Church

So I was volunteering at Royal Family Kids Camp as a camp counselor for a week, and I've made it out alive. To bring everyone up to speed, it's a camp for neglected and abused children. From the training sessions, I was seriously preparing for the worse, but I actually ended up with pretty well behaved kids. I had two boys, both of them were ten years old. We shared a cabin with two other boys and two other counselors. Our group got along really well together. Compared to other kids camps geared towards troubled kids that I've done in Canada, this one was way easier.

My kids were pretty easy going. None of them decided to go running off, so I didn't have to chance any of them down. Lights out was at 9pm, and they were sound asleep by 9:30pm which was shocking. It helped that the older folks like the camp director shared a wall with our cabin. We told the kids that they'd be in a lot of trouble if they woke up the director. My kids also took showers every day which was great, because that's something I religiously enforce. In years past, I had kids who refused to shower even if they smelled horrible. My cabin was also always on time to events which is great, because that's how I operate. Hands down, I had the best cabin.

On the other hand, the girls at the camp were pretty crazy. There were a couple alpha females who were constantly fighting over popularity, who was prettier, or something. I personally witnessed a couple shouting matches between those campers. Based on that, I conclude that boys are way easier to deal with, women are complicated, lol.

I have to say, the nurses at the camp were a God-send. We had a number of kids come to camp with unresolved health care needs, and the nurse's station was fully stocked with everything they needed. One of my kids had a severe cough which wasn't treated properly, another had an infection due to improper hydration. We took them to the nurses every day for treatment, and by the end of it, they were patched up pretty good.

Each day consisted of the following (roughly):

• Wake up @ 7am, shower
• Breakfast
• Morning chapel
• Crafts
• Lunch
• Swimming
• Archery
• Rest Time
• Wood working
• Recreation Time
• Dinner
• Night time service w/ Camp Fire
• Prepare for bed at 8pm
• Lights out at 9pm

Wednesday was one of the highlights because they did a big birthday party for all the kids because some kids never have a proper birthday party. We had a pretty good BBQ lunch, with plenty of bacon. Dinner time they had cake and balloons for everyone. There was a bottleneck during the cake serving portion, so I stepped up and went into kitchen stadium mode and got everyone served in under 10 mins. That operations management course I took finally pays off. When the kids got back to their cabin, they had a bunch of birthday loot waiting for them. I have to say, it was some pretty good stuff they got Walkmans, CDs, DVDs, etc.

Thursday we took all the boys fishing at a lake near the Santa Cruz mountains. This one kid had an amazing time, he was this super shy kid who came to camp super sleepy because his parents never went to bed at reasonable times. The first time I met him at woodworking, he was falling asleep. We're out at this lake for about two hours, and no ones getting any fish, and I'm constantly dealing with kids and their tangled fishing lines. Ten minutes before we leave, the shy kid gets this little fish and reels it in. He was the happiest kid in the world. That was definitely a highlight of the week.

I did like how each cabin was assigned a dedicated photographer for some of the days. They took photos of the kids and assembled a photo album for each of them. Counselors then wrote notes of encouragement for the kids. I thought this was pretty special, and a great idea. Unfortunately personal cameras were banned as a precaution to protect the kids, so I have no photos of the camp to post on Flickr

I think the most surreal moment was on the last day, when we put all the kids on a bus to send them home. All the counselors and staff had all their equipment and we were leaving the camp, walking across a bridge, and our job was finished. For some reason it reminded me of the end of the movie, Black Hawk Down, where the tired soldiers had to exit their battle zone by foot after fighting for days.

After I came back, people asked what I missed most while at camp. I have to say I missed having an adult conversation that lasted for more than 2 minutes. When you're hanging around kids 24/7, it's pretty hard to have a serious conversation. Second question I get asked the most was, what was the hardest thing about camp. I have to say needing to be 'on' all the time because you have to be there for the kids even if you're tired or don't feel like it. There's not really alone time, and I'm definitely someone who cherishes 'me' time after being around people for a long time.

In either case, mission accomplished. I'm happy that I did this, and I proved to myself that I'm not getting to old or busy for this kind of thing. It reminded myself, this is why we fight for things we fight for.

Thanks for everyone's prayers and words of encouragement.

This year, I've been striving to try to restore things in my life that I used to do before I moved to California. One of those things I used to do was volunteer for kids camp in the summer. Well, this year, my church had a dire need for male camp counselors for their summer kids camp, Royal Family Kids Camp, which is geared towards foster kids. I answered the call, and now I find myself packing and getting ready to go to camp for a week, starting this Sunday, and coming back on Friday.

I'm pretty surprised by the ratios that they have at this camp. I'm used to watching five kids from the ages of 7-12 year old while at camp. At this camp, you only have to watch two kids, and you have an assistant with your cabin. It's mostly due to the fact that these kids are abused and neglected children which can be a handful.

I've been checking out the camp facility's activities, and they're going to have

• Swimming
• Rock climbing walls
• Fishing
• Hiking
• Archery
• Zip Line
• Mole Hole Slide
• etc

I'm personally looking forward to rock climbing and archery the most.

I've been joking that this is technically my first overseas missions trip. It's not your run of the mill third world country that tends to dominate missions trip destinations. I guess I could make it sound like one though. The people of California have been devastated by a financial tsunami in 2008, leaving many counties with double digit unemployment. The people have been suffering from a tyrannical socialist dictator who is bent on destroying the country.

This week, pray for me that I have extra extra patience with the kids. I have already prepared a reward for myself at the end of the finish line. I promised myself, since I'll be eating kiddie food for an entire week, when I come back from camp, I'll treat myself to a nice grown-up dinner, where there's no screaming kids around.

See you all in a week. I'm not going to have much computer access. Sorry, there also won't be any photos from camp due to security concerns for the children.

This is my summer mission.

Don't worry, even though the title has the word "hope" in it, this entry has nothing to do with President Obama. In either case, sorry for the break in blogging, I've been preoccupied pondering about what lies in store for me in 2009. I had a battle plan all worked out for this year, but half of the goals in it are already void as the situation on the ground has already changed that quickly. As they say though, one of the first casualties of war is the battle plan. The Art of War also says, "just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions."

Anyway, while I was away from California, the church which I attend in San Jose started a 4-week series entitled, "Miracles." My mom usually listens to those sermons as well, and she asked if I had heard it yet as it was amazing. I hadn't and life went on. When I got back to California, I had lunch with one of my church friends, and he asked if I had heard that sermon, and he implored me to listen to it. I finally got around to listening to it tonight, and I have to say it was an awesome way to start 2009. Despite all the horrible news around us, it's a nice change to hear good news. The sermons are archived here, and there's a video version, and an audio version.

Here's the abstract:

There's one line in the sermon that really stood out (and I'm paraphrasing): "You ask, what happens if I get my hopes up, and nothing happens? You should be asking, what happens if I get my hopes up, and something does happen?"

I'll be the first to admit for my battle plan to work out, it's going to involve a few miracles, a bit of faith, and a bit of bravery. Anyway, I'm going to mark down some milestones as a note to myself should things work out. Jan 22, 2009 - Operation Delicious Victory. Jan 26, 2009 - Operation Valour.

I have to say I'm a bit excited about how 2009 is going to unfold. One last thought that someone conveyed to me recently, when you finally succeed in your goals, all of those past failures will suddenly matter a lot less.

This last Saturday, I went paintballing at TNT Paintball with my church. We brought a group of 18 people, and another group of 10 people fought alongside. When we arrived to the paintball field, we saw a lot of pro paintballers who brought a lot of their own equipment. We're talking about modified guns with improved accuracy and range, body armour, elaborate air systems, etc. When the teams were divided, our side had two people with their own guns, while the other team had at least five. This was going to be a battle of the pros vs joes. Looks like we were going to be outgunned, but I love being the underdog. Naturally, a few people were a bit intimidated by our competition, but that quickly got disspelled when you show that the enemy is not invincible.

By the way, if you were there paintballing, please leave comments on this blog entry.

On the first game, we played on the urban assault field, and we got slaughtered simply because we didn't know the field. We had a rematch on the field, and we won.

Bunker To Bunker

The next field we played on was the Grog's Nest which consists of forts linked by bridges, and 60 man-made bunkers. I thought I was going to hate this field because it reminded me of speedball courses with the man-made bunkers, but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. The objective was to take a flag from the center fort, and deliver it to the enemy base.

The strategy we had was to grab as much real estate as possible in the first minute of the battle, in order to capture strategic locations. Doug ran to center immediately, grabbed the flag, and hid the flag behind me. I ran up the left flank of the map. My objective was to be the tip of the spear which leads the assault. I had to pave the way clear for our flag runner, so he could safely deliver the flag to the enemy base. I picked off 8 people who were unfortunate enough to get in my way. Eventually, I was eliminated, but Adam, our trusty flag runner was able to make it to the other end with barely any resistence. Adam made a great flag runner because he was able to hang back and survive through entire games. Doug and I were usually the shock forces who aggressively rushed against the enemy. Lucas also was a trusty last line of defence. He was able to survive long enough to launch a late game offensive. He was our rock. Anyway, on this field, both sides were able to pick up a point, so we were still tied.

An appropriate subtitle for this blog entry would be, "Why Chan Grew A Beard." Lets begin. Immediately after the Young Adults Camp at Nanoose Bay, we switched gears to Kids Camp. Doug and I volunteered to work as counselors for the week because they didn't have enough male counselors, and our contribution allowed an extra 10 kids to come to camp.

Going from Young Adults Camp to Kids Camp is quite the change. A lot of the freedoms and privacy that you enjoy as an adult is instantly stripped away when you have to watch 5 kids 24/7. The hardest thing to get used to was the bed times. During Young Adults Camp, we were sleeping at around 2:00am-3:00am because we were playing video games all night. The first night at Kids Camp, I was horrified to find that bed time was at 8:30pm! It wasn't even dark out yet! Our cabin had a sunroof, and sunlight was still pouring into the room at that time! The other thing that I didn't grow accustomed to was having kids poke you in the face at 6:00am asking if you could take them to the washroom. Doug could probably relate, except he was woken up with a football to the eyeball.

Most of the other counselors were 14-16 years old, so I think Doug and I got the toughest campers to deal with because we were the oldest and most mature. The leadership claimed this wasn't intentional, but I think it was. For example, both of us was assigned an ADD kid. Doug's kids were known as the most rowdy kids. My kids had the worst hygiene (more on that later). We were taking care of 5 kids while most counselors had 3-4 kids.

Last weekend, I was up at Nanoose Bay Pentecostal Camp for the first ever Young Adults Camp. This was organized by Pastor Doug Slack from my church, and it was a great success. About 60+ people were at the camp which isn't bad at all for a first time.

I went up Thursday morning with Doug to help get things set up. The weather wasn't exactly cooperating. We had torrential downpours of rain when we passed through Nanaimo. We arrived at Nanoose Bay (home of a Canadian military base complete with a torpedo test range) shortly after noon. We checked in, and opened up the lodge which was where the services would be held.

The lodge was gross because we were probably the first ones to use it in a long time. Lots of dirt, spider webs, random insects, and water from a leaky roof. We gave the room the extreme makeover and turned it into a coffee lounge. By the end, we spent 4 hours sweeping, vacuuming, moving furniture, etc.

This coffee lounge was complete with a $4800 coffee machine that Doug borrowed. In addition, we had a certified Starbucks employee running the machines during service. I don't drink coffee, so I don't quite understand why a coffee machine could be that expensive. My theory is that the thing is either made of gold, or there's magic gnomes inside the machine that makes the coffee for you. In either case, it was quite amusing watching Doug accidentally making a double strength espresso and being completely buzzed after it.

Well, I'm off to the Young Adults camp at Nanoose Bay Camp this weekend. In addition, I've been drafted as a counselor for the Kid's Camp in the following week, so I'm going to be away for 10 days.

The draft was interesting. On Monday, my Youth Pastor calls me up and asks if I could be a camp counselor for Kid's Camp because they were desperate for volunteers. Unfortunately, he knew that I was unemployed, so it's pretty hard to lie about being busy.

There was one problem though, all counselors were required to pass a criminal record check. And no, the problem isn't that I have a criminal record. The problem was that a check would require at least 5 business days before it was complete, so it was unlikely that the check could be completed before the camp started.

We were trying to figure out how we could resolve this, and then it hit me. I remembered that Yahoo had already started a background check on me in early June, so they should have some documentation showing that my background was clean. I got off the phone and contacted Yahoo about this. Then, the strangest coincidence happened.