It's been a long week!

Hello all!

Wow, what a long week! It has been a while since I wrote last for that reason.

So...Winter Youth Camp '09! Incredible. We went up to Mt. Tambourine for the camp, which was a little cold but so nice. There were over 40 kids, most from Cleveland Baptist but some from another church in the area called Birkdale Baptist. Three of the leaders that came were also from Birkdale, including their youth leader who led worship (which I also helped with despite having a bit of a cold - not the best singing I've ever done!)

The camp was based around a Focus on the Family program called No Apologies; this is their Abstinence program. It is such a great program, really focusing on the emotional and spiritual reasons for not having sex before marriage instead of just the physical reasons (pregnancy, STDs, etc.) The kids get most of the physical reasons in school, so it was great to get to talk about other reasons to stay pure that many hadn't considered before.

We were up at the camp from Monday morning until Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, Cameron wasn't able to come because she was sick with a viral throat infection :( But I had so much fun with the other leaders and the campers. Many of us were somewhat sick with colds and such but we didn't let that ruin our fun. In between sessions, we had games, free time, and obviously food. Ryan and Brenny, two of the male leaders, came up with a bunch of fun games for the kids to play, and they had a great time. The pinnacle of the camp was probably Wednesday night, when we split the girls and guys into separate groups in order to talk about the more delicate subjects, such as "how far is too far," points of arousal, how to show respect to the opposite sex (eg., girls not wearing revealing clothing to help out the guys), and stuff like that. The session went on for around 3 hours, which is HUGE for kids their age, because the girls kept asking so many questions and were so eager to learn more. Many had never heard that type of information and were keen as to know anything that could help them. It really was an incredible night of openness, honesty, humility, and bonding for the girls and for the guys. It was so wonderful!

I got to reunite with Cameron on Thursday, and it was so good to see her! She's feeling much better now. Friday we slept in late and just chilled-out the whole day, relaxed after the hard week. On Saturday, we woke early to go with the Heinrich's to go up to the Sunshine Coast - so fun! We went to a place called Eumundi where they have a HUGE market with so much food, clothing, crafts, souvenirs, etc. Then we drove to Caloundra to hang out on the beach and watch the surfers. We went to a GREAT gelato place there too - yum! We drove back and met up with Mr. & Mrs. Jenkins, who took Cam and me to an AFL footie game. SO fun! It's such a different sport - much like rugby, but with totally different rules (which is why they call it Aussie Rules - only Australians play the game this way, like how we are the only ones who play American football our way.) It was a face paced sport with probably more skill required than rugby, and was very entertaining to watch. They don't smash people as much as in rugby though, so some people don't like it as much, but I thought it was great. And our team, the Brisbane Lions, killed the other team! Hooray!!

Sunday, I had to get up early again to help lead worship, and then we moved into the Marriott's home for a week. I'm so excited about getting to know this family better and hanging out with them for a bit! We will be back to the Heinrich's for the last bit though.

Well, I need to go do some reading for the online class I'm taking (getting this class all sorted out has been a headache in itself!) so I'll go on now. I'll try and upload a picture from camp or something later on. Ciao!