Date: 6-13 July 2002
We had an excellent junior camp this year. For a change the weather was good throughout the week, and the kids really enjoyed themselves. A good number of the children either gave their lives to the Lord or were reassured in their salvation. Special thanks go to Lorrie and Sarah, who came over from America to help out at the two weeks of camp. I hope you had a chance of some rest once you got back home. We also had help from some of the teens who came along to junior camp to be "buddies" to the younger kids.
Everyone arrived at the camp around 3 pm. The kids were allowed free time for a while as they got settled in and met each other. Tea was at 5, and the real programme started from there. At the night meeting we started our Bible lessons on Simon Peter, assisted by stories of Pete the Pit Pony, who was a favourite with the campers.
We keep Sunday different from the other camp days to emphasise the fact it's the Lord's day, so no team games and no football. We went to Gallowhill Adelphi Church in the morning, had a treasure hunt, and went for a walk down at Port Glasgow. The theme for the week was "The Lord is my Rock" so the kids all searched the beach for the best rocks.
After tea, we had charades. Each dorm had to put on a silent play of a Bible story to do with the camp theme of the Rock. Afterwards, the night meeting started off the serial story for the week: the story of Iromo, a little African girl.
This was our first full-day outing, and the weather looked like it would hold so we travelled to Kelburn Country Park in Largs. The park has a lot for children, including the play fort, the assault course, the Secret Forest and a nice bit of grass to play football on, as well as a shop to buy ice creams and various trinkets. The day passed quickly, and we were soon on our way back for tea, team games and the evening meeting.
The forecast was that the second half of the week would be showery, so we moved sports day to Tuesday this week. In the morning, after Bible lessons, handcraft and games, we were introduced to our missionary for the week: Ruth from the Missionary Aviation Fellowship, who do a lot of work around the world flying missionaries, food, medical supplies and sick and injured people in and out of inaccessible areas.
Sports day followed lunch, with the usual challenges along with some new ones. Highlight of the day was probably the game of football with an enormous beach ball, though walking the plank over the paddling pool came a close second. The sports finished with the traditional water fight before drying off for tea and the evening events.
This was our second full day out, and we headed off to Glasgow to visit the Science Centre. There are lots of things to see and play with here and the kids loved trying out the experiments. During the day we visited one of the lectures, on gases, and watched a short film in the planetarium. Some leaders were noted to have "given their eyes a rest" during the planetarium visit.
Back home in time for tea, it was then out to team games, then the evening meeting before supper and bed.
This has to have been one of the shortest camps on record. It was Friday already, and it hardly seemed any time since Saturday when we arrived. After the final sessions of Pete the Pit Pony, Simon Peter, missions, the memory verse competition and then lunch, we had a trip into Paisley town centre so the kids could spend their remaining money.
As it was the last night, there was an hour or so for party games, with 1-2-3-4-5, musical knees, the mars bar game and so on.
At the evening meeting we had the sword drill competition, won by Julieann, and the final part of our serial story. We had supper around the camp fire, then stood around a wooden cross in the games hall, where some of the kids testified of what God had done for them during the week.
After evening devotions, the boys and girls each had their own midnight feasts before bedtime.
All that remained on Saturday morning was to clear up, get packed and wave the children goodbye as they were picked up. It was a good camp, and we hope to see most of them again at camp reunion in November.
Bible Centre pages
This page by David Meiklejohn.