BOYS’ BRIGADE – 17th Company June Camp
by Tan Xing Hao
On 11th to 14th June 2010, the Junior and Senior sections of the 17th company had a combined camp in Loyang Secondary School. On the first day, we started with a rock wall climbing session. Only a handful of people who had the strength and determination were able to scale the wall with success. This was followed by a sermonette “Ball of Many Colors” by our sponsoring church’s pastor, Rev Tan-Yeo Lay Suan on some of the colors of the World Cup that represented the Lord and His attributes.
The next day, after breakfast, we took a bus to Pasir Ris Park for our Student Officer Interaction (S.O.I.). However, it began to rain heavily before we could play our baseball and rugby games. As a result, the entire company had to rush and squeeze into one shelter in the park! We then began to sing one of the newly learnt songs, “Christ in the Vessel”, to ‘chase’ the rain away. The rain eventually subsided and we carried on with our exciting games.
After returning from the park, instead of the usual packed lunch, we had to cook our own instant noodles and canned food. It was the kind of experience when we have to “fend” for ourselves with little or no modern day conveniences. However, the food tasted as good when cooked at home. After dinner, we had campfire at our school’s car park, which was also attended by some parents. During the campfire, the company sang some songs, did our squad cheers and played fun games through the night.
The third day, we went to an open field in Sengkang to do an activity which we never did before as a company: kite flying. It was interesting to do such an “old school” activity in an era of information technology. After we were taught how to assemble and fly the kite, we immediately moved to our designated “flying” areas as we were so excited to fly them. It was, in fact, not as easy to get the kite flying. However, when the kites did fly, we were happily mad as hatter! It was strangely mesmerizing to see them flying in the sky. We were fortunate to have such an opportunity to experience activities such as kite flying.
After lunch, we geared ourselves for Combat Skirmish. The company played through three missions such as the all time favorite Team Death match and the risky Elimination. These games brought out the inner Counter Strike players within us and we all had a blast, despite the accidental friendly fires and heavy weight guns! Even the officers joined in the fun, making the missions more challenging for us to accomplish!
Before we knew it, it was the last day of camp. It was a little disappointing that time flew when we were having fun, but there is always next year’s camp to look forward to!