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.