Camp Brackenhurst 2006 -The Experience

Camp Bracken Hurst 2006 was a BLAST! First let me give you a little info about the camp! It is about 30 minutes away from the town out into the middle of the woods. It is a camp in the middle of trees and really in the middle of no where! The ages are from 5-18 so there are more little kids there than anything. The younger kids really made it super fun! This camp was technically started by chik-fil-a, unfortunately no free food was involved and they don’t even have one here but it was started by the restaurant. All the counselors are brought in from the States so all of mine were from Texas!

Now down to the fun stuff! The first three days I set out on a three day tour to many different parts of Kenya! On Monday we were supposed to leave at 2:00 to go to Hell’s Gate. Unfortunately the bus broke down before we even moved an inch and we ended up waiting for two hours for our back-up bus which eventually came! Road trip number one took us to a place by Lake Naivasha called “The Birches.” It is a small campsite really more like an open grassy place with like 10 thorn trees…quite small surrounded by a electric fence. This is where I learned how to build my first fire and put up a tent! Fun, but not the highlight of the trip.

After the Birches we were off to Hell’s Gate for some gorgeous sights and awesome rock climbing. It was an hour drive from birches and well worth it! I am not much for rock climbing on fake walls (like at Dick’s) but when we started going up those real rocks that was so cool! The three arrows in the picture of the mountain show the three that I climbed! They were very difficult and definitely built my muscles up a bit but I can’t even describe how fun it was! I have many bruises, cuts and scrapes but everything was well worth it! There wasn’t a climb I began and didn’t finish! I think I may see where I can go in Springs so if anyone wants to go rock climbing with me up some REAL rocks let me know so I can tell you what I find out!

One of the coolest things about Hell’s Gate was it is the same place that they modeled the some scenes in Lion King after! So there are some same monuments in the movie! On the hike we went we went on we saw scar’s cave and where Mufasa died and even where the wilder beasts ran in to kill Mufasa! That was amazing and it was SO gorgeous!

After Hell’s Gate we drove almost 41/2 hours to White Water Rafting. I do not like white water rafting! The thought of being cold and wet is really not for me! But if I ever have to go white water rafting this would be the place I would want to go! In the white water rafting category it was a blast! There was many “mini” waterfalls we went down. (they said mini but in my vocabulary they would be called waterfalls of death!) The waterfalls were about the size of a normal bed room, and gushing! One specific one we all loaded into the rafts to go and try to flip our raft! They would put it under the gushing water trying to fill it up completely or until everyone fell out! It was really fun and breath taking! I went three times and jumped out two of the times! A waterfall after that we had to swim down…and it was big! And then there was a Pocahontas waterfall that you could jump off…this one was about 70 feet they said…quite high! I wasn’t feeling well when we got there just being all cold and wet so I wasn’t able to jump off but it really looked fun!

After White water rafting we headed back to the camp for two more days. A lot of games like capture the flag were in the schedule. One was called sock war where you literally are hitting little kids with sock and trying to get their Frisbee on the other side! That game was a super fun!

The last and final activity of the week was something called Lions Pride! This is a must to be explained! It is a challenge that is done for everyone ages 14-18 who chooses to do it on Friday night from 10:00 pm to about a couple hours after sun up on Saturday. You are taken to the middle of the woods with everyone else in your group and placed in a line. This is how it goes: There are four parts to this challenge. Before you hear these just know that through out the entire thing you are not allowed to talk or your journey ends as soon as you do! Now the first part of the challenge is the fire! You have an hour to get fire wood then you must build your fire. After an hour you get one match to try and light your fire. If you do not light it with the first match you get another in 20 minutes. This gives you time to rebuild your fire or adjust it in anyway. The process happens with three matches. After the third match if your fire doesn’t light your quest for lions pride is over. (This is where I went back to camp…it was raining hard!) If you do get your fire started then you must keep in going all night, or your quest ends. If you keep it going then at sun up you go on a 2 kilometer run up and down big hills. It is about one mile but the hills are really steep. The run is at a consistent pace that is really fast (this is where most fail.) After you do the run then you must recite eight verses you were given to memorize throughout the week…verbatim! Then you have to right a 500 word essay on why you chose to do Lion’s Pride. If you do all of this then you pass. Only three people in 6 years have finished. All boys and all Kenyan! I tried but the rain was not in my favor! It was a really good challenge though.

That was pretty much the end of camp! It was really fun! I got to talk to some people about the Holy Spirit which was challenging but really fun! I had a lot of fun! I hear that Stand, SI Youth Camp 2006 was awesome! I am glad all of our youth have decided to stand and made a life changing experience! That is so exciting to me! God bless all of you! I will see you in about a month and half! Buh-Bye!