2024

Spy Kidz

Junior Camp 2024 was another fun filled year, held in the first week of the school holidays from July 8-12. This year we had an increase in campers, welcoming 28 children along to our special training to become agents for God. They were lead by 17 leaders, including 9 senior leaders, 2 junior leaders in training, and 5 part time/supporting leaders. Across the camp, we had leaders and kids coming together from 22 different churches! This year also marked the last year for 9 of our campers who were in year 7 this year, with many of them return campers.

The bushwalks are a great way for the kids to get out into nature and appreciate what God has given us in our own backyards up in Hazelbrook. The night time bushwalk in particular was a highlight for many leaders and campers, with comments shared about how the glow worms were the brightest that had been seen in over 10 years!

Monday night games was hosted by Jordan and Encoch in full disguise and involved a series of custom spy challenges which focused on team building skills, while Messy games involved a lot of spaghetti, shaving cream, baked beans and even ice cream as the children worked their way through various challenges where the true prize becomes who can be the messiest. One game in particular saw team Taranators to victory, where against all odds, the group avoided a head of shaving cream by guessing the 10 of hearts as the next drawn card from a playing deck!

The kids got crafty and created spy goggles, with x-ray green, long distance red, night vision blue, or thermal yellow features; eye spy bags; invisible ink; and the overwhelming favourite: code bracelets, with a unique set of beads that included what made each child special, because everyone brings something different to the mission.

This year we had a game filled incursion, with a Giant Hamster Ball (which was a highlight for many of the children!), Giant Yard Games, Laser Tag, and some Digital Games for 40 minutes of Minecraft, FIFA, Rocket League or Beast Master.

In a new segment for the camp which tied into some of our teaching, we looked at what we can give in service for God. In order to live out these ideas practically, we spent some time giving back to Camp Fletcher, the FCC campsite, giving some of the chairs a fresh coat of paint so that we can enjoy them for years to come. When asked about how giving back to camp made them feel, some of the year 7 children reflected “It is cool to give something back to this site because for the past 3 years, Junior Camp has given so much to us and the next cohort can keep enjoying their time here with the freshly painted chairs.” In addition to updating the existing chairs, the children spent some time designing a bespoke chair to leave their mark on the site as well, filled with their names, the memory verse, and lots of colour!

This year’s teachings were built on 5 key concepts:

• What
  What is the mission? To accept Jesus and share his Gospel with the world. The children also learnt that nothing is impossible with God, and while the mission is difficult, it is not impossible.

• Who
  We all have a place in the mission, God uses everyone, no matter what skills they have. God can do a lot with a little. The question is, will we accept the mission?

• Where
  We should be telling everybody, friends, enemies, and even people we have not met! Although we know that living for the mission can be hard, it is important to remember that failure is not final, we can keep working to live for God and try again each day.

• How
  Learning how to crack the code and learn more about God’s mission and understanding what God has given us - the fruit of the spirit and spiritual gifts - to be equipped for the mission.

• Now
  Size doesn’t matter – even though we may be small, God can still use us to share the mission. Now is the time to accept the mission and share it with the world.

Our key memory piece from this year was based on Acts 1:8, which was decoded into Mission 1:8 to make it easier for the children to understand:

1. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you : The spirit of Jesus will help you to live in a new way (This is the mystery of the Holy Spirit, how he can live with us and help us to live differently) 

2. And you will be my witnesses : that challenges (which means you get to challenge others by the way that you live differently) 

3. In Jerusalem and Judea: friends ( When Jesus said this to people of the time they knew that the people in Jerusalem and Judea were the people that were familiar to them, even their friends) 

4. Samaria: Enemies ( When Jesus said this to people of the time they knew that the people in Samaria were considered enemies and someone who you didn’t talk to, this was a mystery to them that they would even consider sharing with these people.) 

5. And to the ends of the earth : And people you have not met yet ( When Jesus was saying this to the people of the time they knew that there were people they had never met and somehow though a mystery to them that the message would reach them as well) 

These teachings were shared during chapel time along with lots of songs – Father Abraham seemed to be the crowd favourite this year and was highly requested towards the end of the week. Additionally, they were looked at in depth during study groups, and recapped over night time devotions. Children also had the opportunity to highlight a big takeaway for the day in their passport as well as add stickers they collected for various activities throughout the week.

We love hearing your post-camp stories and how much you have learnt.

We are always keen to hear about your child’s experiences so we can share this with others who may be interested in going to camp next year or in the future. If you were part of this year’s camp, we would love to hear from you. Some of the experiences will be published here when we add the rest of the photos to this page (and we will update you about this in an email of course! and some of the highlights could even make it to our Facebook page!

Acts 1:8

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Mission 1:8

The spirit of Jesus will help you to live in a new way that challenges friends, enemies, and even people we have not met.

General Camp Photos

Craft

Thursday Night Dress Up and Campfire

Incursion Activities

Messy Games

Giving Back

 2023

A Mighty Fortress

On Monday the third of July 2023, 22 campers and 17 leaders set out on a new adventure. After a steep journey up the mountain to Camp Fletcher, we quickly began our work of becoming Heroes through developing our endurance on a bushwalk to two different waterfalls! Thankfully, we took the time to enjoy a hearty feast for our hard work, then spent the evening learning many skills that allowed the campers to begin training to advance from the lowest rank of peasants during Monday Night games. Given the medieval theme of the camp, we took the time to study nations and kings from the bible. On Monday, we looked at Joshua (chapter 6) and how the Lord brought down the walls of Jericho to deliver his chosen people: the Isrealites. God’s might tumbles Jericho’s walls. 

Waking the next morning as newly annointed knights, we enjoyed a Heroes Quest where campers developed the many skills that heroes need with activities aimed to develop skills such as bard training, tests of balance, endurance, accuracy and speed, and even opportunities to challenge the leaders and beat them at their own game! We made paper chains and aqueducts for ping pong balls, practiced our accuracy through ring toss, and practiced keeping balloons in the air. On Tuesday, we opened the bible to look at King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18-19) and his faith in the Lord to protect Jerusalem from the Assyrians. In the evening after chapel and dinner, we followed Hiccup and his friends as they put some of the skills we had learnt into practice, watching How to Train Your Dragon in a movie night.

Waking up bright and early on Wednesday morning, we dressed in our oldest clothes as we prepared to get messy. We challenged each other as teams worked together to come out with the messiest clothes around! Through blindly touching sardines and cold 2-minute noodles, face-planting flour in search of gummy snakes, playing Go Go Stop with hairspray, spreading the bubonic plague using shaving cream and Cheeto balls, and helping each other eat cereal from behind, the kids definitely took the challenge to heart! After a brief morning tea break of pizza, we got EVEN MESSIER with paint twister, fishing for toy soldiers with our toes, passing water over our heads into our friends’ buckets (or rather, onto our friends), played some messy trivia, and went slip and sliding. The messy games ended with a giant slime fight (which the leaders were happy to see the kids getting into because the slime was made from soap flakes and water)! Messy and content, we cleaned up ready for the rest of the day. In our studies on Wednesday, we looked at King Josiah (2 Kings 22-23) who found the word of God in the temple and repented because his word is true and powerful. Finally, we finished the day with an evening walk down to see the glowworms, admiring the glories of God’s creation.

Thursday was a jam packed day of activity. In the morning we took the time to make different medieval themed crafts: catapults, swords and painted rocks to remind us that the Lord is our rock - something the kids were repeating daily in our memory verse, Psalms 18:2. The afternoon saw the children pick up archery as they learnt how to use bows and arrows with fun exercises and competitions out on the oval. On Thursday we were introduced to the final King discussed during the week - King Jesus - and his not so grand entrance into the city (Luke 19). This lead into our campfire talk where we talked about how God is the one true King who knows what is best for us. He loves us, but when we don’t listen to his perfect plan, and do things wrong, for us it breaks our relationship with him (Luke 23). God sent his son Jesus to live a perfect life and die in our place, to make all our wrongs right! Because of this, we are given the gift of a right relationship with God - but it is up to us to accept this gift. Thursday night is an opportunity for children to respond and accept this gift. We pray to say sorry to God for the things we have done, thank you for sending Jesus to make things right, and please forgive us and help us to live the rest of our lives for him. This year, we had 21 campers either pray this for the first time or recommit to God with this prayer.

By Friday of camp, everyone is always super tired from such a busy schedule, yet, it also feels like we only arrived yesterday because the time has flown by so quickly! Packing up cabins and sharing new memories with friends made this week is bittersweet but the kids talk about plans with each other to come back the following year so they can do it all over again. Friday is also the day where the kids find out who the mystery cabin inspector who reports on how tidy the cabins are each day to encourage friendly competition. This year, it was a highly anticipated reveal as kids were given the opportunity to offer additional evidence not heard in cabin reports and have their scores changed accordingly, so when Greg was revealed as the inspector the cheers of excitement were deafening! We finished out the week by talking about how in every passage we looked at, God’s name was declared (Joshua 6:27, 2 Kings 19:25, 2 Kings 23:2, Luke 19:37-38, Luke 23:39-43 and Luke 24:33-34), and it is our job to go and tell others about the Good News of Jesus!

We look forward to seeing campers come back next year as SPY KIDZ and bringing friends along with them so that they too can spread the Good News :)

We love hearing your post-camp stories and how much you have learnt. See some of the messages we have received below:

“My ‘L’s to describe junior camp were ‘LEARNING about the LORD in a different LOCATION.” - Elliot (Camper)

“Jane, Natalie and Izzy stood up at Girls Brigade after camp and taught the rest of the group My Rock (the memory verse song). This was followed by nearly every other song that had been sung at camp including Jesus Loves Me with sign language! It was really great to see that the camp stuck with them so well!” - Amanda (Camp Mum)

“We were looking forward to camp since the day we got back last year, and it DID NOT disappoint!” - Taiga and Jasper (Campers)

“Thank you Lord and the leaders.Viki went home and said she was very happy at camp. Looking forward to be going again next year.” - Lina (Mother of camper)

General Camp Photos

Craft

Thursday Night Dress Up and Campfire

Archery Incursion

Messy Games

 2022

Eternal Treasure

After a few years break due to COVID, Junior Camp came back swinging in the first week of the June/July school holidays this year.

Wet weather did not deter the excitement of the 37 campers as they participated in messy games, a pirate boot camp, a trivia tournament, a talent show and made some amazing crafts!

Of course, the aim of the week is to share the gospel, and in theme with this year's camp, our speaker Michael Boyd followed a 'treasure map' through the Bible.

This came to a conclusion at the end of the week with a talk about "The Greatest Treasure": The life Jesus promises us is the greatest treasure ever and worth more than anything else. It’s our joy to be found.

The spirit was working in the children throughout the week and on our traditional Thursday night campfire and commitment night, 27 children raised a hand when asked if they wanted to follow Jesus.

This camp would not have been possible without the dedicated leaders, with 17 onsite full-time and 7-day visitors pitching in to make the camp an amazing experience for the kids.

Please pray for the children who attended camp this year, that they may continue to find joy in Jesus and grow in their knowledge of Him. Praise God that we had a safe camp. Thank the Lord for raising up leaders to lead these children on camp and share the Gospel with this next generation.

General Camp Photos