Hừng Đông XXIX - Thank You To Huynh Truong and Tro Ta
John Dang
Greetings Huynh Truong and Tro Ta. I hope everyone had a good rest after camp this past weekend. First off, on behalf of Ban Điều Hành of Sa Mạc Hừng Đông XXIX (JD, Jolynna, LJ), I’d like to thank everyone for your hard work, dedication, and time that you’ve put towards this camp. I am truly grateful and honored to have such a wonderful support system that was able to help manifest our ideas. Without the following teams and its members, the successes that we’ve witnessed this past weekend would not have been possible. Thus, I’d like to respectfully mention the following Bans for their effort and achievements:
Ban Tổ Chức (BJ, Tin, Jessica, Jolynna) - Thank you for handling the logistics of this camp. From booking buses, to sending out permission slips, to volunteer verifications, and more, thank you for ensuring that we had all the necessities going into this camp.
Ban Ẩm Thực (Anh Loc, Co Phuong, Chu Boony, 2 Bac Hoa) - Thank you for keeping các em well fed and providing assistance to Huynh Truong when needed. Thank you for being the bridge of communication between HT and Phu Huynh to make sure everything we needed for meal times and night market were met.
Ban Trò Chơi Lớn (Joshua, Steven, Brian, Jessica, David, Khoi, Debbie, Jovanni, Khoa) - Although TCL was cut a bit short due to time constraints, I could see that many kids had fun while going through this journey that you mapped out. Thank you for planning all of the activities involved and matching it to the theme of the camp while staying prompt and organized. I want to add that I am truly impressed that you had all of your ideas and activities planned way before the date of camp. This gave a lot of leeway for any adjustments you needed when the camp date near. Overall, it was very well thought out. I will say that I even had 1 em ask me to thank the people who organized TCL. So, this is our thanks to you.
Ban Sinh Hoạt (Jovanni, BJ, Duy Thien, Van, Joshua, Steven) - Games and activities are a huge part of Đoàn camps. And so, I’d like to applaud you for not only planning and executing all of sinh hoạt activities, but also being able to take on an additional sinh hoạt slot that we normally wouldn’t have in prior camps. Thank you for being the ones to put the fun and energy into the kids’ camp experience.
Ban Y Tế (Brian) - Thank you being on standby and quickly responding to any medical needs. Though not often mentioned, this role is a crucial one. So, thank you for being the one to fill this part and patch up any issues.
Ban Phụng Vụ (Linh, Michele, Christy, Vivi, Tin) - Thank you for putting together a beautiful Eucharistic Adoration and Holy Mass. Thanks to you, các em were able to have the spiritual presence of God with them all weekend long. It was also wonderful to let parent volunteers see that spirituality plays such a big part even at Thieu Nhi camps. I’d also like to thank you for setting up the Lều Thánh Thể with stunning decorations, and allowing các em to calm their minds and bodies during all the Giờ Sưởi times.
Ban Đuốc Thiêng (Vivi, Linh, BJ, Tin, Justin, Debbie, Joanne, Joshua, JP) - In all of my time at HDF, I’ve only seen two Đuốc Thiêng. I must say, that this has been the best one I’ve seen that’s been planned and executed. Great job on every aspect of this, from the ritual ceremony, to the HT performance, to the engaging intermissions, and most importantly, the kids’ skits. Thank you for doing research on stories and martyrs and being able to summarize them so that các em could comprehend them and use them in their skits.
Ban Project (Khoi, Milissa, Natalie, Mimi, Duy, Michele, Christy, Debbie, Steven) - Project was full of tasks for this camp. I’d truly like to thank you for being so accommodating and creative. The pavilion decorations definitely did a magnificent job in setting the tone of camp on Friday night. The boats that the kids got to make were fun to watch. This project was well thought out since everybody in the groups had a task to do, which hopefully made them all feel like they contributed to the project in some way. As for cooking competition, thank you for coming up with a delicious menu for the kids to cook. And Thank you for preparing the tables, ingredients, and activities for các em as well as communicating with phu huynh to have them judge the food.
Ban Ghi Danh (Van, Jessica, Eileen, Mimi, David) - Thank you for being so swift, accurate, and flexible in intaking permission slips, creating the groups, printing the name tags, providing the tent assignments, and riding the bus with các em to camp and back. I know check-in and check-out can be tough, so I’d like to thank you all for handling those parts so gracefully as well.
Ban Kỷ Thuật (Justin, John Vu, BJ, Christy, Joshua, Duy Thien, Steven, Linh, Tina, Vivian, Andrey) - Thank you team for being the behind the scenes crew that works nonstop around the clock. From the time even before camp to the clean up part of it, you’ve worked endlessly in making sure other teams had the space and material that they needed to execute their activities. Thank you for everything, including booking the U-Haul, setting up the campsite, relocating and testing the sound systems, placing tarps, creating the beautiful gate banner, and more.
Ban Reflection (Joanne) - One of the things we’ve wanted to really implement in this camp is a time period for các em to rest and regain some energy for night time activities. You did an amazing job easing các em into a brief nap and have helped us prove that this may be a necessary time slot moving forward.
Ban Trưởng Trực (Christy, Duy Thien, Michele, David) - You did an amazing job with staying close to the scheduled time as possible. Thank you for your flexibility and being able to work with the on-going schedule changes that were happening during camp. This worked out because you were great at communicating with everybody and keeping us all in the loop. Not only were you great at time keeping, but you did great keeping the spirit and energy up when there would be any down time. In addition, having song boards during ceremonies was such a good idea. So, thank you for implementing that as well.
Finally, I’d like to give a special shout out to my Sa Mạc Phó (Jolynna) and Tổng Trực (LJ) for filling in all the places that I missed for this camp. I know I could have been more present with the bans in the planning process. So, thank you to Jolynna for attending the ban meetings and helping to steering the camp towards how we envisioned it to be. And thanks to LJ for being so involved with các em during camp and lifting their spirits up. Great job on working with Trưởng Trựcs and making sure they all had the resources they needed to do their best when it came to their time. This camp would not have been what it turned out to be if I did not have both of your full supports.
Camp may not always turn out to be a perfect one. But, as long as we appreciate the good things that happened and learned from the mistakes we encountered, then I believe that the future of HDF Đoàn camps will be very bright. Thank you everybody for allowing me to have this opportunity to be your Sa Mạc Trưởng. Cheers to all!
Sincerely,
John Dang
Sa Mạc Trưởng, Hừng Đông XXIX - Đức Tin Dân Việt