23 January, 2012 in Church, Personal by Aonghas

What Christianity Means to Me

Christianity to Me

Recently I’ve started a bible study course called ‘Experiencing God’ by Henry Blackaby with a few others from my youth group at church. The study involves daily devotion five times per week and a group session where we meet up and share what we’ve learnt as well as watch a sermon-like presentation on a DVD. The course has made me think about my relationship with God, and I’m continuing to learn more as we go. Since several people have asked me about Christianity in the past, I thought I’d share a little bit about how I got to be where I am in my faith today.

Before I get into my thoughts on Christianity, I must warn you beforehand that these are purely opinions of my own and I am not trying to offend anyone in the process! In the past I’ve always felt a little iffy talking about religion with people, especially with those who I haven’t known for long. A lot of people have preconceptions about Christianity and I think many of them are misunderstandings. Unlike some other Christians (often “Christians” are stereotyped as being those people who change every conversation into a conversation about religion and people think their only purpose in life is to convert as many people to Christianity as possible), I don’t believe in forcing my beliefs on any other person in any way. My philosophy, and I think the attitude that Christians generally live by, is that I should live my life in accordance to God’s will and always remember the fruit of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (you can read about them in Galatians chapter 5 if you want ). I think that if I can show other people those qualities in myself, they will see the difference in me and, in essence, God’s character. It’s that difference that I believe leads people to want to know more about God. Simply telling people about God and Christianity has little effect; showing people how I behave differently through my actions will trigger those curiosities. That’s when sharing my faith with others becomes worthwhile because I know their interests are genuine. Okay that was a long disclaimer.

So here we go. My thoughts on religion, and namely Christianity (which many Christians believe is more a relationship rather than a “religion” per se). I’ve taken the liberty of breaking my little rant into a few sections so that I don’t lose track of where I am, since I have a tendency to do so…

The simple idea that a God exists is key to any religious belief system and I think once you make that realisation many other things make more sense. I cannot understand how anyone can deny creation. No matter how you look at it, nothing can be created from nothing. There had to be a higher order or an existence of a supernatural being behind the origin of the universe. So then if we can conclude that God exists, the next question is what religion to believe. One of my friends once told me that he took different things from different religions based on what he liked. The problem with this kind of ideology is that because religions contradict each other, you cannot really believe in one religion and another one at the same time. Truth is absolute, so if Christianity is true, all other religions are effectively invalidated. I know that sounds harsh, but that’s ultimately what it comes down to.

Now I guess you’re wondering what makes Christianity the ultimate truth for me? I guess there are many aspects of Christianity that are unique from the other religions. One of the main reasons Christianity stands out for me is that Jesus provides the link between man’s shortcomings and eternal life. No matter how hard we try, we cannot rid ourselves of sin. That’s why Jesus came to die on the cross for us. There’s a whole background behind that story in the old testament of the Bible, but the whole Jesus dying on the cross story is pretty much the cornerstone of Christian belief and I probably shouldn’t go into too much depth here because it opens up a whole new topic of theology and we can save that for another day. I haven’t really said too much about Christianity itself, but if you’re interested I really encourage you to have a look at this website called www.faithfacts.org because it has a lot of interesting information and it will answer any of your questions a lot better than I can! I think it’s important that you compare the different religions out there. To me the choice was pretty obvious.

When I have shared my faith with friends in the past, they have usually been interested in hearing my story, but they haven’t yet made that decision themselves. One comment I got once was “the difference between you and me is that I’ve never let myself go”. I think I kind of understand what she meant, in that she was afraid to take that leap of faith because she still wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. Maybe she felt like she didn’t know enough to make an informed decision yet, or perhaps she was worried about trusting in something that seems intangible. I think it’s normal for people to feel like that (I think I did too at first). Like, you cannot see God so how should you be able to rely on Him? That’s a fair question to have. For me personally, I wouldn’t say I have “let myself go”. Instead I like to think I have made a conscious decision to “grab on” to God to become more stable. It’s interesting to hear from some friends that they felt that “throwing yourself out there and believing in everything” would make them feel vulnerable and insecure, whereas I can only imagine vulnerability and insecurity in a life without God. This reminds me about another conversation I had with a friend where we were talking about what we value the most. My friend said the thing we value the most is our greatest weakness. I value God/Jesus Christ the most in life, but what if He was taken away from me? How would I cope? Well, the simple answer to that question is that it’s impossible for that to happen. God is the constant in my life and I know that He will be there always. I’m reminded by a Bible verse we learnt years ago in Sunday School class. In Deuteronomy 31:6 Moses said to Israel, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” And that verse is so true. God is with me wherever I go and will never leave.

My illustration of how we are connected with God

When I was talking to a friend a while ago, she was telling me how she relied on her family and her friends to get her through the tough times. I told her how I relied on God first and foremost and used an analogy of a baby mobile hanging over a crib to describe my situation. Basically God is the backbone (or the hanging bar on the mobile) and I am one of the hanging objects. Although I can interact with others (the other hanging objects) and have relationships with them, everyone goes through difficulties and can fall if they’re not careful. If I was to completely rely on another person and he or she fell down, I would not have anything else to support me and I would also fall. However, having God is like wearing a harness (which can also be thought of as Jesus, who took away our sins and bridged us directly to God). It’s that safety that keeps me afloat and also provides support for others around me. Ideally in future, my whole family will be attached with their own harnesses, and together we’ll stay strong together under God’s care and provision.

Since becoming a Christian, I feel like my life has changed. Pretty dramatically actually. I used to wonder what the purpose was in life. I think many people in the world spend their whole lives trying to discover the answer to that question and end up going round and round in circles. Believing in life after death (which is in heaven) adds a whole dimension to the way I think and how I approach my everyday life. I’m not scared about death anymore. Money and financial wealth isn’t everything. I thank God for everything good that happens, and I’m storing my treasures in heaven rather than on earth. Why satisfy myself with worldly temptations just to enjoy my short time of earth and sacrifice an eternity of paradise after I die? That’s not to say you cannot enjoy an enriched and fulfilling life as a Christian. I remember a Bible teacher at primary school telling me how she always prayed for a car park when she went to Bible College and God would always provide her with one even when it was really busy. I’ve never forgotten that story, and only recently have I realised that behind the scenes, God has REALLY provided for me over the years. I know this might sound cheesy or lame or whatever, but I honestly feel like I can always turn to God for anything at all and I know He’ll be there for me. It truly amazes me how many things happen by “coincidence” to the point that I cannot put it down to chance anymore. Some call it fate; I call it God working in my life.

So there you have it. I don’t think that was fully comprehensive but it’s a start at least. If you’re not a Christian yet but you’ve considered God or wondered what your purpose is in live, I strongly encourage you to have a look into Christianity. Find a Christian friend or ask me if you have any questions. I don’t have the all the answers but I’d be happy to help by sharing what is true to me and what can be true for you as well. I know this topic can be a sensitive area sometimes. I just wanted to be open about it because it’s a pretty important part of my life and I wanted to share it with you.

8 October, 2010 in University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Test then Bake

Although I didn’t have any lectures today, I had a test for ELECTENG 204 (Electromagnetics) tonight, the second and final test before the exam. We were being tested on various topics in electromagnetics including energy in inductors and magnetic fields and the such. I must admit I was feeling a bit iffy about the test beforehand because I don’t know if I had studied enough.

But anyway, there was big drama before I had to leave for my test tonight. I was planning to drive to uni tonight for my test and then I could go back to youth group afterwards to join them for the baking night, except my mum was out with the only car we had at the moment, and she wasn’t home at 5pm, one hour before my test! Earlier in the week someone had driven into my mum’s car so it was at the panel-beaters being fixed up. I started panicking because I didn’t know what to do if she didn’t come back home soon, since it was too late to catch a bus by that time. I thought I had better ring someone to ask for a ride to uni, so I called Nick and asked if he could take me to uni but he was in the middle of finishing an assignment, though he did offer to take me if I couldn’t find another way. So then I rang Szelin and asked if she could take me and just as she said she could, my mum came up the driveway! Phew! Close call. I rushed outside and my mum asked why I was still home. I told her that I was waiting for her to come home, and she told me that I could have taken the other car.. apparently the other car was in the garage all along! I didn’t even think to check. That was pretty fail on my part.

I made it to uni just in time and thankfully a there was a vacant carpark close to my test room. I managed to write something down for all the questions, though I don’t know if they were good answers or not. We’ll just have to wait and see.

They were placed as separate cookies but came out as one merged cookie!

I made my way back to church after my test to be greeted by nice smells oozing from the kitchen. It was bake night at youth group tonight so everyone was pitching in to bake some nommable (thanks Sunny for introducing me to that word!) goodies. On the baking menu tonight included muffins, cookies, brownies and chocolate crackles. The cookie mix was placed on an oven tray as separate cookies but came out of the oven as a huge flat cookie afterwards. All the cookies had merged into one massive cookie so it was like a… cottage cookie (you know, like a cottage/shepherds pie?). We all enjoyed each other’s baking and it was good to see most people getting involved. And the best thing about it is that I’m not sick yet, so hopefully that means the food was all hygienically sound and everything is going to be okay!

23 April, 2010 in University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Steamboat Tenpin

I bet the owner of this locker feels special

I went to my second Student Life action group meeting this morning. Josh couldn’t join us because he had a test/assignment that he needed to work on, but Nesta and Chris were both there. Today we looked at "Stepping from Being Unable to Empowered". We talked about sme frustrations we have as Christians and different struggles we come across. We read a passage from 1 Corinthians 2:9-3:3 about Paul discussing the power or ability needed to understand God’s truth.  

This afternoon I was pleasantly surprised when I bumped into Caragh Taylor after my last lecture. Since I hadn’t caught up with her for ages, I decided I’d walk with her to her next lecture so we could have a chat at the same time. Turnsout her lecture didn’t start for another 40 minutes so we sat outside OGG and shared the latest goss in our lives. Before long Rebecca Cunniffe joined us coincidentally; she had just come back from a trip. We had a pretty nice conversation before Caragh had to leave for her lecture. After we left Caragh, Rebecca and I walked to her locker under the quad. I was amazed when I found out Rebecca’s locker was almost opposite locker #1! I just had to get a photo of it while I was there. Don’t judge me, I live for the little things okay!  

Fiona and Gabrielle cooked up a storm

Tonight’s programme for Youth Group was activity night. The plan was to have a steamboat dinner at church first, before going to Westgate to play two games of ten-pin bowling. When we arrived at church just before 6:30, most of the preparation had already been done; the food was all laid out on the tables with the gas cookers at the ready. The food that was on offer ranged from crabmeat to meatballs to fish balls to noodles and cabbage. Since I didn’t trust myself cooking anything properly, I let the experts (the females) take control of the cooking pot. Before tonight I didn’t really know what a steamboat dinner was, but it was an interesting way to share dinner with the others.  

We cleaned up after dinner before heading to Westgate Tenpin. As well as Angie, we also gave Claire a life to Westgate. Because Claire was riding shotgun, she got to decide what radio station we listened to. If you’ve been in Calum’s car before, you’ll know that the radio is really dodgy and displays random things like "CD" even though there is no CD player. So it was a bit of a mish for Claire to decipher the whackjob of a stereo system, eventually tuning into her desired station, Radio Hauraki. Fortunately we were nearly at Westgate by that time, so we didn’t have to listen to that for long… just kidding! It wasn’t too bad   

Everyone looks on at Westgate Tenpin

We split ourselves into four groups and changed into the trendy bowling shoes. I always thought I was a size 8 at bowling, but as it turned out, the size 9 shoes actually fit better. So I’ll have to make a mental note to remember that for next time. In my group we had Samuel (NOOB), Cleo (CHINY), Claire (URMUM), me (ANGUI), Carmen (ZOMBI) and Grace (PUFLY). Not having played bowling since that time our ex-neighbour Phillip took us out (the time I scored my personal best of 146!), I was feeling a bit rusty, and it showed. I missed all the pins in both my bowls of the first set. Luckily I started to improve, very slowly. I ended up with one strike and two spares in my first game, a total score of 104.  

  

I started the second game off a bit better than the first, though I only managed to knock six pins down on my first bowl. Throughout the middle section of the game I started to dwindle in points scoring, even coming last at one stage I think. The real climax of the game came down to the last set however. Cleo had bowled her last set and ended with a score of 84, the highest in our group so far. After my ninth round, I was sitting on 75 – 9 points under Cleo’s final score. So in order to win, I had to get a strike or at least a spare to finish with 85 points. The pressure was on. I hadn’t bowled any strikes in this current game so far, so the odds were already against me. I calmed myself and went for my last bowl and… STRIKE! I knocked them all down! And I got to have another bowl as well?! I went for my extra bowl and I never thought it would happen, but I got another strike! AND I got to have another bowl after that too for some reason! In the end I finished with a score of 102 for my second game, I really didn’t expect that at all. If only luck was on my side earlier in the game.  

Group photo (of the ones who were left when we finished our game)

Here is the full table of scores for our group:  

Game One

Game Two

I would type up all the scores from the other teams but I think it’s going to take too long!

18 April, 2010 in Church, Personal by Aonghas

The Book of Genesis

We resumed our Genesis Bible study at Sunday School today. We’ve nearly finished chapter 1 now, and already it’s raising some pretty interesting discussion topics. Like in verses 29-30 when it says:

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

The meaning behind these verses is a bit iffy since it talks about eating green plants but doesn’t actually mention eating animals. Does that mean we should all be vegetarians? If that’s the case I’ve been doing the wrong thing for the last 19 years. But I can’t live without meat, where will I get my protein? Soya bean just doesn’t do it for me. There were several other points of contention that were raised but I don’t have time to list them all out here. I’m sure more will be revealed as we study the rest of the book.

It’s the night before Uni starts again, and I’m feeling a bit edgy. I really am. Okay so basically I have an assignment due tomorrow morning at 9am and I’ve finished it (tick!), but I have a project due Tuesday afternoon that I haven’t really started (no tick…). What’ worse is that after I sweat blood and tears to get this project done on time, I’ll be fried and won’t feel like doing anything else for the rest of the day. Even though I have a test on Wednesday night which, as you can guess, I haven’t studied for! The last two weeks for me really have been a holiday… for the wrong reasons. I feel like I’ve wasted so much time doing, well, nothing really. Let’s just take one thing at at time. First, this maths project…

16 April, 2010 in Holidays, Social, Youth Group by Aonghas

The Ultra Mega Get-Together

Tonight some of us Oddfellows joined together for what became known as The Ultra Mega Get-Together. Pretty much we were going to have dinner at Westcity first and then watch a movie afterwards. Because a couple of people needed to be picked up, Calum decided he would walk down to the mall while Hamish and I went to pick up Angie and Jireh. When we arrived at the mall, we met the rest of the peeps at the foodcourt. My mum also came to pick up Calum on the way to save him from the sudden rain (it was a bit late though) and she brought for us brothers at the same time. Some of the others guys bought their dinner from various places such as McDonald’s; Daniel was quick to run back when he discovered there was no toy included in his takeaway bag.

Oddfellows at the Westcity Foodcourt

The poster for the movie 'Kick-A$$'

Because of the age differences, there were a few movie choices: Clash of the Titans, When in Rome and Kick-A$$. Everyone watched Clash of the Titans except for Grace, Angie, Claire and the three of us. Grace was too young to watch Kick-A$$ so she watched When in Rome with Angie. That left Claire and the Anderson brothers to watch Kick-A$$. I hadn’t heard much about the movie beforehand except for the fact that it was R-18 and was supposed to be funny. The movie, directed by Matthew Vaughn, tells the story of teenage Dave Lizewski who sets out to become a real life superhero only to get caught up in a bigger fight. He meets Big Daddy, a former cop who, in his quest to bring down an evil drug lord Frank D’Amico, has trained his eleven-year-old daughter to be the ruthless vigilante Hit-Girl. Overall I was pretty satisfied with the movie; I thought it was pretty funny despite all the gore and violence. I can see why it was rated R-18 and it might not be the best movie to take your parents to if they’re sensitive to offensive language, but swearing and gore aside, I liked the action scenes and the comical style it had. If you’re over 18 and you don’t mind some blood and gun action, I’d definitely recommend this movie for you!

After the movie we offered to take Jireh, Ben and Angie home. The only problem was there were only five seats in the car. Solution: squash four guys into the back seat. From where I was sitting in the driver’s seat, it looked like a pretty tight-fit in the back, but they seemed to manage with Jireh practically sitting on the floor with his back against the door. I swear it used to be so much easier squashing four children into the back seat when we were at primary school. Luckily the boys in the back only had to hold their breath until we dropped Jireh off at home; once we passed the police station we knew we’d be fine the rest of the way!

The four boys managed to squeeze into the backseat somehow

4 April, 2010 in Church, Personal by Aonghas

Easter Baptism

We had a combined service today with the other Chinese churches so we were expecting the carpark to be packed when we arrived at church. Sure enough, when we got there, the cars were backed up nearly all the way to the Bible College. Luckily we weren’t the only ones who were late; as we were walking back to church, the Chin family arrived as well. There were hardly any seats left in the gym either so Calum and I created a couple of extra rows of chairs at the back. The highlight of today’s service (for our Sunday School class anyway) was Jennifer’s baptism. When she was being baptised, I went up front to join the entourage of photographers all crowded around the stage to film her.

From left: Sherman, Aunty Stephanie, Nadine, Jennifer, Calum, Hamish, Claire and Aonghas

There wasn’t any Sunday School after service today, we just went straight to lunch. I always like special occasions like today because we get free lunch in a box with a variety of different treats. In today’s box we had a tea egg, a piece of chocolate cake, this Asian sweet thing (I don’t know what it’s made out of) and a nice sandwich.

I always look forward to these free lunches

Primary light colour shoes

While I was sitting with Carmen and Claire, we realised our shoes were similar (except for the fact that mine are from Cotton On while theirs are actually real Converse Chucks) but different in colour. Cleo decided to join in with her white shoe as well. I thought it was a pretty cool photo actually, especially since in terms of light colour, the coloured shoes around the outside (red, green, blue) combine to make the white coloured shoe in the centre. Coincidence?

This afternoon I went to the Waikumete Cemetery with my parents to visit my grandparents’ headstone. It had been a long time since I last visited, and I think it was quite fitting to go back to remember them on Easter Sunday. The engraving on the headstone had become dull and despite my dad’s efforts, we couldn’t clean off all the dirt with a piece of tissue. Nevertheless I took a photo.

My grandparents' headstone at the Waikumete Cemetery

I really like the quote at the bottom of their headstone:

Unseen, unheard but always near.

Mt Erebus Air Disaster Memorial

It’s a reassuring reminder that the ones you love who have passed away are always closer than you think. We also had a brief walk around the cemetery to look at some of the other graves, notably the Mt Erebus Air Disaster memorial that was set up after the plane crash on my birthday in 1979. The cemetery is such a peaceful place. Next time we visit I want to polish my grandparents’ headstone and make it shiny again!

2 April, 2010 in Church, Youth Group by Aonghas

Odd Time for Oddfellows

Today was Good Friday – the day remembered for Jesus’ death on the cross. As was customary, we attended church this morning for the special Good Friday service. Pastor Chan invited us to play accompaniment music on our accordions for the prelude as well as the Holy Communion. The song was called “Old Rugged Cross” and we played together with Tim on piano and Jenny on violin. The chairs in the auditorium were arranged to face the centre where there was the table for Holy Communion. We sat through the sermon before having refreshments afterwards.

We had pizza for lunch after the Good Friday church service

Because of the morning service, our youth group “Oddfellows” was shifted to earlier in the day instead of tonight. We all had pizza together for lunch before going into the church library for the youth group programme. Today Karvin led the programme by showing us a video about Jesus’ death on the cross. It looked like quite an old video and it was a bit cheesy in parts but on the whole I think it delivered quite a strong message and there were parts of the video I never realised about Jesus’ death before. When we were having supper after the programme, Cleo and I decided to swap jackets to see how they looked on us…

Apparently I looked like a Mexican gangster, or a cholo. After looking online, I found this article about how to become a cholo. I didn’t realise there were so many steps to consider in order to be one. I wonder if anyone actually takes them seriously.

19 March, 2010 in University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Building with LEGO®

Our group's LEGO model

On the topic of churchy stuff, tonight at Youth Group we had activity night. Calum led worship while I played the piano (tried to!). We also brought Angie along with us to Youth Group tonight as well. Gabrielle led the programme and told us that we’d be building a model using Lego. There was a bit of a twist though. Each group had to nominate someone as the ‘President’ and someone as the ‘Vice President’. In another room, Gabrielle had constructed a model earlier using different Lego pieces and each group had to recreate it without looking at the original. Only the President in each group could see the original model and then report to the Vice President what it looked like. The Vice President then went back to the room where the rest of the team was and had to tell them how to create the model, but only being able to answer “yes” or “no”. In our group I was the Vice President while Rebecca was the President. It took our group a bit of an effort to get started, but once we had the base sorted, things started to take off quite quickly. Rebecca did a great job explaining how the different pieces were positioned, using her arms and hands to show me on the wall. In the end we managed to finish the whole model, and amazingly we were only one space off from being exactly perfect. Great team work guys!

15 March, 2010 in Church, Social by Aonghas

Church Camp 2010: Willow Park

This weekend our church had its first family camp at Willow Park Christian Camp out in Howick. The purpose of the camp was to encourage everyone to get to know other people at our church and also to just have some time to relax and have fun. We left home at around 6:45pm hoping to arrive at the camp by half past seven. Earlier in the day our car tyre was punctured by a screw, so we were still driving with a space saver tyre which meant we couldn’t drive faster than 80kmh. Still, we managed to get to the campsite just on 7:30! The location of the camp was really nice, with Bucklands Beach pretty much across the road from where we were staying.

[googleMap name="Willow Park Christian Camp" description="1 Hostel Access Road, Eastern Beach, Auckland" width="630" height="250" mousewheel="false" zoompancontrol="false" typecontrol="false" directions_to="false"]1 Hostel Access Road, Auckland New Zealand[/googleMap]

When we arrived, we were shown to our room upstairs by Sherman. We were allocated to Room 10 with Jireh, Andrew, Rayson and Bobby also together with us. We went back downstairs to meet up with everyone else outside and found them playing on the trampolines across the field. Jireh demonstrated how to do a forward flip on the trampoline while the rest of us looked on. I had a quick jump myself and although I attempted to do a forward flip, I landed on my back! Pretty scary experience at first though; I hadn’t ever tried that before!

The ice breaker game to help us get to know one another

The bell was rung and it was time for the official camp programme to start. We were all ushered into the auditorium where Gabrielle gave an introductory speech and welcomed us all to the camp. Camp programmes were handed around which included all the names of the people and their group numbers, as well as a timetable outlining the schedule of events during the weekend. After a few more introductions, Richard’s wife Michelle led us in a few ice-breaker activities. We all got out of our seats to mingle with people we didn’t know before we were split into two halves with a division down the centre aisle. For this activity we had to sit facing a curtain with someone from the other side facing us (but we couldn’t see them). When it was time, the curtain was dropped and we had to call out the name of the person sitting across from us. I was filming for most the time and it was pretty funny seeing the looks on people’s faces as they tried to scramble their mind for a name.

We were then asked to get into our concert groups (there were eight in total) to start planning for our performance at Saturday night’s concert. Four groups had to perform songs, while the other four had to present skits. I was in group eight along with most of the other people from Oddfellows, and we had to prepare a skit with the theme of “Welcoming new people to church”. It was nearly 10pm before we all headed back to the dining room to have supper. I had a cup of coffee to keep me awake (not knowing how long I was going to be staying up!) and we spent a while talking at a table. I also had a chat with Tim which was pretty interesting. The instruction we got from Gabrielle was that we had to go upstairs to our room at midnight so in the end we didn’t actually get to stay up that late to talk. Then again, Calum and I had to get up early in the morning anyway because I had to take him to Lincoln Heights so he could teach his recorder classes at 8:30am.

Willow Park Christian Camp is quite a nice venue

The first night of sleep was a little bit of a roller-coaster because I kept waking up. Maybe it was the fact that I was sleeping in my regular clothes, or maybe it was because I wasn’t used to the different environment. The first time I woke up I thought it was nearly time to get up but I didn’t feel like I had had enough sleep. It was only 3:50am. The second time I woke up it was nearly 6am. Trying to think about sleeping didn’t really help, which was a little strange because usually I find it really easy to fall asleep. Before long there were sounds of little children bellowing out in the hallway. Once they started up, I knew I wasn’t going to get anymore sleep. Calum and I left the camp just after 7:30am; I left the video camera in the trusty hands of Ray so he could film the morning programme while we were away.

We finally got the tyre replaced after half a day

As it turned out, we made it to West Auckland with 20 minutes to spare before 8:30 so we decided we’d take a quick detour through the McDonald’s drive-thru for breakfast. Little did we know that Calum’s hot chocolate would end up with a dead beetle inside! Yuck. After dropping Calum off at Lincoln Heights, I headed down to the car repair garage in Henderson Valley to see if I could get the tyre replaced. I must have arrived too early though, because everything was still closed when I arrived. I went back after going home for a shower and by that time they were open so I managed to get the tyre changed. Yay, now I didn’t have to worry about driving faster than 80kmh on the motorway!

The camp food was delicious!

Calum finished teaching at 11:30am so when I went to pick him up, we headed straight back to camp so we’d make it back in time for lunch at half past twelve. Our timing was pretty much perfect actually, because lunch was just about ready when we got back. It was my first meal at the camp since being there and I must say it was very nice! We had pork rib patties in bun with pasta, salad and beetroot! After lunch there was a little bit of free time so we headed to the gym to have a bit of a play. Some of the guys were playing with a soccer ball while the others were playing tennis without a net, playing random stuff on the piano and throwing around other balls. Later the rest of the people joined us down at the gym for the prepared group activities. There were four groups doing different activities in a rotation.

The group activities were crazy but fun

The activities consisted of: blowing flour off a plate in order to grab lollies with your mouth, transporting water by cupping it in your hands and balloon relays in partners and also with a stick. Sounds pretty crazy I know, but I think everyone had lots of fun. Most of the time I was filming and it was definitely a lot of fun watching them all looking silly. After the four activities I thought it was over, but I was wrong. We only stopped for a short break to have afternoon tea before we were back into it! The second round of activities was more about skill. Each group was given a number of plastic cups and the goal was to construct the highest tower of cups. There were many tumbles and crashes along the way, but in the end I think the winning tower was stacked 17 cups high!

The end of the group activities segwayed nicely into the soccer game we had during free time. Originally we were hoping to have a soccer game between the different fellowships at church, but it ended up being just mixed teams. I don’t know what the final score was but if we lost, I’m sure it wasn’t by that much We were all tired and exhausted after the soccer game but luckily it was just in time for dinner so we could all refuel.

'Welcoming new people' was the theme of our skit

The highly anticipated evening concert was held on Saturday night with all the eight groups performing their prepared presentations of songs and skits. It was pretty entertaining even though I couldn’t understand any of jokes in Chinese. The basic summary of our group’s skit was Calum, the church pastor, welcoming all sorts of stereotyped people to the church from emos to nerds to homeless people to druggies… I don’t know how I’d cope if our church had so many extreme stereotypes like that though!

We sang Shirley 'Happy Birthday'

After having a relatively early first night, we were all keen to stay up late on the second night. There were still quite a few people awake after supper, bantering away around tables in the dining room. It was also Shirley’s birthday so we gathered around to sing her happy birthday by the sofas. Gabrielle told us that we had to go upstairs to our room when the other fellowship decided to go to sleep. Since we found out earlier that the Canaan fellowship stayed up until 3am on the first night, we thought we’d still have ages to talk. Unfortunately for us, the other fellowship decided to go to sleep just after 12:30am so we were pretty gutted because we knew we couldn’t stay up for much longer. We savoured the remaining minutes we had together before we skittered upstairs back to our rooms.

We had the Sunday service in the auditorium

The final day at camp on the Sunday was more or less a wind down to the weekend. More people arrived at the camp in the morning for the church service that was held in the auditorium. Ada gave the sermon while Sherman was the translator. Before lunch we also had another time for group activities. This time each group had to collect items that were called out by the person running the game. The items on the list (such as belts, necklasses etc) then had to be used to dress up a volunteering member in each group, who then had to parade across the stage in a makeshift fashion show. Hamish was the model for his group, brave man!

The whole camp was over in less than three days but it had felt so much longer. On the drive home from camp I started thinking about Uni again and how long ago it seemed since my last lecture. I don’t feel like going back to Uni so soon; it feels like I should still be on holiday. Overall I think the church camp was definitely a great way to spend a weekend away from home and relax. I wish we could have more weekends away like that!

Smile everyone!

20 February, 2009 in Church, University, Youth Group by Aonghas

Reverse Photo Scavenger Hunt

Today I nearly missed the bus in the morning. I was so close to missing the bus that by the time I got to the traffic lights, the only thing stopping me from missing the bus was the fact that the lights turned red for the bus just as I ran around the corner to the bus stop! That was so close.

In the afternoon tutorial session there wasn’t a lot of work being done. I think it was down to the fact that it was a Friday afternoon and everyone was waiting to go home to start their weekend. The people in the room next door to us were enjoying a game of hangman, led by one of the tutorial helpers. Some of the words they had to identify included ‘DAN CARTER’, ‘FACEBOOK’ and ‘SADDLE POINT’. Since Luke, Marianely and I were sitting in a position where we could see the whiteboard of our neighbouring room, we were playing along as well, and Marianely solved a number of them quite fast. She told me to call out her answers, most of which were correct! The tutorial helper (I think her name is Jennifer) asked me to come up and choose a word. I didn’t know what word to choose until I introduced myself as Aonghas and was about to say “but it’s spelt differently…” That gave me the idea to use my name as the word for hangman. I started off with seven lines _ _ _ _ _ _ _, to which many people responded with a puzzled look. They managed to spell most of my name correctly quite fast but the only letter they couldn’t work out for while was the ‘O’ (A _ NGHAS). I nearly had the whole hangman drawn before someone shouted out ‘O’. That was quite a fun activity, and a good way to sort of get to know the others on the course.

Marianely’s dad gave me a ride home today. He dropped me off on Te Atatu Road because I said I could walk the rest of the way home. Luckily on the way home, my mum happened to be driving past so she stopped to give me a lift home. Before we went to Youth Group tonight, I stopped at David’s house quickly just to drop off the laptop so he could do some programming for the robot before tomorrow’s competition. He showed me the robot upstairs in all its glory, together with spare parts scattered on the floor. It looked pretty sophisticated.

Tonight at Youth Group Hamish and I led worship. First Hamish led the song we played off a CD, called “What the Lord Has Done in Me“, while I wrote the lyrics for the next song on the whiteboard. The second song we sang was called “Great is the Lord and Most Worthy of Praise“. I attempted to play the accompaniment on piano, a personal first for me at church. All in all I think it was okay, despite my many split notes and mistakes.

After our worship leading, it was activity time! On explained that we were going to be split into three groups and we’d each be given a set of captions. For each caption we had to take a photo that would match the caption. In my group there was Claire, Cleo, Brendan, Justin and myself. The three captions we were given were:

• It was pretty obvious to the onlookers how THIS was going to end.
• It is a miracle! A youth group walking on water! (or similar)
• Who would have thought a youth group could do THIS and no one got arrested!

We were stuck for ideas at first, but we decided to have a walk around the church anyway to give us some inspiration. We thought we might go into the bathroom to see if we could photograph anything in there. I had my first experience in the female bathroom at church tonight (don’t worry, there wasn’t anyone in there at the time) and I must say their bathroom looks a tad prettier than the guys’ one. They have more toilet cubicles for one, though I guess they make up for the absence of urinals. We ended up taking a photo of me in one of the toilet cubicles with my back to the camera… embracing myself… as though I was making out with someone! Don’t ask me how that idea came up..

Next we went into the janitor’s closest further up the hallway and found a huge gas cylinder in there. After playing around for a little while, Cleo taped Brendan to the gas cylinder and I put on latex gloves, ready to “interrogate?” Brendan (this was all for the photo of course, I wasn’t planning on carrying out any such act on Brendan!)

We got back to the classroom at the end of the activity and looked through all the groups’ photos after sharing time. Some of them were quite funny, while others were just plain random! Hopefully someone will upload the photos on to Facebook or something so you can see the final shoots.