The International Youth Fellowship World Camps

Welcome to my discussion on the International Youth Fellowship world camps. Here, you’ll find some non-formal info about the International Youth Fellowship (IYF) world camp. What you’ll find here can help you decide whether you want to be part of the world camp or not. I am saying this because some people joined the program only to find out that they did not really want it. I am one such person. Some friends I met at the world camp (they were from Nigeria) were ready to go back to their country just a few days after the start of the World Camp Ghana 2008. The only thing that hindered them was the fact that they came as a group and they had to leave as such. I endured until a day before the closing ceremony. Nothing could dissuade me from leaving. I guess it was harder because conditions were not nearly as good as they would have been in the developed world.
Now I am not against the IYF world camp. My aim is that people will make informed decisions about whether or not they should join.
Before that here is a brief overview of the International Youth Fellowship as I learned it.
It was founded in 1995 by Ock Soo Park of the Good News Mission. Its headquarters is in Seoul, South Korea. The main aim of the IYF is to train the youth to become good leaders. It is to teach them to be selfless. Each year, they have their world camp, a gathering of youths from all over the world for fellowship and study of the Bible. The world camp is held in different countries of the world each year.

ORGANISATION OF THE WORLD CAMP

The World Camp Ghana 2008 was held at the Good News Mission in Tema, Ghana. It lasted from the 6th to the 16th of August. Here is a description of how it was organized (I think past world camps were organised and future ones will be organised in a similar way):
Groups
Participants of the world camp were distributed into three main groups, Truth, Grace and Faith. Each major group was also made up of smaller groups of about ten people each. Names were given to each group, for example, Andrew 3, Peter 1, Titus 4, etc. Each group was assigned a leader (or ‘pastor’). This pastor led them in their group discussions. Each participant was given a T shirt and a name tag. These were supposed to be worn during the day. Pastors generally wore blue T-shirts and member wore blue.
Police
There were also ‘police’ who made sure that participants didn’t idle about, that they took part in the activities. They did this gently but firmly. The police also gave points to groups which conducted themselves well, took part in activities, were on time etc. They also deducted marks from groups whenever they found a member doing something other than what was supposed to be done at that particular time. The points were added up and then rewards were given to the member of the groups which had the highest number of points each day. The police wore bands on their arms to identify them.
Meals
Meals were eaten at about 8.00am 12.30pm and about 5pm. Breakfast consisted of tea with bread and either sausages or eggs. For lunch, any of these dishes was served: rice, yam, ‘kenkey’ (a Ghanaian dish made with corn dough) and some others I’ve forgotten. These were served with stew prepared with Ghanaian or Korean recipes. The food was good enough, though not the kind you would look forward to.
The meals were served in a very efficient way. I admired it. It was like an assembly line in a factory. Each component of the meal was served by a different person. This enabled the meals to be served very fast so that the long queue didn’t frighten us.
Apart from meals served, participants could also buy snacks, yogurts, drinks, etc that were available.

Routine
A typical day started at about 5.30 am when participants were roused from their sleep. We then went outside the compound to do some physical exercises. Some of us then took a bath(due to the overcrowding and the relative shortage of water we could not all bath before the next activity on schedule). We then gathered in different halls for a sermon(which was always in the Korean language and translated into French and English. And they were long and boring! A typical sermon was an hour and twenty minutes long. A good number of participants, especially the Koreans could be seen dozing off). Group discussions of the Bible, and some other activities followed until about 12:30 when we took lunch.
Similar activities took place until and after about 5:30pm when we took supper. We went to sleep at about 11:00pm. There was virtually no time for rest throughout the day and until 11:00pm(There were one or two ten minute breaks).

Trips
Some of the most exciting activities in the World Camp are the various trips that are made. How participants enjoy themselves depends on the country that hosts the conference. The World Camp presents an opportunity to visit places you may not go by yourself. In the case of the 2008 World Camp, we took buses to Ada and the Action Faith Church(where the conference was officially launched) near Accra.

Gracias Choir
We were treated to several performances by the Gracias Choir from Korea. Say, it was great.