My Xtend Xperience!

Hey, I know you are all dying to hear how Xtend went!
For those of you who don't know, Xtend is a christian (predominantly Baptist) Youth camp that goes for one week in the june/july holidays at Otumotai (or however you spell that) Baptist Church and the surrounding churches and other venues.
All times are run on daylight saving to avoid having noise restrictions (so all these times are one hour earlier - real time)
A typical day looks like this:

before 8:45: Breakfast
Morning Meeting (worship, leaders testimonies)
Seminars (so many choices! some topics include; leadership, personality types, prayer, dating etc. etc. they are all really interesting!)
Small group study time ( work through similar to youth group studies - they are challenging and inspiring)
LUNCH TIME (one of the best times of the day!)
free time (for like 2 and a half hours - you can do anything you want! Roll down hills, go to town, go shopping etc.)
Workshops (more practical than seminars - craft, prayer for past hurts, recording a CD, visiting an old folks home, service project, art etc.)
Dinner
Evening meeting (worship, prayer, testimonies, response time - can go for hours but it doesn't feel like it goes that long!!)
SLEEP ( 5 hours if you are lucky)

So as you can see it's quite full on!!!!!!!! But it's so worth every minute of it - spending time with 230 young people passionate about God!

I know you are dying to here what I learnt, so here goes:

- I learnt that nothing should take the place of God as my goal in life (which has happened lately, sad to say it) I realised that lately I've been putting stuff like finding myself a good christian husband, succeeding in my education, my plans for the future, above serving my Lord! Not good, to say the least, so (one of my) missions now is to keep him at number one in my heart.

- I learnt that even when you don't feel that love for God you just need to keep going and worship him anyway!

- I learnt that so often we feel alone in our problem, but pretty much there will always be someone who has been through something similar.

- I learnt that we can't give up on God in the hard times ( I learnt this through helping a friend)

- I learnt that even a young NZ chick can make a difference, and I'm passionate about starting to do that!

If anyone wants to join an email list of people committed to praying for overseas missionaries and mission prayer requests - email me at farreachesoftheearth@gmail.com

Also if anyone is interested in Knitting squares to make into a blanket to go to Romanian orphans in Moldova ( i think that's the name) email me and I'll try sort that out.

- I learnt never to be ungrateful for what we have, even just waking up this morning is more than so many people in this world did.

My highlights:

Recording a song to CD!

Meeting a whole heap of fantastic people

Realising things that I can do to make a difference to those who have nothing

Helping friends to heal.