture of happiness and sadness.  It was extremely hot (over 100F (38C) even in the evening time) over the 3 days and about 100 youth from various rural churches and the main church; their age ranges from 14 to 20 years old.  Praise God for His grace so my family and to the youth with genuine interest in following Jesus.  Pray that His word will become a seed in all these youth and they will one day turn away from the world and back to God.

The happiest moment is to see a small group of youth and our students to have a strong interest in knowing the “truth” --- I can see in their eyes that they are concern about eternity, they want to know how they can follow Jesus on this earth and go to Heaven even when we discuss how difficult this journey would be. 

The saddest moment is to see a large group of youth have no concern over eternity.  And many of these youth called themselves Christians and have been baptized.  They participated in all the games, demo and singing but they had no interest in learning about repentance and hearing about how to follow Jesus. 

Please continue to pray for our dorm students for discernment and a heart to know God.  And they will soon be the one to return to their hometown to preach God's word in full and in clarity.  It is going to be a long term battle as there are just too many false preachings about health, wealth and success. 

In addition, we need your financial support as we have spent about US$2,400 for the camp to cover the food, water, T-shirts, materials for the tents, transportations for some rural churches and etc.   Please let us know if you want to dedicate the support for the camp.

Here's some pics of our camp last weekend!

Day 1 - Preparation & Youth Arrivals (11am)

Preparing name tags for the participants

Setting up the tents for boys to sleep at night.  Girls sleep inside the church.

Some youth just arrived and some of them traveled over 10km to join the camp.

Our students were helping the youth to register after they arrived

Day 1 - Camp Begins (2pm)

Introduction of the camp

Thomas speaks in English and our dorm leader translates to Khmer
just like all our Sunday worships at the dorm.

Amy lead our dorm students in singing and also
teaching the youth to sing the theme song - Trust and Obey

 The local pastor helped us hired 5 church members to cook for all the meals 
for every one at the camp.
3 of the workers turns out to be our students' parents.

They took care of the purchasing, preparing and cooking
for the 130 students & helpers for 3 meals a day =)

One of our students presents Creation and Noah

Another student presents the story of Abraham

Thomas is explaining God's characters and who is God
after hearing the Student Presentation of Creation, Noah and Abraham. 

About 90 youths joined the camp

About 30 of our students from our dorm joined the camp

Day 2 - Starts at 5:30am with Devotion and Games.

Breakfast time 7AM -- This is the old church building structure 
located behind the new church building.

Big pots to cook and clean.  No gas, no LPG, all real wood fire =)

Getting ready to sing the theme song

Amy leads to sing worship songs

Most of the modern worship songs they sing contain only a few words and
we explained good worship music would have good lyrics that describe about God, 
esp. His Holiness, Goodness.
 When we sing praises to Him, good worship song can help us to learn more about God

Learning to sing Trust and Obey

Our students led to sing a few traditional hymns with Khmer translation

Day 2 - Story of Joseph (Son of Jacob)

Day 2 - Discussion One
We used the Story of Joseph and what they learn from the day before (Adam&Eve, Noah, Abraham) to discuss about how they can "Trust & Obey" in their own lives.

Pics when Thomas was listening to the youth ideas during the discussion.

Day 2 Afternoon 2PM -- Gospel Part One:  Sin and Eternal Punishment

Playing a game about SIN

Amy explaining the meaning and history of the hymn Hosanna.

We gave a condensed version of Jesus ' life:  His Birth, His Ministry, His Death and His Resurrection

Game after the program and before dinner about 5:45pm

Dinner at 6:15pm

Day 3 Tuesday -- The Gospel Part 2 --- How can we be Saved?

Demo: Help students think about our life on earth and compare this life to ETERNITY. The demo shows ETERNITY is so much longer compared to our current life.

On the last day, we show the youth what the scripture said about how we can be saved, what it means to "Believe" or "Have Faith" in Jesus (popular saying here).  How BELIEVE and REPENTANCE go hand-in-hand in a Believer's life.

Closing -- Our students sang 4 hymns that we selected to reflect on our Christian belief.  
(1) Christ Arose; (2) He Lives; (3) In Christ Alone; (4) Trust & Obey