UCSA camp 2009

If you have been a long time subscriber to my blogs, you
will remember my experience at UCSA camp last year. It was one of the most
significant weeks for me in South
Africa. If you recall, after the camp was
over, I bawled my eyes out for three hours because I had fallen in love with my
group. This year was another great year!

The theme of this year’s JBay UCSA camp was God’s Agents.
The grade 10 and 11 students learned about being God’s agent to the world, and
also got to be secret agents with secret missions.

I really enjoy the way UCSA camps are run. I remember being
so frustrated last year because nothing was ever scheduled, and it was all
Spirit led. But I have come to appreciate it. Also, everyone is split up into
small groups and a lot is done within those small groups. I was a group leader
for 10 awesome Xhosa speaking kids. Though Xhosa istheir
first language, they are all exceptional English speakers. The girls in my
group were Jack, Zikhona, Ozoe, Mantu, Sinazo, Rita, Lolli, and Nosi, and the
two boys were Cia and Buzwe. It always takes a bit for the group to open up to
each other, but by the end of the week I think almost everyone felt really
comfortable. Everyone agreed that we had a really fun group and it was hard to
say goodbye. By the way, our group name was the Contransators, which is the
backward way of saying “concentrators.”

Our first group mission was to find a certain address in the
township, get to know the family, assess their needs, and bless them. Our
family was noticeably poor and they really wanted a bin (trash bin). The Shell
Festival was also going on during the camp, so, our group went down to the
beach front and danced for money. It was the most fun I’ve had in a while. We
were all just dancing to the music while a couple of the girls were yelling,
“We’re dancing for charity!” We raised about 65 Rand plus we put our own money
in toward buying the bin. We had a bit of extra so we bought snacks for the
children that lived at the house. I was hoping that we would be able to get to
know the family a bit more, but they didn’t really ever invite us in. The few
times we went to their house, we only stayed in the yard and chatted, but they
were thankful for our gifts and our friendship.

We also had a few mini assignments as a group, like
interviewing people at the Shell Festival about what they believe about
salvation and sharing our stories with each other. One of the most challenging
was one day when we were given only R22 (about $3) to spend on lunch for our
whole group! We had to learn what it was like to live on very, very little.

I didn’t get much sleep this whole week, but I’m really ok
with it. I only remembered now that I didn’t sleep a lot during the camp. I
slept in the hall with about 60 girls! The hall was filled with mattresses from
wall to wall. It was only myself and one other leader who had to keep the girls
quiet at night. It was a bit of a task!

It was really cool being back in Jeffreys Bay.
I got to see a lot of old friends that we did ministry with
when we lived in JBay. Before I went on the camp I was really nervous about
going because I thought I would be really lonely, but I actually knew quite a
few of the leaders and volunteers.