In the Beginning – OE 2017

This year’s theme for our Outdoor Education week was “In the Beginning.” It was a time to look at the God’s creation and God the Creator.

Monday was spent traveling to the town of Taal, near Volcano Island or Taal Volcano. The students learned some things about Filipino culture and history. After that, they traveled to the camp to settle in, have dinner and listen to the chapel speaker.

Tuesday through Thursday, they split off into three groups to travel to the three different sites and participate in the various activities at each site. At the beach site, the students snorkeled and some did a discovery scuba dive to see God’s creation under water. They also learned some anatomy as they dissected a squid.

At the island site, they hiked the trails to see fumaroles, lava flows and the lake inside the island of this active volcano. As they hiked, they learned a lot about volcanoes.

At the main camp, they had some fun being creative, making a sand sculpture and then prepared for their ministry to a local school. Later, they traveled to the local school and shared

some songs and shared the meaning of the colors on the gospel bracelet before giving each child a bracelet. A gospel message was shared by one of our staff. The students played games with the children at the school and shared a meal. After returning to the camp, they began to prepare their dinner for the evening, starting out by killing their chickens and cleaning them for cooking. After some free time, they finished by barbecuing their chicken and orange muffins.

Each night they had a chapel speaker at the different sites. The theme was creation, learning how God has revealed Himself to us, His watch and care over us, and how sin came into the world and the challenge to keep ourselves real before God and let Him work in our lives. They also had squad time to talk in smaller groups with their friends and leader about the things they were learning.

Each year, we take along about 15 senior students to help in various ways at each site, leading worship, helping with ministry, leading hikes, helping with scuba and evening games. Walter was blessed to have some good staff and kitchen crew to help with the planning and facilitating all the activities and logistics. Walter was able to visit each site in reverse order so he was able to see all the students. I stayed at the main camp as the nurse to take care of any students who got sick or hurt and patched them up.

Thank you for praying for this wonderful time. It is especially challenging to the students in their spiritual walk with God as we have seen in their testimonies.

In Christ,

Cheryl for the Spicers