The Weekend was good. It was important in light of the previous post. Going on camp with the youth group was significant as I knew it would be my last.

Leading up to camp had been rather stressful. Trying to write talks, and figure out numbers. In the end we had about 15 less young people than we normally have on a camp. This was mainly due to the fact that we stupidly put the camp right in the middle of year 11 exams.

Anyway, the lack of people, along with the lack of commitment from our highly non-committal young people, (Though I generally quite like this trait because it also means spontaneity, and if you plan of people being last minute, it's good. When it comes to camps though usually it costs about $80 per person who doesn't turn up. So commitment is helpful to gauge numbers.) meant that I was feeling a little stressed. Even in the last 24 hours I had two people pull out and three people join up, and one person pull out and join back up again.

But as the time for camp drew near, calmness came upon me and I went into cruisy, Tom mode. And from that point on I was perfectly happy and un-stressed. Everything ran late, but I didn't really care, because I wasn't stressed, it was great.

We made it to camp late, sat down, had the rules, people laughed at me a bit (as is usually the case at these types of things) and then I had to tell them I was leaving. It was hard, I was stalling most of the night, I was very nervous. When I started talking I choked up a bit. I thought I might cry. I didn't but it was the closest I've come to crying in years. While I don't really want to cry, at least I know I'm not as cold hearted as I could be.

There were a few tears from the youth, a lot of shocked faces, a few people telling me I can't go. I kinda felt bad doing it. I know that the hardest thing about leaving will be leaving the people I minister to. So telling them you're going doesn't make much sense. When I'm with the youth group, I generally see no reason to leave.

But I am leaving, so I told them, and then we had supper, a bed time story and people went to bed.

Saturday was less intense. We had two talks, from me, about the kingdom of God. I did the "I'm leaving I can say what I want thing", so I told them all to keep being Christians.

We played a rather awesome three way game of capture the flag, involving water bombs. These games are always good fun. If people didn't get too competitive they'd be perfect, but alas you can't have every things.

The weather was amazing. The hottest day this half of the year. Special.

At night we played a murder mystery game. I played a sleazy Prince Charming who was actually Elvis. All the campers had to come in and interview me in groups about the murder. I did enjoy myself. I'm not sure I was all that helpful though.

The night finished with a camp fire with one big "In the store..." sing-a-long and peoples' testimonies. It was oh so very Christian but lovely and moving none the less.

Sunday was more talk, lots of packing up, a debrief and some warm and fuzzy letters.

That was camp really.

It was a pretty easy camp. Mostly stress free. No big injuries, no body got in trouble too much. It was the way I would have liked my last camp to have gone. So I'm happy.

Coming home I did manage to stuff things up a little. But that's another story for another post.