Question: What do luminous face paint, the Great British Bake Off, Prayer and pottery all have to do with each other?
Answer: Girl’s Adventure Camp Reunion, of course!
Friday 29th January, 2017: my friends and I were being driven down to Dervock Reformed Presbyterian Church for GAC Reunion. We all rolled out of the tiny red car, gasping for air and overjoyed at finally being able to move our limbs again. After digging out one of our friends who had been buried under our tonnes of luggage for the weekend, we checked in with one of the officers and then gathered in an excited huddle around the radiators, catching up with old friends. Half an hour later we gathered in the hall for our first talk on prayer, given by some of our officers. Personally I have always found praying to God really challenging, so I found the three talks over the course of the weekend both helpful and encouraging.
The ‘Great GAC Bake Off’ took place after the talk, which included pastry, pies, puddings, and obviously the great Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry (aka two of our officers wearing scary looking masks). It was all a lot of fun……until we were told that whatever we made would be our supper! We redoubled our efforts, and the final result was surprisingly tasty, despite being made with pungent coconut based cheese! Saturday was quite a relaxed day – the morning consisting of making teepees out of sticks, cardboard and wool, our second talk on prayer, and some free time. After a quick lunch, we headed down to Coleraine for the afternoon. Following the traditional hour of retail therapy, we sped to an arts and craft centre for our main afternoon activity. We learnt some new techniques for painting pottery, and then got to put some of those into practice by painting our own piece. Let’s just say that some of us need a little more practice before going into business!
You’re probably wondering where the luminous face paint comes into this all. Well, being the creative people that they are, the officers decided to combine a “luminous party” with Zumba, and so dressed in white, splattered in glow-in-the-dark face paint and sporting some light-up hair clips, we attempted to copy the dance moves of a woman with an unlimited supply of energy with much difficulty and great hilarity!
Sabbath saw us hurriedly returning the church buildings to their normal state (including a quick clean-up of some final traces of face paint….) and joining with the Dervock congregation for their worship service, followed by a fantastic meal from the ladies. We finished the weekend off with a walk in the countryside and psalm singing, not to mention many sad goodbyes.
A big thank you to Rachel – our leader, the officers and cooks for the huge amount of work they did for us over the course of the weekend and undoubtedly beforehand as well. If you have never been to one of our camps or reunions before then it’s not too late to start! I can’t wait to meet you in the Summer!
Erin Peel,
Trinity RPCI, Newtonabbey
