How can you pray for us?

Tomorrow is the start of the last week of Project Destiny! This blog post also marks the fourth entry on this blog, because I only started updating last week. :( Also, the lack of photos bothers me, so I found some pretty pictures to put in between paragraphs for your viewing pleasure. Again, sorry for not having enough pictures to put up!

Staff Team
More love and patience for each other! Since it's the last week, some of us are feeling the time crunch. Others can't wait for it to be over, and others are very sad that it'll end soon. But most importantly, some of us might already feel burned out, whether we know it or not. Or at least, very tired. When emotional and mental wires are very frayed, it's very easy to get into a "me" attitude and start thinking only about ourselves and forget about our mission, why we're doing PD, and the bigger picture.


1 Corinthians 13:4-7
⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


Please pray that we will won't develop "me-attitudes"! It's also very important since it's the last week, because if all the counselors end PD with the kids looking angry and ignoring each other, that's probably the most prominent thing that will stick out in the kids heads-- that the counselors were mad at each other and mad at the kids, which takes away the real message we're trying to show them: God and love!

Campers
The campers are on all sorts of spectrums in their walk with God. Some of them don't care about Christianity or spirituality at all, and it could either because they aren't thinking about these things yet, or they feel antagonistic towards it. Please pray that they will be open to learning about God, or at least have them come towards Jesus one step!

Destiny Olympics & PD/TWR Joint Night

Destiny Olympics
Our original plans were slightly altered (mostly locations) due to rain threat, but things worked out in the end! We took all the kids to Joe Moakley Park by JFK T-station and played our games there. We had a relay race with two sections: speed and accuracy. There was the 3-legged-race, wheelbarrow race, and a few passing games like basketball-pass and frisbee toss. At the end was a combination of all of those games. My small group won the combo! ;P

There were a few complications with judging which teams got the points, so my team (Jevon's small group and my small group) was a little discouraged whenever we got shafted, but they were feeling better by the time we got back to church to play our water balloon games!

Octopus Tanks was a game where there is one shooter in the middle, and the rest of the team forms a "tank" around the shooter and lock elbows or hold hands with each other. All the "tanks" move around the field and the shooters attempt taking down the other shooters with limited supply of water balloons! I think the kids had a lot of fun with that; the counselors certainly did, as far as I know!

At the end was a gigantic water balloon fight. I got hit in the back twice by a camper, and at the very end a bunch of the counselors captured the camp directors and emptied the water coolers on them. I was told this is tradition...

Destiny Olympics Planning Team: Annie Tran, Kirklin Lee, Diana Yang


PD/TWR Joint Night: SUPERHEROES THEME!
Some of the guy counselors made a deal with some of the boy campers: if the campers go to PD/TWR Joint Night, then they would play PC games with them that night. They actually went, so we followed through with the deal and played one game with them that night. We as in, I played that PC game too so I joined it. Only one camper could make it, so it was four PD counselors, one ex-PD counselor and that one camper! Beat down time!! Haha, just kidding. But it worked, because the boys showed up! :)

The events: dinner (pizza), ice-breaker game, create your own superhero using cardboard and newspapers, and then act out a scenario! I personally thought it was hilarious! There were eight groups total and everyone was really creative with their superheroes.

My group was Asian Chicken Woman, and her costume had arm and leg armor, mechanical wings and 7-core-energy-processor (I had no idea what I was talking about) as well as an Eternal Flame on her helmet to give her everlasting energy. Our scenario was fighting through an army of Beliebers and then destroying the Final Boss (Aaron Yip!)!

Final Boss: NO MAN CAN DEFEAT ME!
Asian Chicken Woman: (rips off her glasses) I AM NO MAN!!!!!!!!
(throws beach ball at Final Boss and victory!)

It was VERY loud but the energy was high, and Jevon finished the night off by talking about how Jesus is the ultimate superhero-- and he really saved all of us! I thought it was a lot of fun and I hope the campers and TWR kids had fun too! :)

Unfortunately I have no pictures...

Snapshots

Hello supporters! I don't have too many pictures, and I don't take pictures of my campers, so I only have a couple of snapshots to share. CLICK ON THE PHOTOGRAPH TO SEE THE BIGGER VERSION.

Mr. Yu: Breakfast-for-dinner: pancake, bacon and egg sandwich!

Mid-camp retreat at Lorraine Ho's home, which she and her family generously opens up to Project Destiny staff every year.

During free time, Sam and Mr. Huang throwing a frisbee.

Action shot 1.

Action shot 2.

Reflection of the trees on my cellphone

The interns nice group picture...

Mr. Huang teaching Ms. Ho a weird pose...

The REAL side of our interns!

Counselors in the morning. Can you count how many are on this couch?

Ms. Ng getting read for morning worship.

Some "bookmarks" (bookmark-sized pieces of watercolor paper) customized for counselors

Didn't finish them all yet...

Counselors working...

One of our supporters after a hard night of cooking and hanging out with us! Nom nom!

Field Trip: Science Museum

I don't know about all the other small groups, but today's field trip was chaotic! The Science Museum is an annual PD field trip, so most of the kids had seen it already. Some of them said they wanted to stay in one exhibit for the entire trip, so we went there, but others wanted to explore other things. What ended up happening was one of my kids wandering off on her own and running around and yelling, and the others wandering around on their own. Thankfully a few were more aware and stayed close to me without having to be reminded, but it was very stressful and chaotic for me to try and keep the whole small group within relative proximity so they don't get lost or get hurt.

We stayed at the playground exhibit for a bit, then went to look at the lightning show exhibit. Unfortunately, we missed the show because some of the girls didn't want to go, so we went to look at the illusion exhibits. Those caught their attention for a bit! After that, we decided to go look at a magic show. The kids thought the magic show was boring, so we left early. We had to leave early anyway, because time was up and we had to head back to the train to go back to church. 

Speedy Brief Update

I can hardly believe it's week four already; this is the second to last week of Project Destiny 2012! Training felt like months ago, yet the beginning of camp felt like yesterday.

Here are some very quick updates, because it's very late at night. Actually, sometimes I sleep later than this, but it just felt like a long day because we spent nearly 16 hours at church today!

Skits
We just finished our Jacob and Esau skit series, and we are beginning our Jesus skits now. Today, one of our counselors (who will be leaving us tomorrow :c) put in a huge burst of energy to write a skit about Jesus's crucifixion and the events leading up to it. It's full of important events and information, and the Senior Counselors just spent about four hours practicing and ironing out details. We're all very tired and most of us are sleeping, except me because I want to put down my thoughts before they disappear!

Field Trips
Museum of Fine Arts
This field trip was a very quick walk-through of several America exhibits. The tour guide had us stare at paintings and furniture and then tell him our observations. I thought it was sort of interesting, but some of the kids had a hard time staying still for more than 10 seconds, so there was a bit of wandering and boredom. However, overall our campers stayed together and were relatively patient, even though the bus arrived almost an hour late!

While we waited for the bus to arrive, we took our small groups outside to play in the grass. One of the security guards kept watching us, so I went to ask him if everything was okay. He smiled and said he was just making sure none of the kids were getting lost or hurting themselves. After I asked him he looked less intimidating and more relaxed, so I wonder if he thought we were a bunch of troublemakers! :)

Canoeing
Canoeing was FUN! The lifeguards there didn't allow more than 2-3 campers per boat, and we wanted at least one counselor per boat. We ended up sending a group of three of the oldest boys out in a canoe themselves, which worked out fine; they were very responsible!

In my canoe, it was me and three of my small group girls. Two of them didn't paddle correctly, and of those two, one was very weak and the other got a blister halfway through and stopped trying. The third one tried very hard and kept yelling, "LEFT! RIGHT, RIGHT! OKAY SWITCH, EVERYONE ON THE LEFT!" I was in the back doing the steering, and doing most of the work too. I don't think my girls noticed! :P At the end of the day, my roommate, Kat, said that our lives are like being in a canoe with God. God does all the work and steers us, and sometimes we think we're doing all the work. All God needs is for us to try and He will do the steering for us. It was a simple field trip, but such an important reminder came out of it!

Roger Williams Zoo
It rained. As a result of this, several animals were not present in their exhibits (understandably-- who wants to sit out and get drenched in the rain? :c) which meant there were less things to look at. This also meant that the kids got a lot more bored in a less amount of time, so there ended up being about an hour of finding things to occupy their attention while we waited for the bus. The bus ride ended up taking longer than usual too, because of traffic.

The kids seemed to enjoy the animals though. They were especially interested in watching a giraffe-birthing video at the giraffe exhibit, and watching an elephant defecating in its habitat.

In short, the field trips seemed to have helped my small group girls grow more closely together. Plus now they have more experiences to share with each other! Even though there was rain, or boredom, or impatience, they are experiences nonetheless, and I'm sure they'll look back on these field trips in five years or so and say, "Remember that time we couldn't turn our canoe in time and crashed into the trees and got slapped by the tree branches?"

Lab: Watercoloring
At the time of this update, there are only 3 classes left in my lab. I've actually misjudged how quickly they would work! I thought that we'd only be able to finish five pages of their children's book (the final project) by the end of the ten classes, but most of them have surpassed that limit already. In the next class I will be working with them to put their text on their pages, and by the last two classes we will be working on the cover and back pages, as well as putting the whole thing together.

I'm extremely excited about their books! They are very creative and I'll be putting up a table at Family Night (more information about that later!) so visitors and supporters can look at them.

Staff Team
The staff team is tired, but still plugging through very determinedly, and most importantly, we are still together. We're still in one piece, as far as I know! :) And it always helps to constantly recenter ourselves on God, because it's easy to begin crediting things to ourselves once we see something good starting to happen.

Usually, the senior counselors are so tired by the time we get back to Emerson dormitories, we just go to sleep or continue prep work. Most of us are introverted, meaning we are inward and need alone time to "recharge". This means that spending lots and lots of time around people with barely any time alone to think and process, alone, is incredibly draining.

The interns and junior counselors have been working diligently and faithfully, supporting the camp directors and us in all the little things. The little things are incredibly important, because without them we would all fall apart! They have been doing things such as running around the building to grab things that senior counselors forgot (oops!), making sandwiches for our lunches, packing things away, helping us clean, tracking and organizing our support, and many other things that I might not even be aware of. They go far beyond what they've signed up for, constantly asking how they can further help other counselors and then doing it. It's also a reminder to me that we are all part of one body. Our different roles doesn't determine our value on the team. Each team member is what they are-- a member of the team, all doing a different part of the work!

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If you are reading this, you've either skipped to the end, skimmed this, or read through the whole entire post. But it doesn't matter, because if you've clicked on the link leading to this site it must have meant you had some sort of interest, and for that I thank you for! I'll see if I can include some pictures next time for you to look at, but in the meantime please pray for us, as a camp, as a team and for our campers. Thank you so much for your support!