Last full day of camp before we leave! How quickly time flies -- we can say it again and again but there is nothing we can do to try to hold on to every precious memory of the time we have spent here. In the course of these five days, I have gained so many brothers and sisters. It really feels like one big happy family here -- with the Staff, Campers and counselors -- and really encapsulates our camp motto “E pluribus Unum” -- Out of Many, One.

That morning we were served both breakfast and dinner, by one of the campers who wanted to give us all a true taste of Jamaica. So we breakfasted upon chicken stew with green bananas, dumplings, fresh mango, and omelets cooked on order. 

After breakfast it was my day, along with Rachel, to present our Christian living class to the group. Chuck Smith introduced our topics and the daily memory scripture with a moving story of how a convicted man turned his life around after finding Christ, and with courage and strength is living a Christian life in prison preaching to others. Then Rachel continued with her topic of the value and importance of youth, before I ended with courage -- discussing what it is, why we need it, the acquisition of it, and concluding with a reiteration of the week’s scriptures (2 Corinthians 10:5; Proverbs 3:5; Proverbs 15:29; and Joshua 1:9) and how we need to have the courage to apply them to our lives. 

The day's activities were very much focused around team building and growth. The campers began with watching a selection of the previous day’s interviews, discussing potential improvements and additional interview aspects not previously covered. Following this was a particularly requested match of Tug-of-War with this being very much gender team specific. There were a number of males against female rounds, with the female staff winning a number of times until the boy campers need to prove themselves and won the last round. Team ball games then followed, with it turning into a game of hot potato to keep at least five balls in the air in the circle before lunch. Pool time followed as tradition -- mostly a way to cool down from the mid-day heat, as well as sports and spontaneous dancing on the grass. Afterwards the team building continued with “walking on water” and trust fall activities all based in the pool. It was astounding to see the determination and care the campers had to complete these activities and insure that everyone had a go and was involved. To wrap this session up we unleashed a water balloon fight in the pool and our 30 minutes of filling water balloons quickly turned into a seven min activity, but we didn’t mind for the radiant faces.