Day 4 Part 1: Good Bye, Youth Camp!

It's our last day at the Youth Camp, and I can feel the heavy heart in me even at the start of the day. I'll miss the camp, the worship, and the people. They've been a great bunch, they were humble, they were happy despite the conditions that they were in, they were friendly, always all smiles when we walk past them, and they thirst for God so much! There's so much that I've learnt from them. I'm so thankful that I was given this opportunity to come to Nepal, to serve God, and in the process, to learn all about life outside my comfort zone, to appreciate all that I have, and to always, always remember that I should be thanking Him and not take things for granted.

The girls in the blue kurtas are in the worship team. They were in that blue kurta for all of the 3 days. Missing each and everyone of them already!

God answered my prayer as I woke up with no aches on my head or neck! It was to be a great day ahead for me! We were served beaten rice, peanuts and tea for breakfast. The worship in the morning wasn't as powerful as the one we had yesterday evening, but it was still awesome. You can see that the worship team has somehow transformed, probably thanks to Pastor Sam's sharing with them just before we went off for star gazing the night before. This time around, I managed to get close up pics of the guitarists, the drummer, and not just the backup singers ;)

The worship team from Dhouligauda, Nepal

Today's all about the community... what these youth can bring back to their respective churches, and how their churches in turn can hep the community. The Pastor preached a relevant message and the people were grouped into their respective churches. Some churches had 20+ people, while there were a few which had only 2-3 people. All in all, there were more than 10 churches present, and they were then led into a discussion by their church representative. When all is done, each of them took turns to tell the camp what they have in mind for their churches when they go back, and it was shocking to hear such ambitions and dreams that they have! They want to do so much for their community that even our Pastor was amazed :D

Just before we go off, we had one last worship session, and this time, surely God can hear the cries from the youth. We clapped, cheered, called for Him, and chanted "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus..." as loud as we can for almost 10 minutes. The atmosphere was just powerful. If you were there, you would feel as though you were in a stadium, with thousands of people cheering for their team in a soccer match. A couple of hundreds in a hall is more powerful than thousands in an open-air stadium, and not to mention, we had the presence of the Holy Spirit with us! This was yet one of the unforgettable moments of my Nepal trip!

Were there souls that were saved in the camp? YES! Thank God for 12 of 'em! I actually thought only Christians would go for such camps, but apparently not, and come to think of it, I wasn't a believer when I went for OCF (Oversea Christian Fellowship)'s Winter Camp in Melbourne, Australia and I wasn't saved till 3-4 months later...

It was then one final lunch for us in the camp and before we took off in the van, I snapped some pics of the place that we stayed in for the past couple of nights. Oh ya, we also exchanged email addresses with a few of 'em, but have yet to hear from any of 'em...

Our "home"

To be continued...