I'm glad this overnight thing took place after I returned from Malaysia. I was worried that I might miss out this 'male-bonding' session, especially in such a pivotal moment of the church. Back in January, Eddie came out with this great ideas of having an overnight camp with some of the key guys in the church. The purpose is to know one another better and to build stronger relationship as we are deemed the pillars of the church. Well, don't get me wrong, the invitation is open to all men in the church, so, it's not like we are the few chosen privileges.
Somehow, only 11 of us responded. So, on May 16, we all gathered at Manukau Westfield's McDonalds after work and departed in 2 big vans. We reached our 'Butterfly campsite' (what a name for a 'Manly retreat'!!!) in Coromandel after about 1 1/2 hour of driving. Due to the expected rain, instead of pitching tent, Eddie got us 2 cabins. Well, men being men... some of us still pitched up the tents and stayed in there. At least we get to tell our wives that we stayed in tent...
(top - bottom, left - right)Oliver, Jonathan, Tee, Ps. John, Geoffrey, Ken, Sonny, Eddie, Sale, Joe... (me taking the picture)
click here for the pyramid build up
After pitching the tent, we divided ourselves into 2 groups and spent some time getting to know one another by playing a 'bluff' game; getting other people to guess which statement about ourself is untrue. As you can tell, we are all very Christians :) It was good fun nevertheless. We proceeded to play pictionary and since we are all better actors that painters, we decided to charade the words instead. Some classic acts were Eddie's on peanuts and Sale's on Grizzly bear.
The next morning, the winning group (don't ask me why??) did breakfast and we all had a scrumptious helping. The plan was than to do a 3 hours hike (yaa... men!!!). After 40 minutes, we completed the hike, not that we are all super-fit but we took the wrong path and it turn out to be a short cut. I guess God knows the condition of our health better (and some of our hearts too!!). We proceeded to a beach and played some team building game, finishing off with a run back to the campsite. However, one of us decided to take a short-cut back to the site... bad move Sale!!!!
A few of us plotted to throw Sale into the swimming pool but somehow (I guess we all know the reason now, right Joe?) most of them fell into the pool. Well, maybe it's really God teaching us a lesson on forgiveness ;) The camp owner was kind of jealous we were having so much fun that he came charging down the pool and ask us to leave it alone. Well, Eddie being the great police officer (there were 2 in our midst) went to calm him down. Considering that we should be mindful of not showing the owner too much fun, we checked out, and found a beautiful spot by the beach to have a wonderful BBQ, follow by more sharing, crickets, touch rugby, full contact rugby and a swim in the sea.
More excitement (though it's with much agony) to follow when Ken suddenly developed an allergy. His body started to rash up and all he wanted to do was scratched. We rush to a nearby dairy where there's a nurse and gave him some pills. She told us the nearest hospital is Manukau but thankfully, the rash began to subside, and all he wanted than was to have his ice-cream.
It was a good and fun outing, and prayerfully, these pillars will be of good use to the house.
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