Last weekend, our church was invited to join the Family Camp with the Vietnamese New Life Church in Denver at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. Since we were guests, we didn’t have to do anything much but mainly just tagging along. It was different from our church retreat last year, which we had prepared everything from foods to programs. The camp was only one night stay so it was very short, (not counting the 2.5 hours drive back and forth) and there were lots of activities packed in to a tight schedule. It felt a little bit overwhelming, but still fun nonetheless. On Saturday, we had a picnic at the Lake Marina of Estes and the New Life Church prepared an awesome unch with Korean BBQ, chicken wings, beef… They were excellent! We spent the afternoon playing golf, boat paddling, hiking, volleyball, and then had a worshop session in the afternoon before we headed to the lodges at YMCA, where we spent the night.
 Picnic |
 Hiking |
 |
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The YMCA facility is huge, and they have plenty of lodges. On that weekend, they booked problably 5-6 different groups. Due to the tight program schedule, we didn’t have a chance to take advantage of what YMCA provides such as swimming pool or the gym, therefore we didn’t run into other groups either. The only problem arised was at the cafeteria. Since the YMCA has very specific time slots (and very short) for serving meals in the cafeteria, you can imagine the long line outside, and jampacked of people inside. They were running out of foods at some point, too. The foods were buffet style, so there’s is nothing special to write home about.
 Mountain view |
 Buffet foods |
We had a service after dinner. Our youth sang the song “You Never Let Go” after the sermon. We also prepared a skit which we had practiced the last 2 Saturdays. It was supposed to be funny yet meaningful short skit with a Christian message, though I couldn’t tell from the reaction of the the audience how they received it. There wasn’t much of laughter, nor discussion. Maybe it was late, almost 11pm, and everyone was tired. They had a long day. Someone cooked cháo cá (Vietnamese rice soup with fish) and it was so good. We headed back to our lodge. Too bad the gym was closed for remodeling, otherwise we could have hit some volleyball. The pool was closed at that point. We went back to the room, played some Sequence games before calling it a night.
 Evening service |
 Service |
 Skit |
 Skit |
Bright and shine at 6h30 to get ready for Devotion at 7am. Breakfast at 8am. Room checkout at 9am. Another service at 10am. Not so much as a relaxing morning as you can see. Hahaha. The service concluded around noon. After taking group picture, it was right about lunch time. Instead of eating buffet at the cafeteria, we decided to drive back to Denver and have some Vietnamese foods at the restaurant.
 Group picture |
 Khoa and Grace |
It was tiring, yet fun time time to fellowship together with familiar friends and friends from other church.