Jul 11, 2015

Can't we just stay forever?

Well, camp is over. The only way to dry our tears was to head back to our favorite city in the world, Rīga!




I love Rīga. If you ever have a chance to visit the Baltics and you don't stop by in this gorgeous city, you're wrong. A Camp Hope tradition is to go to the lock bridge in one of the parks next to Old Town and put a Camp Hope lock on it. I think this is the 5th year that they've put a lock on the bridge, it's just a fun thing to find and remember all the years. It's also a good conversation starter because people love to ask about the locks and their stories. Rīga was filled with Latvian kids from all over the country for the Youth Song Festival, an event they do every four years. Google it,YouTube it, it's seriously insane. This year brought 35 thousand people to Rīga, and we got to see a little bit of what goes on during it! Plus we got to wear a flower crown. 




On our days off, we got to spend some time in "our spot" with our friends, a beer garden in Old Town with live music, comfy chairs, blankets, and Latvian ciders. 


Ben = max comfy



We want to give a huge shoutout to these two Camp Hope veterans Hannah and Megan. We are clearly obsessed with yall and this picture is both of our backgrounds and is that weird? NO! You two both brought so much to us during and after camp.

Some back story on our relationship with the Virginia team; so here are these two teams from the states that work with/love the same Latvians. Obviously Texas vs. Virginia began and thrived for years. We were so sure that we were a million times cooler than the Virginians and that when our (our) Latvians were with them, they were only wishing they were with us. All of this was in good fun though..obviously. No lie, when we were planning to go to Latvia with THEM we were like "will we get along?" "What if they're terrible?" "What if they're better than us?" It was a stressful time. But never fear the fight is over. The Virginian team welcomed two insane, loud, Latvia-obsessed Texas girls with open arms. 

On a real note, we were really worried about not fitting in with the group or being outsiders and we were worried that if that happened it might effect our effectiveness as group leaders during Camp Hope. But God answers prayers in a huge way and now we laugh in the face of being uncomfortable around these amazing people. Shout-out to my Virginians: you guys are our family now. A.K.A. stuck with us FOR LIFE! Love y'all insane amounts. Seriously can not thank you enough. 

Our Rīga days consisted of an American team dinner the night we got back, a reflection/worship/eat and mingle night for the whole Camp Hope team, and tons and tons of FUN! Honestly the only negative part about joining the Virginia team is that now there are 32 more people we might not see again until next year. 

The reflection night was a really great experience. We had dinner and worshiped and then we had a mic open to anyone who wanted to share a story or personal thought about camp. It was incredible to hear about the experience of our fellow leaders, both similar and completely different. 


On Saturday, we were invited to go to the Asnevics' beach house in Pavilostas, a small beach town a few hours from Rīga. Holy Pinterest this house was perfect. All the furniture was handpainted, the ceiling lights were teapots, the neutral tone was way relaxing, and the garden was full of strawberries and cherries. In Pavilosa they were having a big fisherman celebration, so we got to walk around town and eat good food, hear some music, and we got to walk along the beach of the Baltic Sea. It was such a relaxing day, so we thank this awesome family for such hospitality, we love yall!!





We spent our last day like any other tourist would, eating lunch at Lido and walking around Old Town. We rule that city. This city is my favorite place in the world and these people make me happier than anyone else. Old Town is so beautiful and just more like a fairy tale than anything else. Just simply being in Latvia is one of the best feelings.



Highlight of our day - we got to walk around Maskačka where we've done Cerību Iela (Street Of Hope) camp for the past 3 years. It was kind of a shot in the dark whether or not we would find any of our kids but God was looking out for us. Two of our past campers, Anya and Alex ran up to us taking us completely by surprise. There were definitely some tears involved. The craziest thing was seeing how much bigger they've gotten! It's amazing how settling it is on our hearts to see them happy and healthy and excited to see us. We walked away with gifted bracelets on our wrists and happy hearts. 



We are so thankful for everybody here that has taken care of us, fed us, provided a place for us to stay, walked around with us, acted like you aren't annoyed of us, did everything in your power to make us happy even though it's impossible for us to be unhappy in Latvia. Amy and Bob and the rest of the Virginia team, Karlis, Toms, Valters, Arvis and Nauris, and the rest of the amazing Latvian family we have made over the past few years. You guys are seriously family to us, and we love you more than pelmini.

Tabita, we told you last night that everytime we see you doing something, we say "wow Tabita is the best person in the world." We mean it. You have such a big heart for the kids we work with, and you have such a big heart for your friends and family. You are always welcoming us with open arms, making us as comfortable as possible, translating like a boss, doing all the dirty work, keeping all the trouble makers in line, yet you always have a smile on your face. You really are something special and we love you!




Well, that's all she wrote. In all honestly we will probably reread all these posts and look at all the pictures everyday for the next year, so if anything these posts were for us. Shoutout to God for blessing us with the amazing opportunity to serve here again and again. Shoutout to our families for letting us fall in love with Latvia and for letting us keep coming back, because honestly I don't know if we can ever stop. We love it here.

Xoxo čau, G & O



Camp Hope 2015. Done.

It's unreal that camp is over. It feels like yesterday we were hugging our family goodbye and hopping on the plane over here. We had 2 straight weeks of fun-filled summer camp, and even though it kicked our butts and made us rethink our sanity, I would go back to day 1 in a heartbeat. 



Kids camp was insane. Days were filled with chasing kids around campus, cleaning up spills and messes, dragging boys out of girls cabins, pounds and pounds of candy providing endless sugar rushes, and hard crashes (hopefully) at the end of every day. 








A lot about kid's week is structurally the same as teen week. We still have rotations between crafts, swimming, and music/dance. We still have s'mores night and water day but everything that you thought you had down after teen's week becomes an entirely different ball game during kid's week. In a lot of ways it's a completely different experience. The kids are, obviously much more dependent on you than teens. This coupled with the fact that very few of our kids spoke enough English to communicate, means that everything is more hands-on. Leaders were rushing around to get all the kids blankets finished during craft, swimming is no longer a casual thing and requires you to be ready when a camper freaks out about the seaweed around her legs and jumps on you, and big meetings include a lot of time spent calming your kids down. It's a different ball game, definitely more tiring, but when you finish a child's blanket and they grip your neck with their small arms you find that you would tie 400 blankets. 










Putting these little ones on a bus home was like saying goodbye to a member of your family even though you only met them 5 days ago. Or cutting off your arm. Both hurt. The attachment to the girls in our groups is so real it's unreal. We don't know all of the stories behind our kids leaving camp, and we don't know everything about their home lives. All we can do is pray that they leave with more smiles than tears and keep the reminder that we love them like God loves them. I love that we give them all a little gift bag on the last day full of Camp Hope goodies and 2 printed pictures of our group and of the entire camp staff and campers. We've all got a Camp Hope bracelet on our wrists to either remind us to pray for the kids and for Camp Hope, but even more to remind the kids everytime they look at it that they are loved by God and by us. 

A story that Hannah, one of our new Viriginan friends, told really struck our hearts. The last night of kids camp we showed the Jesus movie that tells the story of Jesus, miracles, his death, and his resurrection. All week we had been telling and acting out these stories and this movie was to tie it all together for the kids. The movie began talking about Jesus' deciples, and how deciples were to travel and spread the word of Jesus, and one of Hannah's girls was sitting in her lap of course, looks at her, and with the little English she knows, she said "that's you!" That is us, it's what God has called us to do, and it's a really cool thing to see the work we do and love we give matter.


One of the really cool things that Camp Hope does and the Viriginan team/church does is the Adopt A Camper program. Families in Virgina have been "adopting" and sponsoring these kids to be able to go to camp for years. Without these families, the kids would not be able to come to camp for a week and learn about the Lord and have fun with crazy American people. When the kids find out that they were specifically chosen to be sponsored by an American family, they always have a look on their face like "why me?" They feel special, because they are special. These American families pray for their kid everyday, they have their photos on their kitchen fridge, and the coolest thing is they send over letters for their Latvian camper and the kids send one back. Without these sponsoring families, Camp Hope wouldn't be possible for our campers. So big shoutout to all of you, Camp Hope 2015 wouldn't have been what it is without you.

Jul 6, 2015

The kids are taking over the world.

The teens left Friday morning and as always, it's so hard saying bye to the kids that we all made such special relationships with. Yeah we might have been together for just a little under a week, but there really is something special in a connection that comes from showing somebody who has never seen God's love before that you love them. There were lots of tears, but we sent the kids off with hugs and smiles, and lots of new friends on Facebook!




We got the rest of Friday to spend time at the campsite with the rest of the leaders and "rest up" aka go swimming in the lake and go on banana boat rides. Us two poor souls got stuck on the banana boat with Valters, Karlis, and Arvis... meaning we spent most of the time in the water after being flipped off the banana boat constantly. We woke up July 4th morning to the best thing you could ever wake up to... a red white and blue breakfast party consisting of pankukas... CREPES! I love our Latvian friends so much, only they would do something to make our American Independence Day special here. In Latvia it's a very popular thing to sauna, so we all joined the Latvians and sat in the 220 degree room of death. It hurt so good. The best part of sauna at camp was that it's right on the lake with a huge dock that we run off of and jump into the cold water. That night we got a good nights rest knowing we had 98 kids showing up the next morning. 98. Wish us luck.







Discussion time is told as an interactive story by Raimonds and his friend Chair (a chair he carries on his back). The kids absolutely love it, sitting on the floor around him listening and laughing at his ridiculousness. He tells the stories of the bible in a way that gets these kids interested and keeps them engaged in interaction, it's priceless. At discussion the second night in Gable's group, we asked the girls what they know about Jesus, and we had 3 girls say they didn't know who Jesus was. Wow. My mind was blown. These little 7 year old precious baby Angels have never heard of Jesus, so my goal this week is to get them wanting to know more and wanting to "be friends with Jesus" by the time they leave in a couple days. 















Logically I think we all knew that kids camp would be much more challenging but there's a difference between knowing and living. Today we have lived it. Kid's week is exhausting. And they are the most adorable humans alive. I can already see that God is going to give us all an even more personal meaning to the phrase "break my heart for what breaks Yours". Without even knowing the story behind these kids, you can see that they're lives are a burden. The first night during discussion we asked our girls what they're dreams were. A sweet girl who hadn't talked much at all day said that her dream was that Camp Hope would last forever and that she would see God this week. It's difficult to imagine that an eight year old could put these words together that would break my heart so much. My number one prayer this week is that we could make a lasting impact despite the language barrier; that hugs, smiles, and endless piggy back rides would be enough.




We are serious when we say endless piggyback rides. These kids looooooove being held anyway they can - back, shoulder, side, upside down - any new way they can find, they'll find it. But giving these kids all the attention in the world is one of the best things we can do for them. Since we don't speak Latvian (one day we will, you just wait) we are forced to just smile and hug and play with the kids for hours. We do have translator in each group, but actions speak louder than words.



We've got 2 more days with these kids, and we want to see God moving in Big ways in their lives no matter how small they are. All they really need is a little bit of love.