On the last weekend of March, sixty children, with their leaders and cooks from the North Eastern Victoria and Loddon-Mallee Presbyteries, gathered for the 15th annual Camp Out at the Euroa Showground.

The theme for this year’s Kids of the Uniting Church Australia (KUCA) Camp Out was ‘Adventures in Narnia’ based on C S Lewis’s book ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’.

C S Lewis was a passionate Christian who wrote many books on Christian themes, and his Narnia Chronicles are full of Christian ideals. The author uses a fantasy world to explore very real human dilemmas and deals faithfully with the consequences of individual choices. He liked the Christian idea that when we make mistakes, God always forgives us and gives us another chance. During the week end, many Christian themes from the story were explored through hands-on experiences such as music, dance, craft and story-telling activities.

In a second lot of electives, children continued exploring these themes through their chosen activities. Some of these were: helping with the newspaper, percussion, learning songs from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” movie, organising prayers and ribbon twirling. A wonderful new activity this year was the slide show with leader Sarah Dunn - it is very encouraging for the organisers to see former KUCA Camp Out participants like Sarah providing continuity by coming back to take an active role in leadership. Children also dressed up in costumes and were photographed as they acted out the parts of the story. The children in these groups later had the opportunity to contribute to the evening session or church service on the Sunday.

On the Saturday night everyone made themselves comfortable as they watched the Narnia movie. After the warm weather in the afternoon, it was nice to relax, watch this wonderful story unfold and identify many of the themes that had been explored during the day. Central to this story is Aslan the Lion and his self-giving sacrifice; a story that recalls the self-giving of Jesus. Another strong theme in the story is that of Edmund’s betrayal of his brother and sisters, which might be compared with the denial and restoration of Peter in the gospel story.

The next morning children continued on their exploration of Christian themes through the Bible search. This is a fun time where children had to find the “Keeper of the deep Narnia secrets” and when they did, they were given a bible verse that was a clue in the crossword and became a ‘Narnian Hero’. Words that could be used in connection with a ‘Narnian Hero’ were: determination, reliable, pure, strong, wisdom, compassion, patience, faithfulness, true, brave and love. The last verse of the Bible search finished with the challenge “Disciples of Jesus in a different world are like these people, strong and true. They live the way their Lord expects; I’m a disciple, are you one too?”

The Camp Out ended with all groups gathering together for lunch under the beautiful, shady trees. It was wonderful to welcome many people from the district churches who had come down to be a part of the service and shared lunch. It was definitely, another wonderful time of fellowship and learning.