What an adventure! Survivor camp started on the Friday with leaders coming together to get the camp set up and ready for when the campers were to arrive on the Saturday morning. After much cutting and gluing, some dinner at the ASL and laughs we were ready for them to arrive.
As the campers arrived we welcomed them in with warm hellos and a few games of Kazaam, and Katoonga. So fun and funny. Great way to break the ice and have the campers and leaders getting to know each other.
After the games we got broken into our teams: Kryptonite, Half-Blood Phoenix, and BOOM. The leaders were psyched to get things going and headed back with their groups to create flags, capes and cheers. Laura was a leader with BOOM along with Ben, Simon, Scott, Kirsten, and Katie. That's right 6 of them for 13 campers. And I thought IAWAH's numbers were high.
After creating our flags and capes we headed for some great food and then it was off to find out what our challenge would be.
Laura was one of the leaders who got chosen to be an "infected" person who dressed up and waited for campers to come and super orb them and take them back to head quarters to complete their mission. It was great fun seeing the campers and leaders getting right into it.
The days went as following:
TRAINING: In the next morning Laura had the privilege of leading one of the training sessions that the campers could go to in order to earn more points towards their hero training (speed, strength, smarts). Roz and her lead the speed challenges as Captain Metallica and Captain Australia. It was so much fun coming up with speedy challenges as well as encouraging kids to give it their all so early in the morning.
HERO COUNCIL: After training it was off to breakfast and then to work on our presentations for the Hero Council. This is where all the points were revealed and the winner would be decided. There were 5 people on the Hero Council: Captain Australia (Laura), Super Sophie (Sophie), Santa Claws (Wang), TGIG (Matt), Blue Falcon (Gimli). The 5 of us would judge each presentation and give them feed back. Some of the presentations were mind blowing. They ranged from TV News shows to musical collaborations to interpretive dancing. So great and so funny.
MORNING TEA followed (always good to get energy before lunch)
TALK TIME: Then it was time to gather in Eagle's View for some great talks by Joel. He spoke on Jesus being bigger than any superhero and he did this through talking about how 4 different people reacted when they encountered Jesus. It was great to see how he connected God's characteristics to reactions.
DISCUSSION GROUPS: After the talks we got to get together with our teams and talk more in depth about what we thought as well as ask any questions that we had. BOOM decided to split into 2 (guys and girls) to help with discussion. It was great hearing what the girls thought as well as help them answer some questions that they had.
LUNCH TIME and time to buy and cash in power cards to be able to move up in the 3 skills. Eventually BOOM ended up with a level 3 in Smarts and Strength and a level 4 in Speed (all these were out of 5 which no team got too).
FREE TIME AND MISSIONS: This was where each team got to put their skills to work and see if they could find out information from the "infected" as well as defeat them. Laura had the chance to be both an infected as well as help her team to accomplish each mission. One of our favourite was when you had to crawl through a maze in the gym without being tagged by an infected and get 3 people to the last infected and then any tagged team mates would rise from the floor and everyone had a accomplish 3 tasks. It went really well and was a blast.
DINNER
HANG OUT TIME - chocolate cafe or games for Saturday and Sunday. On Monday night it was time for a night game: We had invited people who were praying for the leaders to come up and enjoy the game with us by becoming "infected". The campers all created a fort in the middle of the oval and were waiting inside as one by one all the leaders started slowing coming at them in order to capture the power crystal (massive glow stick). The campers had flower bombs so if you were hit you had to fall down dead and wait till one of the leaders got the stick and then we all rose and ran away. It worked out so well. We followed this up with a game of capture the flag which was also really well run. On Tuesday we had a talent show. It was so great cause each team was given a chance to perform a dance that they had created. All of them were great and very creative with different additions, Kryptonite had everyone dressed up, BOOM had cheerleading and gymnastics, and Half-Blood Phoenix did their dance in the dark with glow bracelets. The leaders also got a chance to perform and the guys did a Backstreet Boys song. Laura and some of the female leaders performed right after the guys by doing their own version of what the guys looked like and then mimicking them. It was hilarious!
SUPPER (or what we call SNACK) followed by a chance to hang in the cabin talking about the day and then praying together. A lot of super snap was played in BOOM cabin.
LEADERS' MEETING: A great time to recap the day, pray together, have great conversations, laugh together, and then on the last night film the preview of what next year's survivor camp will be...SWAT Black Ops.
This was a great week of camp (even if my team came in last again). A lot of opportunities to talk to campers about what they thought of Jesus and how much He cares for them. It was also great to laugh and play with campers and work alongside some amazing leaders.
It's off to enjoy another Kelly Christmas. This time it's in Wagga Wagga (further south than Dubbo but still in the middle of no where).
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| Captain Metallica and Captain Australia |
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| Half-Blood Phoenix |
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| Hero Council |
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| BOOM | | | |
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| BOOM losing |
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| Joel as an "infected" |
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| Kryptonite's Dance |
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| More "infected" |
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| GREAT LEADERS!! |
