Since that very first YC camp, Extreme Camp 2001 and through the years, I seem to see my life, my energy level, emotional and spiritual fortitude in relative to that. I measure and evaluate my days by ‘how YC camp?’ it is. Perhaps it is not a bad way to score, after all it is better to bring your everyday up to the level of the mountain top as it should be, rather than to lack the faith and believe that days should be ordinary. It is worth mentioning that what I mean by YC camp is not just being all spiritual and ‘floaty’. YC camp is a time of exhaustion, pushing to the limit, building tenacity, embracing passion, not holding back, giving your all, having the faith to believe in the impossible and more, a time to lose yourself completely and to soar on the strength and dreams only He can endowed.
My days have been quite YC camp these days. It is good. I think it is only right that it should continue to be more and more YC camp. The burden placed upon me should grow and so long as I live, new challenges will come and with each hurdle, my strength and maturity should also expand. Specifically, I don’t find my days here in Bristol a walk in the rose garden. I’m trembling doing assignments. Well, trembling from excitement that’s it!
Somehow, more and more I feel that life is a grand narrative. It is a definite story penned by One whose love overcomes the cross. This story has a beginning and it also has a definite end, a definite destiny and purpose of why it is told. I see the connections in circumstances, how one thing is leading up to another. Each new day is not every other day. It is a culmination, a fulfillment of yesterday, a closer step to that definite end. The things that happened today are a continuation of the things that happened yesterday. There is a sure continuity. Yesterday happened, because of today; yet today is possible because of yesterday.
When I talk or think about Destiny, I find it hard not to relate it to YC. I feel the 2 is the ‘same’, that Destiny is a direct continuation of what God is doing with me in YC, it is not a ‘new’ story, just the next chapter in the very same book. Without YC, I wouldn’t have been a part of Destiny and yet in Destiny I find the work God started in me through YC coming closer to fulfillment (still as far as the east is from the west, but a wee bit closer).
I wish that by the end of this (camp) we will all be good friends. ~ Bernard Ong.
Thank you Bernard, these powerful words stayed with me since that afternoon in Gotong Jaya on the way back from Unlock’07. I wish I can always live up to it that in everything my attitude should be about relationship and people. What are more important than the task we will undertake are the relationships and friendships we will build. It should radically affect how I approach every day.
The Brickthru!
Talk about experiencing new things, I’m sure not every international student get to experience bringing the wall of a sturdy old English house down. First I need to thank Pastor Mike and Lois as well as everyone else for this opportunity to be a part of this operation.
From crawling below the floor boards with Pat, ripping the carpet up, working above the ceiling, watching the wall being brought down to positioning the support structure up in the ceiling space, all these are great new experience for me. I don’t think words will suffice to describe the experience, it is exhausting, dusty (I can pour sand and pieces of concrete from my shirt’s pocket), exciting (especially when you see the wall come down and visible progress is made) and fulfilling at the close of the day.
Rather than describing the process, I can only show you pictures of these wonderful people.
The demolition team of the day during lunch.
Pastor Mike and Lois' new house in Western-Super-Mare.
The junior demolition team members, Patrick and Adelaide.
The gorgeous view from the house's backyard. You can find ponies, horses, cows and sheep on these pastures, not to mention the gregarious seabirds.
How everyone from young to old worked hard on this project and the sense of true fellowship that exists is very attractive and encouraging to me. The way they let Pat knock the wall down speaks volume of the spirit among these people.
One of the things that particularly resonated with me most is looking at men do ‘manly’ jobs. I felt there is a clear hierarchy where the oldest is the most experience and the strongest. The finesse and expertise of the older ones are inspiring. By being there, I wish to become like them when I grow older, to take their place in that order of things. The maturity they demonstrated, physically and otherwise makes you want to ‘be a man’.
I really look forward to see how the house will be when the renovation is completed.
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