Please find below Ernie Bayton’s report on this year’s Youth Camp
We are grateful to the Lord for his goodness and for the many friends and supporters of the Luwero Project who prayed for our 13th annual Youth Camp.The camp, attended by approximately 800 young people, was residential for most with a few daily visitors. Starting on Monday 9th it ended on Friday/Saturday 13th/14th with an all-night prayer meeting. Some delegates at one of the daily plenary sessions are pictured below.
‘O Lord that you would bless me and enlarge my territories’, otherwise known as the ‘Prayer of Jabez’ (V1 Ch 4:10) was the theme for the camp. To develop the theme, a series of 14 talks was delivered from the book of Joshua which lent itself ideally to practical lessons about deepening, developing and extending our Christian commitment and effectiveness. One of the last teaching sessions was given at midnight on Friday night (no-one fell out of a window!).
This year a Kenyan brother, Peter Opolo (left), who met Gabriel 20 years ago when they both studied at Capernwray Bible School, spoke at the camp. Peter works with young people. He complemented the teaching on Joshua by sharing a series from Ephesians. Other local speakers spoke at various sessions during the week. In addition to the plenary teaching sessions, camp activities included workshops (see below), competitions, testimonies, quizzes, games, community work (where a team of 100 young people went out into the community and did practical work such as cutting back bushes, clearing rubbish, tidying up public areas, etc.), door to door visitation in villages sharing the gospel, sports (which included basketball, netball and football competitions), films and talent contests, HIV/Aids testing and blood donor programmes.
Once again, we were able to distribute Bibles either in Luganda or English to those without their own copy. Each day commenced at 4.30 am with ‘Morning Glory’ and closed at 10.00 pm with lights out. Gabriel and Deborah, as hosts for the week, had 27 teams of personnel, each under the leadership of a local pastor responsible for the many activities required to run the camp; such as registration, cooking, translation, dormitory provision, setting up and removing equipment, ushering, etc. During the week, many young people responded to the gospel invitation to accept Jesus as their Saviour. Others rededicated their lives to the Lord and many were strengthened in their faith. We give God all the glory. Thank you again for your prayerful support.
Ernie Bayton