A delayed post on Youth Camp

We had the CEMP youth camp two weeks ago already so this post is a little late in coming. We really enjoyed helping to plan the camp. It went really well, I'm not sure that it could have been much better.

Click here to see a bunch of pictures from the weekend.

Because I really don't feel like doing the same thing twice, below is a summary that might end up in The Messenger one of these weeks.

In a country where 70% of the population is younger than 30, guiding young people towards following God is very important, both for the present and the future of His kingdom in Paraguay. Along with two other young couples: Richarh and Sunni Rojas and Felix and Magali Martínez, we had the pleasure of organizing the the annual CEMP (Evangelical Mennonite Conference of Paraguay) youth camp this year, which took place from January 7-10. With the theme “Vanishing . . . a species in danger of extinction. DON'T BE A DINOSAUR!” the 103 youth and young adults that participated, as well as the 20+ adult volunteers, were challenged to let God guide every area of their lives and to be disciples of Jesus.

With a schedule packed full of activity, is was guaranteed that no one would be bored. Thursday night featured an outdoors praise and worship concert with special guests. Friday and Saturday mornings began with optional devotionals at 6:45 a.m., followed by praise and worship and back to back challenges by different speakers after breakfast to fill up the morning. Long breaks in between the sessions to drink tereré are mandatory. A total of 110 kg of ice were used to make that tereré nice and cold.

The afternoons featured a workshop and “The Amazing Race: Vanishing 2010”, as well as an optional soccer tournament. Cold watermelon guaranteed that all got plenty of liquids during the hot afternoons while they splashed into the creek on a zip line. After the evening session, Friday evening became midnight too quickly as we were entertained by the talent show, which had to be cut short. Everyone enjoyed the Saturday night caveman themed banquete; the barefooted boys presented their princesses (picked out of a hat) with floral tiaras which they had previously made. Followed by more soccer and a movie until 2 a.m., everyone slept in until seven the next morning and were well rested and prepared to compete in the finals of The Amazing Race: Vanishing 2010 and the soccer tournament after the Sunday morning session.

It was great to see once again how much the Christian youth in the conference love to hang out together, worship God together, and grow spiritually together. They make up a very small percentage of their schools and work places and so this once a year opportunity to fellowship is priority for many of them. Some who lived close by came to spend the evenings after work while 6 girls arrived at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning having left Asuncion after work Friday evening. Along the lines of what our main speaker challenged the youth, please pray that the youth of Paraguay would one by one change their passion to Jesus and their radicalism into love.