Project Destiny Update 6: Last Days of Camp

If doing PD this summer was a like a marathon, the final week was like a sprint. I feel like I used up the last of my energy in the last stretch down to the finish line. It flew by like a jet airplane on afterburners. My role, during those last days, was to lend logistical and sometimes hands on support to the counselors. I kept a car on hand to go buy things that were needed last minute. I got to provide backup for different classes that were busy or needed extra personel to finish their projects. During the last couple of days, there were times when it seemed that I was gathering the skeleton crew of counselors who were available to supervise/ run programming for 50 kids because many of the other staff members were busy trying to finish up different publications and office jobs in time for our final day of camp.

One highlight was Friday, when the kids ran a home-made streetfair for the neighborhood. Think of an empty church parking lot, filled with 12 streetfair games-- each made out of cardboard boxes, tables, and other easily obtainable items-- painted in vibrant colors. There were games like "extinguish the candle with a watergun," "soak the counselor," "penguin walk race" and other games invented and created by the students. We had music blasting and prizes available at a ticket redemption booth, which I manned all afternoon. We had a lot of people from the community come-- it was a lot of fun and it was a meaningful way to finish the camp.

On Saturday, we had Family Night, a time for family and friends of Project Destiny to come and see the results of the summer's hard work. We displayed tons of artwork, including paintings, drawings, student-directed movies, clay-animated featurettes, and street art. At 6:00, we served dinner to 190 people! At 7:30, everyone filed into the sanctuary of the church to see the feature presentations-- peformances by my guitar class, the chinese hammered dulcimer class, another dulcimer class, singing, dancing, and a drama presentation. Those 190 people who came also heard the Gospel, preached in Chinese by Pastor Kenneth Kwong.

That was a great night of celebration, but also of non-stop work. I was the emcee that night, so my role was to run a last minute dress rehearsal of the different acts. At the same time, I had 4 guitar students whom I had not quite prepared enough for the trauma of performing, so I had to be in two places at once. Once we ran the dress rehearsal, I realized that we had not thought of how to set the stage, or transition from act to act-- things I never realized were so important to a production. Also, I remembered that I had nobody to translate for me, so I asked our speaker, Pastor Kenneth, to also double as a translator. When he left after his talk, I tried my hand at translating my own Chinese to the crowd. It was hilarious and I probably shouldn't try it again. I think I might have accidentally told the crowd that we were giving away lottery tickets to the students at one point...

So camp is over, and I plan to write one or two more updates. But before I end, one more poignant moment-- during dinner, in between running around and comforting my desperately nervous guitar students ("don't make me do it Mr. Liu!") I ran into Samson's mother. "Thank you so much for all you've done for him," she said. "You know he really likes you a lot and talks about church all the time. Even though he'll be in highschool, please check in on him every once in a while." When I told her that she should encourage him to keep coming to church, she said, "I don't need to do that. He goes on his own. He'll probably keep going forever. It's good for him... I can see him starting to change. So I have hope..." It was just one little conversation, but what a powerful testimony to what God has done this summer in just this one student's life. It is a theme, that I am sure resonates with other campers as well.