GII camp... Sob... It ended... I just joined GenesisII on November 2005, and it was just a matter weeks until I found myself going for the camp too. Or retreat, whichever way you put it. For me, it was more of both. Quite literally, it was a spiritual retreat in a choir camp. I'm not a very good singer myself (if you ask Darryl, I go off tune quite often - I could have sworn I was tone deaf), but I was assured by the fact that GenesisII wasn't all about singing. It was about being part of a great group of friends who lived together in spirit and mind with God. (And more.)

The first day was probably the most meaningful. There were quite a lot of sessions about leadership, Christianity, and the like. Quite varied and fun at times. I liked the skits the most, because that's when everybody's imagination ran riot. Linus was a instant favourite in the Charlie Brown skits. But I say we learned a lot, and curiously we were more tired this day than the next... Wow.

Scene 1: "Snoopy" poses a tough question to "Linus" 

The second day could be said to be the most impressionable. To start things off, we had a discussion of Mother Theresa's, her gestures of charity and the faith placed firmly behind them. Elden probably made quite a lengthy (ahem) but interesting debate, and gave us quite a few new insights to the issue. The main activity of the day was the Wizard of Oz game in the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which was... Quite... Weird. Haha.

In my group of six (me, Jon Lim, Brenda, Prisc, Duane, Daphne), we went around (sometimes in circles) looking for our stations. They go as such...
- Mel's station. First, we had to guess what carried both Mary and Jesus. Answer: Donkey. After that, two people (Jon to carry the guys, Daphne to carry the girls) were chosen to become the donkeys of the station and carry the rest across a "river"
- The easiest station by right... Darren's station was the we found as we walked to Melvin's station, but we still took some time. Why? The clue was STATUES. Yet he wasn't where he was supposed to be. Another easy part of it was that it was just physical. Fortunately we had 6 people, so distributing 200 push-ups and 100 jumping jacks was quite easy.
- Spices. EATING spices. Bleaargh. My appetite still suffers after this one... I was dumb enough to try to eat the spices. Haha. I rather not recount how it tasted like, but me and Duane lost most of our appetite for dinner that night, I can say that. Just one thing... Celery is considered a spice? Really?
- A particular stationm manned by Andrea that really killed nearly everyone's courage. We were quite fine with it (because we didn't know that there were mealworms in the box), until Duane put his hand in and started jerking his hand around like they stuffed a tiger in it or something. But eventually, we got six plastic pieces out and strung them up into a necklace.
- Noel's station. I remember this one. Prudence. It was a very long Q&A session which ended with having to make up a big doll (about 1 metre height) from newspaper and rubbish bags. We spent the most time on this one because we were trying to make a solid doll and could stand.
Each activity ended with bible passages and asking us of the virtues in these passages... Quite hard sometimes, quite easy others... Talk about balance!

The affirmation session was the most spiritual part of the day/night yet. Involving a circle and a candle in the centre, we affirmed one another through this session. It stretched on quite long, but it was so nice that we didn't really mind.

We rounded off with a special mass celebrated by - guess who - Father Valerian Cheong! The first priest to come from GenesisII, and a founding member too! It was celebrated on St. Lucy's feast day, and was also dedicated to Brenda's grandmother, who left us the previous day.

Along with those valuable lessons in virtue, leadership and Christianity, there was also of friendship and bonding. But the whole camp was a lesson itself... Sounds boring right? Well, at least we know it wasn't. Like staying up late listening to outrageously funny stories and showing signs of affirmation for one another through letters and actions.

Alas, and the most disappointing part came when it... Ended. Sob. =P