Special Agents on Westray    

Fiona Cowan sends the following report about some of the recent activities in the Orkneys.


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Orkney’s Christian Endeavour Camp returned to Westray again this summer and, seeing it was 2007, they took the theme of ‘007 God’s Special Agents. Actually they travelled out to Westray on 07/07/07 so it really was the perfect day! This year the majority of campers (38) were from non-Christian homes with several saying they had never been to church or Sunday school before camp. Their main reason for coming was having heard about it from schoolmates who got saved at last year’s camp.

There were 52 children in the party but the Team of leaders were well able to cope with the high spirits as 19 leaders and two cooks had all volunteered for duty. The special agent James Bond theme was reinforced on the first day of camp when Cameron Stout the speaker for the week was flown in by plane, fresh from the recording studio in Aberdeen. All of the talks centred on what it means to live as special agents for God and used Bible Stories as examples with a fair amount of quizzes, challenges and other high jinks to explore the stories in a fun way

Camp Olympics enjoyed the glories of a Westray sunny day and sun cream was heartily slapped on the campers so that only the adults were red the next day. The usual team events were interspersed with environmental challenges like who could collect the most dandelion heads, which should help the greenkeeper’s weed control next season, and the annual wellie throw which was won by a girl for the first time.





Noltland Castle was again bedecked in sweeties, the shops were raided for tattie guns and the swimming pool was filled with campers fresh from their water fight – a great way to warm up after being well and truly sloshed. There was 135 local folk out to the Camp concert on the last night and the support from all the Westray folk was amazing with gifts of baking, and money as well as helpfulness from everybody.

“Make and keep friends” was the agent’ challenge for day two and as well as meeting new camp friends, at least 10 of the campers made a new friend in Jesus, and that is what keeps the Orkney CE camps going. It is also what stokes the fires of prayer during that week each year.