Day 1 & 2 of Teen Camp

The airport is such a happier place when you’re picking people up instead of leaving!! We completed our team by picking up 19 Virginians from the airport. After intercepting some jet-lagged and eager friends, we loaded up the bus and drove to camp. Peace out Riga, we're headed to camp! We spent the rest of the day getting ready for camp and testing out the waters, meaning we jumped in the lake as soon as we could since it was a “scorching” 85 degrees here. Silmaci is just as gorgeous as we remember with 12 cabins for us and the kids, a huge dining room for all of our meals, all of which involve some sort of potatoes, and an unbelievably beautiful lake with paddle boats and a trampoline for hours of entertainment.

After a full nights rest and the permission to sleep in, our American/British team of 23 prepared for our Latvian friends to arrive. We got crafts together, set up tents, organized our Camp Hope t-shirts, and cleaned and decorated our cabins. The Latvian team of about 25 finally arrived around 7 on Sunday night and we hugged and greeted them all like we hadn’t seen them in years. It’s always fun getting to see these crazy people. We all caught up, had a meeting all together on the roof of the main cabin, and watched a huge thunderstorm come in as we prayed for our campers safety and for their hearts to be opened as they head to camp.

The teens finally arrived on Monday at 2 after hours of anticipation. We had been doing some last minute preparations all morning and when someone jumped around the corner saying that the first bus had arrived, we all bolted for the driveway. This was it, it was happening, and we were nervous. It’s hard to describe the feeling you have as your jumping up and down and waving at an incoming bus full of the campers that you’ve spent weeks praying for. There were enthusiastic reunions and introductions all around. After a fairly organized distribution of name tags and t-shirts, every group had all their campers, every camper had a bed, and there was an energy in the air that only God could provide. The afternoon was filled with a camp meeting where we worshiped by singing and dancing with the band, and then we had a big game that got everyone out of their shell and had us all running crazy all over camp. We had to go around the campsite completing tasks to “earn a watergun fill” from the lake, and find targets covered in toilet paper to shoot to reveal a letter. In the end, you had to unscramble all the letters to make a word. Our teams both lost so we still have no clue what it said but we had a blast doing it all. We then had some allotted time to come up with a team name and skit to represent that name. This is one of my favorite things to do at the start of camp because I think it helps to give the campers a bonding common ground before they get started with the weeks activities.

My (Gable’s) team this week is a group of seven 14-15 year old girls, two of which have never been to Camp Hope before, and some who have been coming up to eight years! God is so good, he gave me a group of girls who loves cats J so we decided our team name would be Bumblecats… half bumble-bee, half cat - makes sense right? We are having so much fun playing games, singing Twenty-one Pilots, One Direction and Justin Bieber, and coloring in our coloring books – it’s only the second full day of camp and I can already see these girls starting to open up and get more comfortable with each other and with me and my other leaders!

Next door to Gable’s cabin are my (Olivia’s) sweet Ice Cream Hunters! Yes, that is our team name. I have been blessed to have six 14-15 year olds. Three of them have been coming for years which I love because some other group leaders can tell me all about them and we can see how much they have changed since the year before. I am absolutely loving getting to know this group of girls. They have fun and crazy personalities that I relate to perfectly. During free time yesterday we spent an hour braiding each others hair, painting nails, and talking about boys-the best bonding time. We have discussion time after each sermon and to be honest, it’s difficult to get them to focus but when they do they truly blow me away. Yesterday we talked about how we would feel if God called us on a mission and one of my girls said it would give her confidence to know that God believed in her to do something so special. I can’t wait to see what God does for these girls the rest of the week.

Yesterday was our first full day of camp. The staff met early in the morning to pray over our sleeping campers to have energy and happiness for the long day of playing gaga ball, swimming, making super fashionable leather bracelets at crafts, learning this years dance, and also learning the Camp Hope song in Spanish (this past January we had the very first Camp Hope Costa Rica!!) The kids love getting their minds off everything going on and getting to run around having fun with their friends, meeting new Latvian leaders, and jumping all over the crazy weird Americans. After dinner, we walked across to the other side of the lake for evening meeting, where Karlis preached about Moses and how God used him. Our girls are so sweet and are having so much fun making new friends, I just pray that they can open their minds this week in these meetings and discussions. In one of our discussions, we began talking about the stories that Karlis has been preaching from the Bible about Abraham and Moses, and some of our girls said that they don’t believe what is written because “anybody can write anything in a book.” It was a struggle to explain to them that yeah that can be true, but a huge part of being a Christian is exactly that. Anybody could write anything, but to believe the bible you have to be faithful and believe that the words of God are true. Prayers for our girls to open their hearts and that they feel encouraged to ask us these tough challenging questions, and that we as leaders are given the words through God to help teach them and share our experiences with them.

After dinner we had a night game where James made us get tied together as a team with zip-ties and run around the campsite searching for camp leaders to earn glow-sticks by answering questions correctly. So many bugs, so many kids running into each other getting tangled and having so much fun. But the game completely exhausted all of us, and after a MUCH needed shower, we headed to sleep to prepare for our second full day, which is every kid here’s favorite…ŪDENS DIENA! WATER DAY!!!!!!!!!! Yaaaaas.

So yeah, that’s about it and Valters says Hi!

Rigalaxin'

WE'RE HERE WE'RE HERE WE'RE FINALLY HERE!!! I feel like I have been internally screaming since I landed in Riga. Gable and I reunited at the luggage claim after our flights with hugs and squeals that we tried, and failed, to contain. Two of our favorite people in the universe came to pick us up from the airport and after lots of jumping and hugging, Valters and Tabita took us to our home for the next few days. Tabita and Lelde have been kind and gracious enough to let us take over their cozy apartment. Needless to say, it feels like home. After a marvelous trip to Pelmeni (we have literally been waiting all year for this food) we made it back home, spent some time catching up, and finally went to sleep at a peaceful 3 am.

Thursday was a super special day to be in Latvia, it's a national holiday celebrated each year all over the country called Johns Day. Johns Day is a mid-summer celebration that falls on the name day for Janis (John). Every year this day, it's a popular tradition to go to the countryside and spend time with friends and family - and jump over bonfires apparently? I don't know, Latvians are crazy. But since we didn't have a car, we got to spend the day in Riga at a huge celebration by the river. We got to wear handmade "flower wreaths" and watch and listen to traditional Latvian dancing and singing, it was beautiful and made us feel like real life Latvians. No big deal or anything but we even were mistaken as a Latvian by some random dude - highlight of our lives. We obviously spent the rest of our day going to our favorite spots in Riga, Egle (our favorite beer garden), this new AMAZING gelato place behind the Blackhead building (we may or may not have gone twice in 1 day...), and we wandered around Old Town looking through little market vendors and shops. 

Today, we had a lot of time to hang out and Rigalax... get it? Relax... Rigalax... I know, it's genius. We have a huge 2 weeks ahead of us, so obviously if we have the chance to sleep until 11, we will, and we did. But we finally woke up and wasted the day away in Old Riga, took a nap in the park next to the lock bridge after we found the Camp Hope Locks, and met up with Tabita and Lelde for dinner at one of our favorite spots. After relaxing by river and getting more gelato (zero regrets) we went to the airport to pick up a new roommate!! James is from England and we first met him around 2010 and he has been doing camps with this Latvia crew for years-aka a veteran. His first night in Riga looked a lot like ours-moving in to our sweet new home and a walk to Pelmeni. One of my favorite things about these trips that we have taken is the relationships we develop with all the people we work with from all over the world so it's so cool to have had the opportunity to catch up with an old friend (even if he does complain and make fun of us relentlessly).

Tomorrow we get to go to the airport and pick up the rest of our team! When Amy posted that the group was about to leave, we were giddy with excitement. We love these people and we love camp and it all starts TOMORROW!! 

Lucky 7th Year!!!

It's that time of the year again... Hallelujah praise the Lord Olivia and I get to go back to Latvia!!!!!! Like last year, this is a blog / photo collection from our time in our favorite place, mainly for our families sake, but also for whoever cares to read about and look at all the cute precious insane nonstop kids and all the reasons we can't stop coming back. Olivia is in Iceland with her family at the moment, so I have a 20 hour travel time all to my lonesome self. Obviously I'm off to a hot start by going to DFW instead of Love Field airport - but I made it, I'm GOOD TO GO!

Every year we emphasize how lucky we are that we have been chosen to take this path in life, and that we have been called to travel to Latvia to serve and spend time loving on all these amazing kids. There really is no other explaination as to how we have had the opportunities to experience Gods love in the way that we have other than the fact that we have been called to do this. It's a part of our lives and always will be, and we are thankful for the grace of God and his generosity.

Huge shoutout to my boss for letting me take the time off to take my yearly mission trip, thank God for such an amazing work place and manager, I'm so lucky. But an even huger shoutout to our families for once again sending their love and support for us and our passion for this trip. This year, we will be helping as counsellors at Camp Hope again for teen week the first week, and kids week the second week. It's always so exciting getting to go back to Riga and reunite with all of our Latvian friends and campers, but it's even more exciting this time that we also get to reunite with our "new" Virginian friends after a whole year!! So much anticipation... so many hugs...!!!

So I'm off - we will try to post as often as we can, but it's Latvia... we never really know what we're getting into.. but luckily Olivia's flight lands in Riga from Iceland with 15 minutes of mine. Meaning the moment we step on Latvian soil, the fun begins.