It's nearing the end of the year, holidays are starting and people are resting. This year the City Community Church hosted a small getaway for the youths and its leaders. A relatively small excursion to relieve any built-up stress over the year from work, exams, or certain responsibilities given to them. In this article, I will be writing about the entire event, the ins and outs, and to give you the juicy details about the camp.
The Youth Getaway Camp was held from the 17th of December to the 18th at Tam's Durian Farm campsite in Jasin, Melaka. We were told to reach the campsite at 3 pm, we all checked in and placed our stuff down. The place was great, filled with multiple tents for many different people to stay. The campsite is very spacious, it allows its entrants to do whatever activity they want; a little badminton here and there; free bikes that could be used to enjoy the scenery as you feel the wind; and a nice game of catch if you're up for it.
(Examples of the tents and the layout of the camp)
Now let's get into the camp details; we all check-in and chill for a bit. We talked to our friends, made new ones, and situated ourselves as we awaited the activities ahead of us. The activities were presented as a sort of icebreaker, it was used to get to know each other. We played a few games involving uncooked spaghetti, making eye contact with your partner, and maneuvering balls into your goals (Don't ask me about it, but it was fun). The next activity included a catcher, they were tasked with the role of ball catcher. They caught the balls as they came flying at them from all directions (a little exaggeration was used). Everyone had a ton of fun, after finishing these activities we moved on to the next one: Dinner!!!!
Dinner started early—around 5.30 pm—it consisted of a few different entrees like fried mee, chicken, and fruits. Dinner lasted for a while as we had our fellowship with each other, talking about what had happened in the past year and what we planned on doing for the next one. We ate, talked, and enjoyed our time as we pass our time. As the sun was still up and shining down on us with its hot rays, the youth leaders prepared a pleasant surprise for us; they had water balloons for us to cool down. We played to our heart's content as we threw the balls of water at each other and both relieved ourselves from the heat and sustained physical pain from unpopped balloons.
(Dinner and chill with some photogenic pics of the camp)
After a little bit of playing with water balls, we rested for a bit and did our things as we prepared for the long-awaited BBQ dinner at 8 pm. We did a little of our own cooking, some of us were singing while others were playing board games. A small session to fully understand that camp experience, and to sign out for the day; the campfire started.
(BBQ time)
Ahhhh, the campfire, the epitome of a camp. We all gathered around the campfire and started a fellowship. It started with us sitting around the fire, our guitarist playing songs for us to sing. We sang Christmas songs and Christian songs alike, blessing the Lord and talking about what Christmas means to us. Time slowly flies and the fire starts to decline, we bring out the bags of marshmallows and start toasting those white pillows into melty sweets for us to dig into. As the fire slowly dissipated, everyone took a bath and headed back to their respective tents to talk to their mates and refresh themselves for the next day of fun.
We woke up early in the morning, a good 7.30 am, most of us were exhausted after sleeping from the times of 1 am to 4 am (yes a lot of us were out late). We had our morning devotion, talking about what we discussed last night around the campfire. After conversing with each other, we went to eat breakfast, nice food as always with nasi lemak and fried mee.Once breakfast was over, all of us started packing up to check out in anticipation of the water park, the next itinerary of the event. We took our bags to the car and headed off.
(Morning devotion, breakfast, and bye byes)
We reached our destination, Bayou Lagoon. A mid-sized water park filled with slides of varying lengths and sizes. The youths and leaders played to our heart's content, trying all the different slides, comparing their speeds, racing to see who could swim faster, and just enjoying our time in the water.
Bayou Lagoon was real fun. We enjoyed our time with friends as we slid down slides and swam through the cold waters. Photos were taken and videos were filmed, making memories of this very eventful afternoon.
But all things must come to an end, we took our final photo and we took off. Everyone was hungry and we went to McDonald's for lunch. We ordered, ate, and talked to each other for the final time within these 2 days. Our parents came to take us back and just like that, it was over. The 2-day getaway was finally over.
We all had our fun, but all good things must come to an end. We made unforgettable memories and had some of the most fun this year. We deepen our bonds and even form new ones. This was a great event and I thank the church for organizing it and the people involved with it, it was a wonderful time.