No textbooks. No parents. Just a backpack, my brother, and a whole camp full of strangers. This was my first solo trip, and I learned a lot more than I expected.

It all started when my music teacher came to our house and casually mentioned that he couldn’t take our classes the next week. Why? Because of a youth camp. I left it there at first. But later, I messaged him. I had one question: Can I join?

Drumroll. The seats were full. That should have been the end of the story.

But it wasn’t. Not even close.

The next day, we get a phone call: It was him, but more importantly, what was the news? Apparently, a few people cancelled last minute, and there were two spots open, perfect for us, as we wanted to go but the seats were full. So we paid, and packed our bags and were ready by Tuesday.

June 3rd, 4:30AM.

Alright! It’s the day that I’m going to be leaving for the youth camp! I woke up at 4:30 because I was going to be taking bath before leaving. I was ready by 5:30, and then our parents dropped us off at Majiri Chowk at around 6:00, and then the bus arrived, we sat inside, said our goodbyes to our parents and then we left. It was supposed to be an 8 hour ride to Jim Corbett. And we all started off barely chatting, and we mainly just slept, didn’t do much because not many people knew each other, and everybody was tired. Then came breakfast, which was at around 8:00AM, we all had one Aloo Parantha.

Then we came back onto the bus, and then this is where the real fun started. After breakfast, everybody got energy, and then there was a party of some sort in the bus. At the starting, everybody started blasting music and dancing to it, I stayed out of it. My dancing is a whole another story. That went on for about an hour, but then after that came some games, we decided to play Dumb Charades. This was actually pretty fun, guessing and acting. The other team underestimated me because I was the youngest one of the group. They gave me a really simple one. Isaiah. So I quickly acted indicating before my name (which was taken from Jeremiah). And then our team got it, the other team tried arguing they were going easy, but there was nothing they could do.

Then there came another game. Its name was Antakshari. Pretty much there are two teams, somebody starts off with a song. And then when the song ends, with the last syllable of that song, you have to start the next song. For example, if you say Here I am to Worship at last, the other team has to sing from “ip.” That was a really fun game, and it helped to pass the time.

After that we made a few quick fuel stops and we were about 30 minutes away from the resort, it started raining, HEAVILY not just a small amount, but it started to rain heavily. We were following the pastor’s car, and we got lost. We kept on going around in circles, taking breaks and then a really funny thing happened. We had parked our bus in a rural area while we were figuring out where to go, and then one of the organizers, Rajat Dhiman, opened the window where a few kids were waving out of happiness, and he pretended to be American, and spoke with a fake accent. He even gave away a few juice boxes as “random acts of kindness.”

Anyway, continuing the story, it was raining heavily, and we had reached the gate of the resort, we had to go inside from there. I took out my raincoat, and ran inside to the reception area. After 15 minutes, everybody had made it inside to the reception. There we got our rooms, and they told us who were going to be our roommates (4 people in one room). My roommates were Sumit, Shawn and Priyanshu. We took all our bags to the restaurant because it was way past the time for lunch. It was 4:30 and we decided to have food.

After that we went to our rooms, took rest for a while, there was originally a swimming session, but because of the delay, that changed. So that day, there was orientation, and a welcome ceremony for the youth camp, which was based around Thrive. So it was pretty much a Thrive welcome ceremony. And there was sort of a game, where they asked us to anonymously with a paper write your challenges and your expectations. After that we had dinner. Generally the day should’ve ended there, but it didn’t. There was an IPL match between PBKS and RCB. The people here were huge IPL fans, and all of them supporting PBKS. I’m not sure who I would’ve supported, but we stayed up till 12:00 watching the IPL match to realize that RCB had won. Everybody was disappointed.

An overview of the food.

The food here was pretty good, all of them being buffets, at least for us as we came in a group. I don’t know how it is if you normally go there. There was one paneer dish every time, and there also was egg every day in the morning, so for any bodybuilders it was good.

And all the teens sat together and ate, so that was quite fun making jokes and talking with other teens who were there. I enjoyed doing that.

June 4th.

This was the second day. We had to get up early because there was a devotion prayer. We attended it, it was mainly about being humble. They asked questions to everybody on who is your role model in life (in terms of being humble). And everybody answered that. After that there was breakfast. This was good, there was paneer, and there were some noodles. I ate it, talked to some of my friends and went to the meeting hall where there were going to be sessions.

This time, the sessions were taken by Pastor Geo. He came from Grace AG Church, Ahmedabad. He had some really insightful topics. The thing he mainly talked about, and the thing that I mainly liked was that we should know God. Not know about God. The Pharisees knew about God, but they never knew God. So we should know God.

Then there was an interesting activity. Pastor Geo gave us a topic, which for our team was the 10 Talents / 10 Bags of Gold that God gave. And we had to prepare and make a skit in a modern way so that people can understand. We decided to do our skit as the school and there’s an arrogant topper and a kind topper. The arrogant one tells the students who don’t do well to get lost when they go to her for help. After that the students go to the kind topper, and she helps them out and in the end, the students who don’t do well do better than the arrogant topper. The main point being that you should share your talents and multiply them, rather than keeping them to yourself.

Then we had lunch. The lunch was pretty good as well, there was some chicken, and there was a paneer dish as well for the vegetarians. Generally the food here was good. I talked to my friends again, and we finished eating lunch. But as we were early, my friends Ayana and Angel, and my brother and I took the guitar and a cajon and we started singing some songs, like Waymaker, Here I am to Worship, Bless the Lord. I had lots of fun doing this.

Then came a few more sessions. This time it was taken by Brother Pur. He had a different session compared to the rest of them. What he did was he gave us papers, and we had to do MCQs except, it wasn’t an exam. Depending on what you choose, you get a personality. I got the D personality (which I argue isn’t very much like me) which means dominant, and not caring about others’ feelings. This was pretty fun. Then he also held another test which determined what was your love language. I got words of affirmation and quality time.

After that came the really fun part. We went for swimming. This was originally supposed to be there the day we arrived, but because of the delay in us arriving there, it had become today. And I had LOTS of fun in the pool, not only in swimming but playing with others. They would flip other people in the pool.

Then after that, we had dinner and then there was a games session. These were arranged by the youth themselves, mainly by Sumit and Shawn. The games were pretty fun. One was where you tie a string to a balloon and to your leg, and you have to burst others’ balloons without yours being busted, pretty much a Last Person Standing type game. Another was where you have to flip a cup and get a ping pong ball inside it. After the games, we went to sleep.

June 5th.

Alright, this was the third day, the last full day that we were going to spend in the resort, and today was different, because there was going to be trekking (or so it was written), but it really was more of a jungle walk. So I woke up at 4:30, got ready and then I was out in the lawn, taking photos by 5:00 and everybody ended up there at around 5:45, which was when we left to the jungle walk.

This was perfect, because this was also the time of the sunrise so I managed to get some pretty awesome photos.

I liked the jungle walk, we saw a dead snake, but I managed to spot a live snake for just a short amount of time. Then we went to walk in the main jungle part, which was pretty nice, and we prayed and did a bit of worship, and then we came back to the resort.

By this time it was around 9:00, so we decided to wash our face and go have breakfast. Again, the breakfast was good, nothing that we should complain about. Then our friends again went up and played a bit of music, until it was time for the next session.

This session again was taken by Pastor Geo. He mainly talked about all the temptations that teens and youth have during this time, things that can distract you in life and things that can ruin your life entirely as well. This was a pretty good session, but personally, I liked the first session that he gave the most compared to any of these other ones.

After that, we had lunch, and then there was another session by Pastor Geo. Now it was around 4:30. Lots of people decided to go to the pool, but I wasn’t feeling like swimming or going inside the pool today, and the same was for many other teens. So the teens came to our room, and we played Truth or Dare and Never Have I Ever. This was pretty fun, and it went on for about 2 hours. Then there was another session by Sameer sir, which was about the Prodigal Son. Each team had to tell what they understood from it, and why. And they also gave us a few more questions like, out of the three items that were given to the prodigal son, which one was your favorite and why? This was overall a pretty fun session. After that, we had dinner. Then there was a thanksgiving session, where you had to dress up nicely, everybody would take photos as this was the last day. Since this was the last day, they gave a few people awards, and I managed to get one.

Then the most fun part of the day came, which was actually unplanned. All the teens came to our room, and we played all sorts of games, UNO, we talked a lot, and pretty much, we had lots of fun, and since this was the last day we could properly stay in the resort, we stayed up till 2:00AM playing, talking, having fun. After that, I got pretty tired so I went to sleep while the others continued for a while, but eventually went to their own rooms and to sleep.

June 6th.

This was the last day of the youth camp, and also the day that we were going to be returning back to Chandigarh. Luckily, there were no early morning events. So we all woke up by around 7:00, my roommates were different though. And got ready for the prayer that was going to be held at 7:45, there was a quick prayer, and after that we all went for breakfast. Then after that there was another session that was the final session. So we all got ready and we went up to the session, and we went there, and that was going to be the last session that we would have there, so it was a session where we had fun, there were games, worship and more. There was an ending session by Pastor Geo and Pastor Cherian. After that we took a photo and we headed back to our rooms.

We had to be at the bus in another hour. It was almost time to leave.

After packing everything, and double checking everything, everybody came to where the bus was at around 12:00PM. The bus driver loaded everything into the bus, and we took our day bags and took it inside the bus and kept it there. And at the end, we took a teens group photo at the resort, and we went inside the bus and started our 8 hour journey back to Chandigarh.

Most of the teens sat in the back of the bus, and we started chatting at the starting of the journey, for about 30 minutes, that’s all we did. But then after that we played some UNO, until it was time for lunch. We stopped at a restaurant named Aarna. It was a really good restaurant. Not to mention, it looked like a really good restaurant. Except it was a veg restaurant, it was pretty nice.

The food there was good as well. I liked the food there. After that we went and played another game with chits, which was somewhat like Out of the Loop. It was pretty fun and in round one, I won and after that, the next round I came second to last place. After that, most people just dozed off, because it was around 5:00 and the time to reach Chandigarh was still 5 hours. And I slept as well for a while until it was dark. After that we had some tea, and then everybody suddenly got some energy. So all the youth started dancing, and all the teens, including me, stood up on our seats in the back of the bus.

After that we just talked, danced even and we passed the time while having fun, until it was about 10:00PM. Our stop, which was Majiri Chowk, was only 30 minutes away, so we packed everything that we took outside into our bags, and then we continued to have fun. Until we had reached Majiri Chowk. It was finally time for us to leave. We got off the bus, waved to all our friends and then we went in our car back home. Home Sweet Home. (Though I still missed the Youth Camp.)

That’s it for this blogpost. If you have read this entire blogpost, thank you so much for taking out the time to read this many words. (You just read 2500 words. I’m impressed.) See you all next blogpost!
Socials: https://jerryg.xyz/socials
Website: https://jerryg.xyz/