Fun at the beach and studying God’s Word together during the annual weekend away camp for the traditional services in the Cathedral.

Stanley Lee elaborates more on this.

Members of the congregations from the four traditional services in St Mary’s Cathedral were in Ancasa Residences, Port Dickson from 10 to 12 September 2016 for the “St Mary’s Weekend Away”. A total of 71 campers, consisting of adults and children, attended the camp. The main organisers of the camp were Andy Ng, Kenneth Kiffer Fong, Juliana Schlatter and Rowena Adikan Suppiah.

The theme for the camp this year was “Assurance of Salvation”. The speaker of the camp, Gerrard Emmanuel from the Church of the Holy Spirit, Ipoh, preached on the theme for 3 sessions of talks. The first session was about how we can only have full assurance of salvation through faith in the completed work of Christ, and not through our own works. The second session showed that this salvation was not about prospering in this present world but about inheriting the Kingdom when Christ returns. The last session was about how to persevere in the faith while waiting for His coming.

Apart from the talks, the campers also had the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of other activities such as Beach Games, Talent Night and a Photographic Treasure Hunt (where each team had to act out a list of scenes from the Bible and take a photograph of those scenes).

The campers thoroughly enjoyed their time in the camp as many thought that it achieved a very good balance between learning and having fellowship together with games and fun activities. They loved the beach, the surroundings, and the facilities at the accommodation site. They appreciated that there was a lot of time for chatting and getting to know each other better. They were also challenged by the sermon and benefited from the Bible study sessions. A few of the campers said that some of their memorable moments in the camp were at meal times where they savoured different choices of cuisine accompanied by a free flow of Apam Balik.

The camp was a success overall and the campers said that they were eagerly looking forward to bonding closer together at next year’s St. Mary’s Weekend Away.