Jul 3, 2015

Our last 2 days of teen week

The past 2 days have been super busy, so sorry for the lack of post. I've got lots of pictures, so if you're too lazy to read, you're welcome. 




Wednesday was eventful. Let me just start out by letting everybody know.... Olivia fell off the swing. This isn't just some small baby swing, this swing has the ability to make a full roundabout circle over the top if you try hard enough. And she tried, and failed. She is alive and well, but does have a few battle scars to prove it. Wednesday was also "wear your clothes inside out day" and there were some pretty creative ideas around campus. One of the boys groups all wore their camp tshirts as shorts all day, it was pretty funny. 







The Big Game was a photo scavenger hunt which was a lot of fun to do! We had a list of 25 different things to take a picture of/video doing. Our girls love it, and said that we had to upload all the pictures to Facebook and be their friends and tag them so they can remember it all. 




So a lot of the kids really look forward to a certain night at camp during the Big Meeting, which they like to refer to as "crying night." This night usually involves a more serious sermon and then an invitation. Karlis spoke a great message and then asked the kids to write how they feel on a piece of paper and put it in a bag for him to read. The kids really enjoyed being able to privately express themselves on a piece of paper where they don't have to worry about getting nervous to speak. Our discussions this night got very personal with our kids, and they asked really tough question and shared really tough stories. Crying night always makes you feel like you want camp to last forever. It's a night when these kids come to know God and feel his love and power, a night where we get to worship for hours, a night where we get to give full attention to the now and now worry about what's going on elsewhere. This night is the special night at camp, and I can speak for both of us and say that nights like these have been what have brought us both closer to God and brought us this passion for what we do here in Latvia.


To end the night, we were invited to a little thing called "tea time," where another group invites whoever they want to tea after discussion time to ask questions. We were invited to go visit a group of 15-16 year old boys cabin, where they asked us things like "why do you come to Latvia," "what are you life goals," and we even were asked "how did we get to know God?" I know you know a 15 year old boy, and I know you know they don't like to express themselves and talk about feelings, but these boys loves hearing our testimony and about our passion for Latvia, they were really zoned in on listening and learning from us, so that was pretty sweet.
Also, I got to hold a hedgehog. They just run around the campground at night. Literally the happiest moment of my life. 


Superhero Thursday! Thursday means the last full day of teen camp. But that also means WATER DAAAAAAY aka "you better wear something you don't care about ruining because you will get wet and muddy even if you don't want to because Latvians think it's funny because it kinda is funny." We had a bunch of games after lunch like water kickball, water relays, water challenges, and the ever so famous and oh so dangerous slip and slide! It was a blast and the highlight of mine and lots of our campers week. 





Tomorrow is Friday, and the campers have to go home at 1. Most of these kids go back home to a place they don't want to be. They don't have awesome family life, they don't have people that love them, they don't have people to encourage them to go to church, to quit smoking and drinking, to be kind to other people. We pray that these kids can find comfort in their lives, safety in Gods arms, and happiness through the little things. Please pray for the campers and for our leaders today that we can peacefully say goodbye to each other as the kids travel back home. And please pray that we can all control our tears and not let our upset feelings take away from the last few hours we have with our sweet girls.



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