Camp 2012

There is a certain feeling of accomplishment when the last tent is packed away and the sun begins to set at the end of Camp. It was a good camp, with nothing too terrible going wrong. It contained all the usual ingredients: plenty of rain*, leaky tents, good food, dodgy toilets, a malfunctioning shower, wet feet, all sprinkled with a liberal helping of tiredness and garnished with the occasional sunbeam.

I was the speaker for the younger age group and had to deliver six talks in four days. I thoroughly enjoyed myself (just re-read that and think 'thoroughly' may be an exaggeration, instead, read 'sort of...') and took the children from the beginning of time, through to the Cross of Christ and then we sneaked a peak at the end of time – Jesus' return. I was rather apprehensive about how the talks would be received, but after a destroying a Nasa based inflatable globe, ruining a brand new white t-shirt and wrestling with my cross shaped jigsaw visual aid, it all seems to be worth it. For one child said to me, "The talks were brilliant" and another claimed they were "excellent." Okay, on balance another child said that they were "boring," but if at least two children thought they were brilliant, then they can't have been that bad, for which I thank God and breathe a deep sigh of relief.

So whilst my face is still glowing from the weather's best attempts to strip it of it's skin, my head hurts and I appear to ache all over, at least it seems like it was all worth it.

* I have to confess that the rain on the first night was soooooo bad that I didn't sleep. At all. So the next night I waited for everyone to go to bed before snucking into my car and driving home, to have what can only be described (and I'm borrowing an adjective popular with the kids at camp) as  'epic'. But shhhhh, don't tell anyone :)