Mount Peniel Campsite, Capas, Tarlac

Today, I woke up at 4:48AM and started to prepare for our trip to Mount Peniel Campsite at Capas, Tarlac. This trip was a business trip. Our objective was to negotiate and settle final arrangements for our upcoming summer youth camp this third and fourth week of April. This was not our first time at this camp site. We held our youth camp last year at this same site. At 6:15AM my pastor friend and I were on our way to Quezon City to pick up our other companions. By 9AM we were already at Mount Peniel.

This camp site houses 600 heads in its rooms and dormitories comfortably. But at last year's camp we were able to fit in about 1,100 participants by maximizing every room and using their five other session halls excluding the covered basketball court which we used as our venue for our general assemblies. The rooms, dormitories and session halls in this camp site are all named after Bible characters, that is because the owners are Christians. They also have prayer cells within their camp site, so they're not only a camp site but a prayer venue as well. Before we conducted our meeting, the owners showed us a small scale model of their planned expansion - a new building which will add additional dorms, rooms and prayer cells to their existing facilities. They plan to finish this project next year.

The name of their camp site was taken from Genesis 32:30, "So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, 'It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.'" This is because the owner of Mount Peniel encountered God personally and she began a personal relationship with God that turned her life around and changed her for the better. She and her husband built and currently manage the campsite as a ministry to churches and Christian organizations by providing for them an affordable prayer venue and a camp site.

Our meeting with the owners were really swift and they were really easy to deal with - I believe it is because we share the same life objectives even in our different endeavors and that is to share to people how they can have a life changing personal relationship with God. We hope to settle our deal and make necessary reservation arrangements in the next two to three weeks.

Posted below are pictures of the campsite from our youth summer camp last year:

(Clockwise from upper left: Campers playing in Mount Peniel's playing field; Campers from our church (SBC Makati) hanging out just outside the mess hall; Our camp theme last year; Mount Peniel's covered court which we used for our general assemblies.)