A moment I'd been waiting for has finally arrived; the youth camp. The previous night I had stayed at redwoods with my Dubai family, I stayed with Hannah and her dad, prim rose and Juliana. I was fortunate I could stay there as it was near the church, unlike my last hostel. Dan was lucky too he was staying at the church with some of the other boys in the youth. I considered it lucky as it meant he could have more of a lie in, but then he didn't have any comfort as he was on he hard floor, so don't know how well the quality of sleep would have been. It was a late finish and an early start, we all went to bed at midnight and had to wake up at 2:45am for the youth camp. Which in my eyes was way to early, we weren't getting picked up until 4:30am, therefore I wanted to wake up at 3:30am but as I was sleeping on the sofa I could only wake up when everyone else did.
The journey
When we woke up on the 7th April we all got ready and got a lift from Leo to the church, he is known as the taxi driver for the church. He was also the person who picked Dan and I up from the airport at 4:30am; bless him. We were all ready by 4:15am and were collected on time. When we arrived at the church at 5am I was expected the coach to be there relatively soon after arrival. However, the coaches arrived late at about 6/6:30am, which meant we were behind schedule. When we all eventually got on the coaches, as it seemed there was no sense of urgency, I fell asleep missing out on most of the lovely scenery. I told Leo who sat next to me on the coach to wake me up if there was anything really worthwhile seeing. He woke me up for central Manila which was meant to be like the London of Philippines, and I was awoken to see the volcano. I then swiftly fell back asleep.
Finally, we had arrived! My first impressions were 'what a beautiful camp'. I later found out it was a camp specifically run by Christians who encourage Christian retreats here, it is called the garden of the forest. The name perfectly describes the camp, with wild flowers growing from the treetops all the way to the floor, and lovely intricate decorations, as you would have in your own garden. The layout was really nice too with stone pathways and big community areas, a perfect location.
Arrival
As we were late on arriving we went straight into the hall and got assigned groups and tents or dorms. Fortunately, I was in a dorm shared with 20 people and I was placed in group 'Unity'. Each group had a hand made flag which were so pretty, the groups we were placed in would be the people we sat with in the hall. Our next scheduled event was Lunch, my favourite part. On a down side though the chefs did not know how to cater for vegetarians, some of the foods were cooked with chicken fat, vegetarians would have a riot if it were England.
Then it was our first worshiping session at the camp, I love how filipeanos worship they have so much energy. We then had a teaching about the bible which was lead by prim rose from Dubai church, it really makes me reflect how much more I need to read the word of God. (I lost my bible in Thailand so that doesn't help, have to rely on the bible app on my iPad now.) We then played games and had our second teaching, the topic was 'What is God like?' teaching us the characters of God and the importance of knowing our creator.
At 8pm we had dinner and then we had until 10pm to relax but I was in bed and asleep by 9pm!
End of day one.
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