Youth Camp

This week was the annual Youth Camp for the Covenant Keepers and Covenant Keepers Seniors--basically all the young people.  They do this every December, staying together at a place in Singapore from Monday through Friday morning.  Since my husband was the main speaker, our whole family was invited to attend.  We all stayed in the Cranwell Bungalows in eastern Singapore.  There were three bungalows--the following picture is the one our family stayed in.

Quite honestly, I am not the best person to write this blog, because I ended up in our "bungalow" with Jason during many of the speeches and activities!  Three of the speeches started about the time some of our kids were going to bed, and Jason needed naps early a couple of the other days, putting it right during speech time.  But I can tell you that the theme of the speech was the book of Judges, "Deliverers from the Lord."  My husband gave speeches on Othniel, Deborah, Barak, and Jephthah (Deborah and Barak separately); Elder Chan gave a speech on Gideon; and Aaron Lim gave a speech on Samson.  (Aaron is from Singapore but lives in the Grand Rapids area as he prepares to enter seminary next year, Lord willing.)  Besides these speeches, there was a short one to close the camp, and an introductory speech by Prof. Hanko via DVD.  That was the one speech I heard.  He had Rev. VanBaren tape him at seminary.  His love for the youth here was very clear, and I know the people here have a great love for Prof. Hanko also.  So it was really neat that he was able to do this for them.

Besides all the speeches, there were times of singing and devotions, and then time also for games.  On the last afternoon everyone went dragon boating, except for my four youngest kids and me.  Only those ten years old and up are allowed to go dragon boating.  I'm not sure I had ever heard of that before, but a bunch of people sit in a long, narrow boat and row with oars.  The youth were divided into five groups and had a race, and it sounds like they had a great time.  On the last night the three youngest kids and I went home, but Jessica and Eric stayed up with all the youth until 3:30 a.m. playing games and having water fights.

Here is one thing we never did at our young people's conventions:  one evening each of us was given a big piece of paper with one glossy side, and given instructions on how to fold it to make our own dish for suppertime.  I am not good at that kind of thing at all, so I was really glad that at future mealtimes the dishes were made in advance. :-)

Then, just a couple pictures of the youth spending time together:

We pray that the youth are blessed by the speeches and activities of the week.