My Journey to Realizing 2 Essential Aspects That I Needed To Grow in My Dreams and Relationships
by Anton Aguilar, PICC My name is Anton, and I’m going to share a few things about myself before describing what I felt during the past 4-day all-teens summer event, the Light of Jesus-hosted Camp Calye: Lipad!. First, I’m a 15 year old teen, a son of two greatly amazing and loving parents, my dad a Supply Chain Group Head and my mom, a homeschooling teacher, helping manage our school schedule every day of the week, except during Wednesday, when we go out to do my schoolwork and spend the rest of the day with my classmates. I’m the second in a family of 4 kids. I also have 3 other siblings, one who is older than me by 1 year, and the other two, my younger brother and sister. We started attending the Feast, on November 13, which was my brother’s 2nd birthday, a few days before the K-Con that year. Now, I came to camp trying to find out why I was created by the Lord, what my purpose was in this world. Therefore, to ease my pain of deciding for a place to spend my last month of summer with, He just told me in my heart, “Go to LOJ Youth. They have a place for you there, and trust me; it’s going to be more fun at their camp than you would ever expect.” So I believed God’s words and prepared myself to go to Camp Calye - Knockout and I knew that what He became true as I enjoyed so much. Therefore, when I went home, I immediately knew that I had a growing urge to come back, as I couldn’t bear to leave my friends alone after a fun-filled journey with them. And, ever since that day, everything in my life changed and took a 360 degree turn… When the pre-camp for the high school batch returned this past April, I didn’t expect to see myself as someone welcomed again by those who gave me tremendous love. So, I just smiled out of gratitude at them and said hello. It’s a miracle that every one of them shouted out of joy at the sight of me, but I never regret that, because I know that God would say, “I do this for you because I love you so much and I want you to bless the world with your gifts and your winning smile.” Now, show them who you are!” All of this occurred out of God’s plan, but I accept it because I know that He planned it to happen because of my surrender to Him. So, from my point of view, camp this year was similar to that of last year although there was a slight difference in the way that it was planned. The activities were intensified and made more challenging to make it more connected to the theme, LIPAD. Anyway, so that the events may be arranged in an orderly sequence, what I did on the first day is of course get to know my teammates before I did activities with them such as the flag - making, cheer making and the discussion about the team name, which Jewelle and I thought beforehand, and named Dark Green Rises. Basically, the point of the first day was to get to know my team in order to establish a close relationship based on teamwork and friendship and that was exactly what I did on the first day, which I would like to call, the warm-up day, and honestly, my favorite part during that day was the long trek I went through, because even though I perspired a lot, I learned that a true hero, even to the point of wounds, never gives up. The next day was where the action began, the day my strengths were tested and put to the extreme limit along with the others. It all started when the sun rose up in the sky and hit high noon and there, it was a time where we all had to participate and share as the DG team and I overcame our fears of insects, worms, and other little creatures like rats, plus extra stations like drinking mashed duck’s egg. Of course, Brother Chris urged me to join while drinking it, for he knew it wasn’t fair if one member would be excused, such as me, and so I tried it, and found out that it wasn’t as hard as I thought. This activity was called Fear Factor and I noticed that, surprisingly, all of us campers of Dark Green had similar fears of these animals, because our faces had the same expression, indicating that we didn’t want to face these seemingly creepy creatures and drink. Wow, facing insects and rats plus a drink made with hair and other stuff, disgusting but overcome. I admit that as I faced the these challenges, all of my teammates were cheering me on as I did the Fear Factor, except I excused myself from doing the final station which had to do with blood. When I saw that part of the FF as I like to call the activity, I felt like I was going to faint because I saw what my friends did, like dunk their heads in order to search for a single pebble. Some teammates of DG even cried when they did it, like Jewie, Cyla and Nicole but I knew how they felt and I decided to keep quiet about it instead. Afterwards, my teammates I did other fun undertakings which relieved all of us after doing the extremely challenging FF like the Bible Quiz, where I helped a lot, with my knowledge of the books from Genesis to Revelation, where, basically the Bible Picture Quiz which we didn’t complete due to limited time but we still had fun because of teamwork and bonding. Next, Dark Green Rises joined the War Games, where all teams fought for points and position. At that point, I became the audience, cheering for them and watching as the action unfolded and went on throughout the game. The team continued to participate in all activities during that day, some of which I did not join and where I waited for them to return, such as the unity walk. When they were done with the union walk, I saw that it was time to transfer place to catch up with DG. The last thing they did as a team, on the second day was the Zombie Outbreak, where each of them had to do stations without getting caught by zombies. So, the point of all that happened on the second day was conquering my fear of everything that I was afraid of but with the help of God through my friends. And came the third day like a bird swooping in sky, a day that made me think, Wow, Lord, camp may be halfway through, but I still believe and trust in you. We faced the day with all the energy we got from resting the other night, never giving up in the face of the challenges that we needed to conquer, thus facing them with strength and determination, and the belief that all of us could do it. And so, the team and I did what was expected of us to do: to tackle the mud crawl which came with a matching consolation prize of dirty and muddy clothes afterwards. So, my friends and I sacrificed all that was clean about us just to complete the task. On my part, it took some encouraging getting me to play the game. When I was done, I came out all covered in mud, with slight scratches on the legs as a result of dragging them a few times to be able to move forward, but other than that, I had fun because I knew that I had conquered an obstacle with the power coming from God’s strength. Fast forward and comes the time of preparation for as I would like to call it, the most epic part of camp, the ministry time plus the sharing given by one camper of each team on how they felt about camp. When it came to me to rise as a representative sharer for Dark Green, all of them shouted, because I was their idol, but because since I was the only English-speaking person there, I almost felt embarrassed that I did it, but afterwards I told myself, “Don’t worry about it. Next year, you’ll do much better, because you already know how to speak in Tagalog, and that became true after one month. Anyway, skip to the last day, and there my teammates and I were doing the last activity, the E-day, along with the awarding ceremony and group pictures. It was great by the way, thanks to the power of God, ha-ha. To sum it all up, I had a great time in camp, not just because of the games, but also because of the sharing made by the different campers, the worship and the awesome time I had with the Lord, immersing myself in His tremendous love and fire. Of course, my joy wouldn’t be complete without the servers, who have been helping me since day one, so I thank all of them, especially Ate Chai, who made it easier for my Tito Rico and I prepare at 8 am of day one. Now as I write this article, I begin to realize that I love writing and I know that it’s one of my special talents, aside from speaking in front of huge audiences. So, all in all, I’ve realized that the 2 essential parts that I needed to grow were the discovery of my dream and speaking in Tagalog, because I saw that my life, when moved by the Lord to action and talking to my friends in my mother tongue really was much happier when I made the choice to turn the tables in my life. When I didn’t start going to Y2 yet, I heard Bro. Bo say before that there were two dreams in existence, the one out of purpose and the one out of pride, and to reach dreams that came from God, I had to adjust my resources to reach writing, one of my gifts. Truly, being in camp and going to meet up with my friends every Sunday has made me one of the happiest teens in the world. Ready to change the world once more, Set to touch those who need to know the Lord And finally to soar high with Him and His Son Jesus, I’m ready to give all I’ve got for those I love. LIPAD!
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AuthorThese articles were written and sent in by young people who experienced Camp CALYE. They were blessed immensely. And they want you to experience that same blessing too. Archives
April 2016
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