Kadesh Barnea

(kay desh bar nee yuh)

Hebrew,Qades Barnea

First Mention: Genesis 14:7

Meanings: Holiness in the wilderness

On their exodus out of egypt,the hebrews spent most of their forty years in the desert camped at the spring-fed oasis of Kadesh-Barnea,about ninety miles south of Jerusalem.It was just south Canaan's border.Today the site,Ein el-Qudeirat,lies about fice miles inside Egypt's territory in the Sinai.

From there,at the largest oasis in the northern Sinai-with a spring producing a quarter of a million gallons of water a day-Moses sent out scouts to explore canaan.Their report of giants and walled cities so terrified the people that they refused to go farther.God punished them for their lack of faith in him.The only two from that generation of adults who lived to see canaan were Joshua and Caleb,two scouts who insisted that giants and walls were no match for God.

Miriam,sister of Moses,died and was buried at Kadesh,as it was sometimes called.This was also where Moses and Aaron offended God when they struck a rock to provide water for the grumbling Hebrews.For this,God said they would never set foot in the promised land.


Our Background

Hi there

Conrad here, I thought it would be nice to share my background on camping how I feel about it and why I feel it’s important right now.

 

I grew up camping once or twice per month with my family in a caravan and/or tents. We had lots of fun, met lots of people and some of my fondest memories are of a fishing late at night with my dad, taking walks with the family, having epic battles in the dunes of the eastern cape and even getting up to some mischief.

 

I later went on a few seven day military style survival courses and discovered things about myself I never imagined. You see I grew up overweight and unfit and when I started the first survival course I would run at the back of the pack. Not by choice but because I couldn’t catch up. Inevitably the group would have to do push ups because of me dragging along at the back and not getting to the instructor on time but within those seven days I was able to run in front with the others. Given, back then I was motivated by fear of the instructors, but I discovered that if I really wanted something I could achieve it. I discovered that I could hike fifteen or more kilos in a day, do night hikes, make friends, build a shelter out of my surroundings, cook food, go without food and all kinds of fun things like that.

 

It was in these times that I started discovering that peoples lives change on camp.

Even something as simple as an obstacle course can teach us how we can achieve more than we thought or that we can relate to people we didn’t think we could. We can work together with other people, sexes, races and cultures. Camps get us away from our comfort zones so we can grow and change and become more than we thought we could.

 

A good friend of mine Ashley Potts once told me something I will never forget, He said “I can achieve more with a gangster in three days on a camp than I can in three months in school”, and I can totally understand where he is coming from.

 

I kind off got together with my lovely wife on a camp and after we were married I got to know her even more while camping in places like Jeffrey’s bay, the Addo elephant national park and Slagboom in the Zuurberg mountains.

 

We were later offered a position managing Kadesh Barnea Camping Centre just outside Gauteng for Scripture Union and it was through them that we became involved with the CCSA (Christian Camping South Africa).We have since seen several other campsites  and been on a number of  camps during which my/our  lives change every time.

 

The thing about camping is that when you get to the point in your life where you kind of feel lost and you’re not sure if you’re headed in the right direction and what your priorities really are, a campsite is the place where you will find the answers to all of these questions. In the quiet, out of your comfort zone, with the lord and nature. Whether it be on a hike in the mountains, in a tent on the beach or on a campsite, this is where you will find yourself, God, your direction, your abilities and maybe even some of your limitations.

 

In a day and age when youngsters are running around with cell phones , ipods, mxit, computers and where its often too dangerous to play outside for whatever reason. They are losing the ability to communicate properly, work within a team, losing the ability to lead, losing knowledge of the outdoors, getting caught up in the rat race by the age of five or six and being bombarded with all kinds of images they really shouldn’t be seeing. It’s in this day and age that we need more camping of all kinds to teach these skills to the next generation, help them work together and bring out the best in them.

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