Where should I begin? Maybe with a passing comment from my music teacher—one that unexpectedly led to one of the best trips I’ve ever had.
The comment in particular was a youth camp hosted by Sameer sir’s (my music teacher’s) church and that it was in Uttarakhand near the Jim Corbett National Park.
The person who took the initiative was, in fact, Jerry — who was already crazy about going to the Jim Corbett National Park. We asked about joining, but were told it was full. Later, though, two spots opened up—and we were in. We were certainly excited. I was — however — more nervous but hopeful.
What else can I say? We packed and then got ready. We woke up early in the morning — eagerly. We waited and got on the bus. The bus was packed—with exactly two empty seats. Perfect for us. Once we entered the bus, some people said hello to us and we said hello back. To my surprise, everyone was warm and welcoming. I expected to feel like an outsider—but I didn’t, not even for a moment. This experience was extremely new to me, however I was still genuinely smiling and enjoying myself — the engine was drowned out by the voices of everybody singing and dancing — and we even played some games.
Probably, the most funny — however infuriating — part of the bus-ride would certainly be in the end, when we spent around an hour just because of wrong turns. Therefore, we arrived 2 hours later than planned — and unfortunately — because of that, a lot of events had to be postponed. However, I didn’t really feel disappointed at that time. I felt like, just for one day, some rest would do me some good. So after going and settling into our rooms — which by the way, I was staying with 3 other people — we headed to the Welcome Ceremony, where the Pastor officially opened the camp.
The Welcome Ceremony
In the welcome ceremony, the Pastor officially welcomed us — and therein commenced officially the start of the youth camp. He explained the theme of this youth camp — “Thrive”.
That person is like a tree planted by the streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither —
whatever they do prospers.
— Psalms 1:3
We also had a fun activity where we had to write:
- Our Expectations
- Challenges we are facing
- Something in the “Wall of Encouragement”.
After that, we were allowed to disperse and we ate dinner.
The Eating Experience
I feel like I should at least mention my experience with the food there — even if it’s brief. The food there was surprisingly very satisfying. Every breakfast they served boiled eggs, watermelon, a fruit juice, a South Indian dish, and any one other dish. Lunch and dinner usually had roti, paneer, rice, a dal dish, and salads.
However, the most important thing about the eating experience was probably making friends. I had a very simple tactic — I simply sat at the table where I didn’t know most of the people. I think that really helped me make a lot of friends.
Day 1
Now back to Day 1 — my roommates Harpreet and Steve both arranged the final IPL match to be watched in our room after dinner. The room became crowded really quickly and we started watching. Although I didn’t understand cricket very much, I felt like it was more fun when we watched together. Everybody cheered when PBKS scored a six — and they were disappointed when there was a wicket.
Disappointingly, we did not see who won because it was too late already and we had to sleep. I only managed to sleep 3 hours before the next day morning devotion.
Day 2
Day 2 started with some morning devotion — this was probably one of my favorite sessions as it was much more interactive. The topic was “humility” and it was explained using the parable of “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector.” We all were asked who our role model was and why, one by one.
The First Session
Then after breakfast, we had our first session by a guest speaker — Pr. Geo. I was personally amazed by his Biblical knowledge. His messages flowed smoothly and each of his messages had some connection to the previous. He was also not only well-versed with just the Bible but also other subjects such as chemistry, biology, philosophy, etc.
Frankly, I found none of his sessions boring! Each and every session had me hooked to his words. Perhaps I am exaggerating the praise, but the sessions were — in my eyes — just that good.
Lunch
While eating lunch, the topic of the conversation slightly tilted towards music and how I know how to play guitar. That’s when my friends — namely Ayana and Angel — invited me to play guitar while they sang after lunch. It was very enjoyable although it also taught me the fact that my guitar skills needed some polishing.
The Skits
And here comes — in my opinion — one of the most fun parts of this day: skits! I was honestly surprised when Pr. Geo divided us into three groups and gave each group a parable out of the three parables in Matthew 25. He asked us to make a skit on our interpretation of the parable — he also gave us a theme: “Knowing God.”
I was assigned to Group 3 and I got “The Parable of the Sheep and Goats.” Our team discussed various interpretations and how we could implement the theme and we finally settled on an office setting. So basically there was a “Sheep” character (an employee who is good because she is inherently good) and then there were several “Goat” characters (employees who only helped for the sake of helping).
Then finally “God” — or the boss in this case — awards the “Sheep” with the employee of the month. I was assigned to the role of “The Boss.”Though I had only a brief scene, I was nervous—my hands shook, and my mouth twitched. I somehow managed to sputter out some words and successfully formed a coherent dialogue. I’d say our group did great but the group which undoubtedly won was my music teacher’s skit.
In his skit he had infused a bit of comedy and lightheartedness and also they had a bunch of great actors. Everyone enjoyed the skit immensely and it was an uncontested win.
Games or Was It Swimming?
After all the sessions it was the scheduled “Games” time! However, it was replaced with swimming because we didn’t go swimming the day before. It was surely an unforgettable experience. Everybody on the trip — 30 people — all in one swimming pool. An interesting spectacle was when some people started lifting each other and dropping them in the water. I’m saddened to say that even I was a victim of the tomfoolery — but it was certainly extremely funny and chaotic when it happened. It still brings a smile to my face as I write it.
It was rather a shame when we had to end it in only one hour — after all, we had another session after this. Furthermore, I have to say, I didn’t expect the session to be so — unexpected.
The Personality Test
The session was conducted by Br. Pur — I expected it to be another session with another message. I was truly shocked however when he pulled out some papers and declared that we will be doing a personality test! It was the DISC Personality Test (search it up if you want). We were asked to answer some questions and based on the points we received in each personality group we could determine our personality.
The personalities listed in the test were:
- Dominant — Good at leading and considered risk-takers or initiators, however they can also be very dismissive about people’s feelings.
- Influencer — Good at influencing and people-pleasing — although they can connect to people more, they tend not to connect at a deeper level.
- Stable — Good team players who prefer the easy or stable path. They understand people the best, although they are still people-pleasers. Their flaw is their submissiveness and lack of initiative.
- Conscientious — Good at goals and extremely task-oriented. Their very virtue might also be their very flaw.
The results were surprisingly accurate! My primary profile — according to the personality test — was “Stable” and my secondary profile was “Conscientious.” I prefer the easy way, and though focus isn’t my strength, I manage it when I need to. The flaws were also very accurate — one of my key flaws was being too submissive, which was often pointed out by my father.
The Real Games Session
After we ate dinner — we were called back to the meeting room for what was an activity that wasn’t in the schedule to my knowledge — games. They had a lot of balloons on a table which we all helped to fill — and I quietly wondered why they would need this many balloons for. Then they ordered us to arrange into groups and we were given balloons with strings to tie around our ankle.
Then I realized what the game was! — It was a rather simple but creative game — it was a team deathmatch with our lifelines being the very balloons tied into our ankles. Our group leader — my music teacher, Sameer — came up with a strategy — avoid fights and let the others fight it out until it’s our turn.
The moment the game started, everything quickly became chaotic — I was just standing there up against a wall, watching the chaos unfold. A foot stomp — a person dodged and weaved — a balloon popped. With all that was happening in the battlefield — how could I not have jumped directly into the battlefield?
Oh well, I wasn’t so heroic — a dodge and a stomp and I managed to get a few balloons. I was even quite flabbergasted when the very person I clearly remembered stomping on their balloon — returned with another! It was clearly against the rules but It was too chaotic to keep track of anything at all.
My victories were short-lived and it was up to the two final contestants. It was a rather dramatic face-off but ultimately our team lost.
We played several other games — one was reminiscent of musical chairs but instead of sitting in a chair you have to make a group of the number stated by the host. Anybody else remaining is out.
There was also another game where there were a lot of cups placed faced down and they had ping pong balls on them. Then each team formed a line, and each person flipped a cup while trying to get the ball inside. The team that did it the fastest wins.
The games slowly came to an end — and although I felt really sleepy — I was saddened that everything came to a close so soon. It was surely the most eventful and entertaining day — my very thoughts as I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
Day 3
The next day we woke up at the first light of dawn. Why? You may ask. Well, we went for a nature walk!
I checked my watch and I only had 3 hours of sleep. Needless to say, I was pretty grumpy — even my friend mentioned how annoyed I looked. The walk itself wasn’t anything extraordinary. It was a dirt path that waved around surrounded by dry trees. It seems that after the monsoon season, it would actually become a lush forest—however right then it was simply dry. We stopped somewhere in the middle to take some photos.
Worship
Then we returned to eat breakfast — then we moved on to the worship session. Now even in something ordinary—like the worship session—they managed to add some spice. Instead of a bland worship session we got a bunch of action songs and they did their best to include everyone.
Then we had another session—this one really surprised me—it was about proving the existence of God and he even touched upon topics like philosophy and chemistry. It truly shows that a good pastor not only has Biblical knowledge but knowledge of all useful sectors of life. After that amazing session, we had lunch and then it was time for some swimming.
Swimming
This was originally supposed to be a games session—but just like yesterday they made this into a swimming session. However, there were less people than yesterday—most of them either rested or hung out together. I chose to swim again—as I just wanted to get some rest. Anyway, after that resting in the swimming pool, it was time for our skit preparation!
Skits
Although we already performed skits, just the day before—this was in fact supposed to be the real skit session.
However, before we started, we sat in a circle in the lawn ahead of our rooms—and we played an icebreaker. It was a memory game, basically a person would say a word and the next person must say the word and add on to it. Then the next person says both words and then it adds on. Eventually it becomes extremely hard to remember the words.
After simply playing one round—we moved on to assigning the topic and the skits. We didn’t realize we wouldn’t be performing them after all. It was the last day and we had thanksgiving and group photos. To account for all that, we had to remove the skits from the sessions.
The Thanksgiving
We went back to our rooms to freshen up and dress up appropriately for the Thanksgiving and Photo sessions. Then the thanksgiving session started and we also took some photos. After that was over we headed over to our rooms to sleep. Or at least that is what we were told to do — we had other plans. The teens and youths split apart into two different rooms and we did our own thing. In the teens room, we played UNO. The taste of fun was tinged with sleepiness, but in a while I soon forgot even that.
I eventually went to sleep at 2:00 AM. The next day was a rather short one. We packed and got ready to leave and we had one last session by Pr. Geo before we left. Then we got everything on the bus and left at around noon.
There again, we played a lot of games and had a lot of laughs — perhaps the only difference compared to the bus ride to the resort, was that we were much more comfortable now. We eventually reached home at 10:00 PM.
I went into this trip wondering what we’d even do with three whole days — and left wishing we had just one more. In those few days, I made new friends, laughed harder than I had in months, and grew deeper in my faith. More than just a fun getaway, this youth camp left a mark on me. I came back tired, yes — but also full. Full of stories, memories, and a renewed spirit.