Sojourners Camp 2007

I really enjoyed myself during this year's sojourners camp... all the way from the planning to the execution of it.. haha.. And i'm really thankful for lotsa things..

-Thank God for Jon Jr and Abel who made planning the games so fun... and Jon's really organised and responsible as the Game Master so everything went in place and in the proper order...
-Thank God for Serene and Rayson who ran the camp really well...
-Thank God for the group leaders who displayed their marvellous potantial in looking after people...
-Thank God for the Aunties who cooked the meals :)
-Thank God for the SA boys and how God ministered into their lives...
-Thank God for all those who helped clean up that great mess we made with the conflagration of green beans, tuna, butter and mayo splattered accross the floor and the chairs... :D
-Thank God for the great weather!!! The amazing race wouldn't have been so fun as it was without it.. when i was watching the clous at Lower Pierce, it started drizzling a bit but i saw that the clouds were dark all over the place except for the areas we were playing at!
-Thank God for enabling me to worship and lead with the guitar.. cos it was the first time i was doing that among the youth and i was glad that even in my own practice times, the Holy Spirit was around.. I thank God that He gave me the ability to reach those notes that i did cos i was worship leading in the morning and you know how it is when you try to sing with that morning voice.. :P
-Thank God for the Camp Comm, the worship teams, the Pastors, the Parents, the Sponsors, everyone who helped out in one way or another.. :)
-Thank God for His Presence and all the freedom we had when we prayed for the people every evening after the day has ended...
-Thank God for His strength in enabling me to sleep late and wake up early...
-Thank God for all the people around who just made it sooo fun.. :D
-Thank God for His wonderful presence, being with us and seeing us through it all! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Lessons that I learned from God personally during the camp:

-During the times of worship preparation, God was already present in the sancturay and i would usually enter into a time of intense groanings and travail before His presence.. it was just awesome... on the first night, God showed me golden vessels... He wants us to awaken to know who we truly are.. cos God has created us to be those vessels but many times, we don't live like how we created.. we don't live according to the value that He has assigned to us as vessels of honour.. we live lives below that, caufght up in sin, distractions, etc... But God wants to awaken us to who we truly are and what we're created for so we can live our lives accordingly...

-I also saw a picture the statue of liberty and whenever i see that, it usually means that God wants to bring liberty to us.. He wantst o set us free from all the things that hold us back...

-Felt that God was saying "It's time for a garment change" He wants us to live our lives differently, functioning differently from how we did in the last season.. this change will be accompanied by a change in mindsets and value systems so that we will truly start to live for Him and not for ourselves...

-God also spoke to me personally out of Psalm 32 and Isa 55.. He was showing me how my prayers have mostly been out of structures that man has invented and He wants to change that so that i operate according to the heavenly system. He's shown me how little my prayers have been about Him. My prayers need to be more centred and focused on Him and who He is and not just my confessions, petitions and circumstances...

-God spoke to me out of Isa 53- "a bruised reed he will not break"... Cos He's giving me the assurance that as i come to Him broken, He's still a God who wants me back with Him. He's also telling me not to see Him as I see myself... The Holy Spirit was also showing me something about confession... when we confess our sins to Him, it's also a release for Him and He chooses to forget our sins also cos it grieves His heart.. sometimes, we may think that although we confess our sins, He still keeps track of them, waiting to arrest us at an opportune time.. but that's not true.. He chooses to forget them cos holding onto them also brings pain to Him...

-I feel that we need to stop relating to God intellectually... we need to relate to Him personally on the basis that He's real and that we have a personal relationship with Him.. cos He's not just a string of words we find in a book of pages.. but He's a real Person! And i feel that it grieves Him if we relate to Him intellectually and not personally.. If we really wanna get real with God, we have to know, believe and live like He's real and have the faith to know that He is and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him... :)

-God was teaching me to talk to Him... like when you talk to a friend, you dun just pop him a question and then sit and wait for hours in deep silence waiting for a reply.. although many times, God does that, He also wants to relate to us conversationally.. that we don't have to wait in silence and in earnest meditation just to perhaps hear a slightest word from Him but He is near.. He is in our hearts and in our mouths as we confess the Word of God...

-God was showing me all those times that i was groaning during worship preparation was a form of bridal intercession.. Just as Jesus longs for His bride, the groaning was an expression of our longing, the Bride's longing for Him.. and it's a form of intercession cos it's a groaning that calls for the destruction of every stronghold and hindrance that proves to be an obstacle to that relationship, anything that might come between the Bride and the Heavenly Bridegroom...

-If we want our lives changed, we have to allow God to change the way we live our lives...

-God was teaching me a lesson from the auction...There were many times when some groups would end up bidding for items that they ended up not liking... and they would bid extraordinary amounts for them like the wang wang, tuna and the tabasco sauce... And many times in life we pursue things that are really not so valuable, spending a lot of time, energy and resources building up on things that don't carry an eternal value... cos many times our eyes are veiled and we become deceived into thinking that something so temporat is actually so important... another lesson that God showed me from the auction is that many times, we allow others to dictate the way we live our lives cos we allow them to determine how much we're worth, what they think of us, how popular we are with them or not.. and as a result, we suffer rejecttion and a lot of unnecessary hurt.. but we have to learn to see ourselves as how God sees us.. that's where we get our identity from, not from the labels that others impose upon us...

-on that note, it's important for me to talk about what happened to an important piece of paper that i valued.. on the third day of camp, our group members wrote on our camp booklets some words of encouragement, etc.. i didn't get mine so i got a piece of paper for them to write on instead.. i stuffed that paper in my jacket pocket and after camp, my mother washed my jacket before i could have taken it out! I valued that piece of paper cos it contained a lot of encouraging words from people... but God was still trying to teach me that lesson of not cleaving onto what other people have to say about me.. whether it's good or it's bad... everything good i've ever did was all due to Him anyway so why should i get caught up with what other people have to say??

There's so much to be thankful for that i've probably missed out a number in this post... but i really thank God for the lessons that He taught me and those times when i felt close to Him.. like how He was dealing with me and i was crying even when i was watching the video on the 2nd night... really thank God for being there and showing Himself so real! :D