The Confirmation Camp...
Its not any normal camp I have ever known in my life...
We were the first badge of confirmation students to have our camp at Starfresh Agro Park...
A beautiful place away from the real world, calm, relaxing, comforting....
It may not be the best place in the world, but its a place I will forever remember...
It is where I found the new me.... A place where everybody found their newself...
We have learnt many new things from this camp...
We started out by hanging envelopes around the room, each with our own name written on it...
We were later explained about what it was for, we were all to write affirmation notes to each other..
For this camp, a motivator like no other was sent to us, Martin Jalleh, a man who I think is truely blest to run a camp...He helped us find ourselves in this camp...
He is a very funny man yet at the same time spiritual...
He can make us laugh at almost any time... Very funny man..
He uses videos and songs for teaching us also...
Beautiful videos and songs like the Taize's Bless the Lord Chant, Mary Did you Know,You Raise Me Up,Hero, a voice that amazed all- Susan Boyle, a man that shows us how fortunate and blest we are- Tony Melandez, how much an Earthly father can love his child- Team Hoyt, and how people can work miracles together- The Vocapeople....
He taught us through three different perspective- I,You(others) and God
We have learnt to be happy for who we are and to have faith in ourselves will lead us to greatness. We must never fear what others think of us.
We have to always know ourselves first to know others. We asked ourselves, "Who am I?" . We have to be ordinary to be extraordinary, like an empty cup which can be filled by God's blessings.
We always have a choice in life....
Then, we leant about God's love...
His love is first love, which means he always searches for us first, it is never us who searches for God.
His love is sacrificial.
His love is steadfast. Emeth which means Truth. The reliability, dependability and faithfullness of God to us.
His love is an affirming love.
And finally his love is humorous.
He answers our prayers in his own mysterious way.
The image of God in our head was always painful, but Martin has taught us that God does not necessary have to always be sorrowful but he can also be joyful.
The Laughing Christ
But apart from all he taught us.. Nothing was as wonderful as the inner healing session....
It was the first time I have ever been through inner healing...
It is the best experience I have ever had in my whole life...
We were all sitting apart in the room with the lights off...
Martin then played a very beautiful song and an image of Jesus was projected on the screen.
Everyone was sitting in the silence.
While that was happening, we all closed our eyes and he speaks.
He asks us to recall the times of our hurts,to forgive, to thank, to reflect...
As we recall the hurts in our lives, tears of sadness roll down our eyes.
A great and strong presence was felt, like as though God was holding me around his arms and crying with me, feeling all my hurt.
While we were crying, the cathechist, the sisters(nuns), and Martin moved around and said a prayer for each of us one by one.
It was a very touching prayer and it was a weird but wonderful feeling...
I cried a lot and I feel so much more for others who have more hurt than I do...
I feel so sad when I realise how little of love I show to God when he loves me so much, I realise how much my parents love me, I feel sad that I have not said " I love you" to them for so long, I realise how fortunate I am to have such a happy family...
After the inner healing session, I felt so light,like as though all the weight I have for years have just been lifted away as we surrender ourselves to God.
This has changed us, the way we think, the way we see things, the way we feel....
After the inner healing session, everyone went around hugging and comforting one another...
I have never seen all my friends,my companion feeling so much of hurt before...
As I hug them, I felt their pain,their hurt...
I could feel it like as though it was mine...
A friend of mine, Julian, told me this, "I feel very stupid because it took us 16 years to realise all this". And I agree with him a 100%
If we had not pause like the traffic light, like Martin said, Stop, Look and Go, to be in silence, we would not have realise this...
It takes a man like Martin to keep us in this warm silence with the presence of God...
On the final day of this 3 day camp, he gave us a talk on sex education, I find it very useful to us teenagers for it gives us an awareness of what is happening...
It was necessary for us, especially if we are involved in anything like that...
Watching pornography, masturbation, pre-marital sex,etc...
And finally, the parent's session, when we were to sing a beautiful song to our parents, "You Raise Me Up"....
As we sang this song, the parents shed tears, it was sung so beautifully, I felt like it but I did not cry...
Then all of us went to our parents and gave such a warm hug...
In all my life I have never felt such a warm hug as I hug my mother and told her "I love you, ma"...
It has been so long since I last told her that, and it is all thanks to Martin that I was able to do it...
And as we prepare ourselves to head home, everyone again hugged one another saying "I'm gonna miss you,Love you bro/sis, Take care"...
We felt so sad that it was time for us to have been connected to one another by God's love to part our ways...
But it was happy too because we are about to return back to our own family, a new and more holy, more aware Catholic person...
I decided to take the bus home, to be with my family in Christ, just a last few moments of the camp on the journey home to the Church..
We all asked Martin for his signature and promised to keep in touch...
This camp has made us realise that we are one with God in all we do...
Meeting new friends and a growing bond with old ones...
Overcome what we have sealed in our hearts for years...
To forgive ourselves and others, to release all our angers,fears and guilt...
To be prepared for the world...
To be a new person through confirmation...
To say "Yes" to God's call.....
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