Christian here again. I finally made it home! I'm typing this from my room back home, and let me tell you, it is the best feeling ever to get home after a LOOOONG travel day and just jump on your bed.
With that being said, I am finally continuing my recap posts from Camp Kchag. Last time, I wrote about the incredible people that I met at Kchag. I stand by my word; every day I'm apart from them, I feel like I'm missing something. They truly changed my life.
This time however, I'm going a different direction for Part 2. I want to talk about all the events weset up over the week at camp.
Usually, the events a camp puts on during the week are often some of the main highlights of a young badanee's camp experience.
And, although I don't have insider knowledge here, I'm guessing Kchag aims to be number 1 in this aspect of camp.
Let me tell you, they succeeded at it.
This week was on another level in terms of the variety of events we had. We literally had it all.
We had workshops each day where badanees could learn everything from acting to self-defense to fashion etiquette and hygiene. I personally thought these workshops were a brilliant idea because each day, you were exposing the campers to new ideas that are practical and allow them to learn something new that they may be able to use in their life one day. Giving them the choice of which workshop they wanted and to attend each day gave them the freedom to enjoy each workshop to the maximum. When you are enjoying what you are doing, you tend to learn more easily and when you learn more easily you end up becoming a sharper, more well-rounded intelligent individual. It was so inspiring seeing the badanees transform and learn something new each day.
Another thing we did, and this should be a no-brainer for most camps, is daily afternoon games. These are usually some of the biggest and most elaborate events of the week, and are usually the ones the kids end up enjoying the most.
This year was no different. I was extremely impressed with the creativity and uniqueness of Kchag's games this year. I've attended camps since I was young, and from my (limited) experience, the camps tend to fall into a routine of reusing the same "fan-favorite" games each year.
Not so with Kchag. We were blessed with two awesome leaders orchestrating and directing the two big afternoon games this year.
The first leader is Daniel Baghdadian. Towering at over 6'7" (do the conversion for meters), with a neatly shaved mohawk and thick beard, Daniel LOOKS physically imposing, like a giant ready to crush you under his foot, but in reality he is a loveable teddy bear deep down. With the tragedies that have befallen him thus far, I can only wish my faith and trust in Christ to be as strong as Daniel's. He is a perfect example of someone who has weathered numerous trials and temptations and yet emerged a stronger believer in Christ Jesus. With every push-up he reminded the badanees to be disciplined in all aspects of their life, and with every word of his story, he reminded us all that God equipped us with a firm faith to conquer every hardship in our lives.
Daniel, aside from being a strong believer in Christ, also happens to have been a soldier in the Lebanese Army until quite recently. There was no better person then, to be the leader for Monday's Army 101 games. The badanees jumped, ducked, crawled, hopped, and slid across a giant obstacle course that contained a tire run, stepping stones, a balancing bridge, and maze to crawl under.
Everyone finished the obstacle course and challenges feeling worn out and carrying fresh new cuts and bruises, but not a single person left the course with a frown. By the end, every single person was smiling and laughing and cheering, and it was so encouraging to see the badanees learn a few life lessons all while fighting and persevering through the pain they encountered in the challenge.
The second leader behind our brilliant afternoon games is Aren Deyirmenjian. Aren is normally the quiet one. He lets his actions speak louder than his words. He may not talk much, but he truly expresses himself beautifully through his talent on the piano. I never saw him asked to play a melody he didn't know. We sang countles songs over the week, and Aren was prepared for each and every one of them. His talent stretches far beyond pre-practiced songs though; I heard Aren playing beautiful impromptu melodies with a bunch of the badanees multiple times throughout the week.
From organizing the Yuck games to wearing a purple wolf mask, he was ready to do anything to cheer up the badanees and put smiles on their faces. Aren always has a mischevious sparkle in his eyes, a slight hint of a smile on his face, always ready to joke around and have fun when the time calls for it.
So then who better to lead this year's Yuck Games than Aren?
The whole concept of this game is to sit back and watch the badanees do crazy things like drag themselves through a mud pit, bury their heads in flour looking for hidden eggs, throw eggs at one another and have buckets of mud thrown on them. Basically, all-out craziness. Aren was the perfect man for the job. By the end, not a single badanee who played had a single clean spot on them, and not a single one of them cared. Everyone loved the freedom of just going crazy and getting dirty and getting their friends dirty, all while Aren was "egging" them on. Ahhh, see what I did there? ;) It's safe to say that getting gross and dirty had never been more fun than on that day.
In the third and final part of my Kchag recap, I'll talk a little more about some of the celebrations we had over the week and why Friday night was the perfect way to end a perfect week.
If you have no clue what I'm talking about, that's okay. I'll explain in detail in Part 3.
Until then.....read on, my friends.
P.S.- I'm a very visual person, and this post was all about visuals. I want you guys to have a good idea in your minds of what we did, when we did it, and who participated. With that being said, here are a ton of pictures of the events at Kchag.
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