YowCH & Grace

160612 to 17 Church Camp 2016, Bintan

This year’s church camp is of a different schedule, starting from Sunday and ending on Wednesday (usually Monday to Friday). This format allows those with difficulties getting leave to take only 3 days of leave from work, yet allows all the Saturday and Sunday church services as usual.

We had the camp in Bintan Lagoon Resort, about 1.5 hour ferry ride from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and directly into the resort immigration office. Grace’s dad sent us to the ferry terminal at about 12:30pm

Here’s a satellite view of the resort (hotel) area. The rest is mostly golf course.

We packed to avoid check-in luggage and easy of carrying, hence all using back-packs. The ferry was full, mostly with our church-friends.

Upon arrival we helped some friends with prams and luggage, then carried our stuff for about 10 minutes to the Great Hall for the first gathering.

Thankfully, our rooms were ready and we offloaded our stuff prior to dinner. Esther went to stay with her friend, while the boys shared one room.

Dinner was supposed to under the stars, but it was raining, so the hotel crew very quickly shifted into a crowded basement area for our dinner.

Esther played guitar for the worship service of the first night.

Our room became very popular with the youths as we had a large supply of instant noodles, cooked with hot water in mess-tins.

We also bought a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Honey Whiskey and shared with adults.

Monday, we had breakfast at the Fiesta, then Grace taught the pre-school class.

Our camp speaker is Rev. Dr. Tan Soo Inn.

Lunch at the Fiesta again. The design is a glass box, very hot.

We had camp games in the afternoon, very fun.

But it was rather too tiring for Samuel.

After the games, we played in the pool. The slide was really fun. With the $6 volleyball, we played ‘water-polo’ in the pool with the youths and adults.

Then it was dinner at the Fiesta again.

That’s Samuel with his best friend, Petra, and their balloons.

Tuesday’s breakfast was also at the Fiesta.

YowCH organized and took the camp photo before lunch, again at the Fiesta.

In the afternoon, while the older children were playing in the pool, Joseph and Samuel had fun in the Jungle Gym play area.

Dinner was held in the Great hall, with a blue-and-white theme. There were performances by youths, Chinese Ministry, Council and children.

The camp committee, with photographers Steven Tan and YowCH.

A shot of the moon, while we walked to the in-house Karaoke to join some Chinese Ministry folks in singing.

Wednesday, last day of camp.

We had communion in the morning session.

The last lunch together as campers, then the closing testimonials session, and most of the campers then left. We extended 2 days of our stay, and had some fun time in the Recreation Centre with the Ngs.

At about 5pm, the Ngs, Eugene (last man of the main group, stays one more night for left behind items) and the Yows walked to the beach for fun.

We had a nice (expensive) dinner at Nelayan.

Then we went to the Karaoke from 9:30pm until 11:30pm. Nate and David had some fun at the pool table until it closed at 10:00pm, before joining the karaoke.

Our workstation in the room.

Thursday morning, a very empty Fiesta for breakfast.

While Grace and Alison went for massage at Kedaton, we had fun in the pool. Samuel started swinging his arms to ‘swim’.

Nate and David at pool again.

Eugene left the resort just prior to lunch. For lunch, we pre-booked a boat-ride and seafood at a kelong. A short 20 mins car ride, followed by 10 minutes of boat ride to reach the Kampoeng Kelong Seafood Restaurant.

After lunch, we returned to the resort, and we had fun in the Recreation Centre, including Jungle Gym, batik painting, archery, pool table, Scrabble, coffee and ice-cream, and in-room massage for YowCH (much cheaper than at Kedaton).

A two-family photo.

Then we chartered a bus from the resort to go to Lagoi Plaza for shopping and dinner. We bought some snacks like emping berinjau.

Dinner was at Flyboyz, and the children watched Sweeney Todd over dinner.

After dinner, and large quantities of alcohol, we returned to the resort to pack for departure.

Friday, the last day, we woke early to complete all the packing. Then we had breakfast at the Fiesta, with a new church group crowd.

After lunch, we played a bit of pool while we waited to collect the batik painted by Esther, Joseph and Hannah the day before.

The usual family photo at the end of church camp.

The ferry was practically empty, with only the Ngs, the Yows and about another 10 other passengers; the resort had been fully booked by the mega-church campers.

Grace’s dad then picked us up from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal at about 2:30pm.