River Camps 2008

March 5th, 2008

It’s now a couple of days since the CRYC River Camp at Kooba Beac, Darlington Point came to an end, the SRYC River Camp at Smithers Beach, Tocumwal was held the weekend before. Overall almost 300 people gathered on the shore of the Murray and the Murrumbidgee rivers across the Riverina to worship, fellowship, swim, wade, play, sing, pray, float, ride, canoe and eat.

On the Murray River leaders and young people gathered from the 22nd - 24th of February, it was a tad windy and the Murray is rather low but we all had a great time, the speakers Theo and Jannette spoke with passion about the love of God while the campers enjoyed great camp food, mountain biking, tubing, canoing, a 1 hour float down the river and time of worship and prayer together.

On the Murrumbidgee about 210 young people and leaders gathered in a massive tent city to worship, celebrate, swim, slide, fly on a flying fox, canoe, tent, eat river camp stew, dance, compete, swim and meet new friends. The speaker Aimee Kent from Wagga Wagga Uniting Church spoke on “Bringing Heaven to Earth” and challenged us to be inspired by the stories of our faith and of those who have gone before us who have lived remarkable lives.

On behalf of both CRYC and SRYC and the Riverina Presbytery Youth Committee (if i may speak on their behalf) I’d like to thank those of you out there who put blood, sweat and tears into helping these camps happen, for the hard work, love and passion that you’ve showed and for the continuing support that you offer the young people around our region. Whatever your role, catering, small group leading, community leading, worship leading, activity supervision, coordinating, set up and pack up, playing in the worship band, pastoral care, prayer support, financial support, transport provision, helping putting up tents or meeting people at the front gate we say thankyou, your help was and is important to us and the young people who attended.

And to the young people who camped with us over the weekends, we hope you had a ball at camp and we’d love to hear more from you and how you found the camps. We’d also love to see you over at one of our other events, stay tuned for new information!

If you’d like to get a glimpse of the river banks and our campsites here are a few images that I’ve put together for your viewing pleasure, just click on the thumbnails for a larger image (watch out, they’re pretty large files).
SRYC River Camp: