Being a part of the camp committee for this event, the entire planning stage and the progression of things were clear to me and to be honest, without God, the camp would have failed super badly. The plans kept changing, there were no games trial, each meeting we had felt like an entire waste of time as the group focused on the very small details of the camp and not the main events that were to happen. To make matters worse, everyone was extremely busy with their own schedule and it was human nature for us to place our academics & work before the planning of the camp.
During this camp, I have experience and seen things I never thought I would ever encounter in my life especially since the environment I was brought up in was a very toned down one - the people around me don't do drugs nor smoke, the worse thing they ever did was swearing... Well, that was before I came to polytechnic and met more people and see a fuller picture of society. That's why I can now relate when you tell me things about people going through so much drama in their life. But the worse part about that is that they don't have God in their life. I know many people out there are going to be skeptical about the things I'm about to say but I encourage you to read it through. I was once skeptical too, about many things in fact.
Before the camp actually started, way way way back during the planning stage, I had problems with everything. I felt that my ideas were put down and that people do not give me credit for the things I do, but now it's all not important cause what can these credits do for me in life? It's nothing but a mere pride issue that I have had since forever and I want to change myself! So the planning was hmm not going so well? To the point of it being very screwed. And the days before camp, it was just thunderstorms in Singapore as well as in my heart...
I had been wondering why I don't feel God's presence as strongly as I used to especially during worship and services. Also, I haven't been reading my bible at all since school restarted due to all the projects, competitions, and catching up sessions (I know this is a bit irrelevant). Also, the week before my exams, I was just extremely stress as everything was just memorising which isn't something I'm good at, well the main reason for all the stress is actually cause of my GPA. I feel the need to maintain it and in order to do so, I obviously have to do well but things this semester just isn't going well. All my previous quizzes are done rather badly and I totally relied on my own strength and not of God... In the end, all the programmes flowed smoothly and every camper had an amazing experience of being drunk in the presence of God.
During the camp, so many things happened that I don't know where to start. On the first night, people were growing and receiving healing. On the second night, people were laughing, crying and falling, full of the Holy Spirit, and for the first time I saw it happen - evil truly fearing our great God. When Christians lose their identity, the identity of being God's child, the evil one finds their way into the heart and grows with every negative thought. So there were these things in people and it manifested in their own language because the presence of God was so so strong that it had no where to hide, so it manifested. Honestly, I was struck with fear at first cause I'm scared these stuff what! But then I am reminded that even the name of our lord Jesus holds power, power so strong that it chases demons out of people. In these case, it isn't a demon but something not of God but God still works the same! It was our first encounter and we didn't know how to handle it but there were people who faced this every week of their life. So, we didn't know what to do and hence it took very long for the evil spirit to leave the person. Now what I'm saying sounds really unbelievable because I did doubt these things too until I witnessed it that day. Indeed in the name of The Lord, the evil was cast out of the person but it can always strike again whenever the person forgets his/her identity. When I was praying for the person whose "thingy" within manifested, I actually started speaking slightly in tongues and so did my twin! However, I thought it was just my brain making me say it and that it's not from God - later the next day I learnt that this is a trick of the devil >:)
So on the third day, they asked people who wanted to receive the gift of tongues to step forward and I did because I thought I had a chance after the previous night. (Tongues - a spiritual blessing where we speak either a foreign language to minister to others or when we speak in an unknown language that we use to talk to God) at first I thought I felt it but then I went to register it in my brain and I felt that I was doing it intentionally... LOL. Ok then during the soaking session at night (soaking - singing songs of worship to The Lord to usher His presence in upon us and allow Him to fill us with the spirit) I felt that calling to pray for my friend and as I did it, my mouth just started shaking and words that I didn't understand just flowed out. That's when I knew that it wasn't me, I couldn't have done it... No one can fluently speak strange language and the best part is it totally didn't involve the brain but the words just formed at the mouth! It sounded like "shiakatatatatatatata" I don't know cause if i did then it would have gone through my train of thoughts, and we learnt that we're like babies speaking the language so there's a lot of repetitive terms like a baby only can say "nganganganga"
So it was a really good experience and later that night, we practised our healing gift on our dear friend and I actually felt the presence flowing out of me! This is sooooo cool~
So we witnessed healing and even experienced it! #YF #PLUNGE was really a great experience that I'll never forget :)
Night games - Bauderdash? I don't know I think it's called Bauderdash haha
