Day 3 & 4 of Teen Week!!

Wednesday we woke up to yet another amazing breakfast from our camp cooks, have we mentioned how FLIPPING DELICIOUS all of our meals have been. There’s always some sort of potato dish (Olivia’s fav) and cucumber-tomato salad (Gable’s fav), along with a hefty portion of meat, cheese, and bread, and topped off at the end with some sort of amazingly colorful fruity dessert. It’s crazy to sit there and watch these kids scarf down this food like they haven’t eaten in days. You can really tell that they’re so thankful for everything that they are receiving, that they are getting 3 meals a day and even a mid-day snack. It warms my heart to hear one of the toughest boys at camp scream “LABU-APETĪTI” before every meal and hear the booming “PALDIES” in return. After breakfast, we all went to our cabins to come up with what do to for todays theme day – Your Favorite Profession. My (Gable’s) girls took this theme VERY seriously, really considering their future and the way that they wanted to live their lives, and decided that we would all be very happy ladies being professional sleepers. It was genius. We all made eye-masks and carried our pillows around all day so we could take little naps whenever we pleased. On another serious note my (Olivia’s) girls were all crayons. I spent most of breakfast fashioning different colored cones to their heads while they ate and tried to pretend that the crayon idea wasn’t brilliant. My co-leader Elizabeth, made a sign that said our job was to help kids color and we marched off to morning meeting.

Water day is a highly anticipated part of camp. The set up begins during breakfast so all morning the kids are buzzing about what’s to come. The girls love to act apprehensive about water day but as soon as the games begin they’re all in. Our stellar games planner had set up four stations; slip-n-slide, belly soccer, paddle boat racing, and a very challenging (both emotionally and physically) game where you lay on the ground and hold a bucket of water with your feet as a team. The slip-n-slide can cause a lot of damage (shout out to Gable’s massive forearm bruise-pretty sick bro) but is usually rootin-tootin good time YEEHAW! After all the stations were completed, the whole camp participated in a water balloon fight, girls against guys of course. The water fight was 10 minutes of absolute insanity as the entire camp ran around a soccer field throwing water balloons at each other with zero regards for the rules. 10 out of 10 would recommend. Dinner was a ravenous affair with all of us drained from the day and getting the girls energized for meeting was tough but we did it.

That morning Karlis had preached about David, how he was such an underdog and totally not the kind of man that people would think would be called by God to be a king. Karlis has really been emphasizing that “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.” This really hits home to us. Both of us know that we aren't what you would call "qualified", we have so many imperfections, and a huge point of our discussion times were to help our girls realize that just because we’re from a place like America doesn’t mean that our live are perfect or easy. These kids struggle daily with things that we haven’t ever even thought about, and sometimes they feel helpless, but just because they might sometimes feel that way, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of being loved or worthy of being called by God. At the evening meeting, Karlis spoke more in depth about who Jesus was and what being a Christian means. He brought out a huge rope, and used a visual metaphor that Francis Chan, a popular American pastor, uses. Basically there is a tiny portion of rope representing our time here on earth, and the rest of the rope which seemed to never end, was the rest of our eternal life that we gain by accepting Jesus and that he died for our sins.

Gable: My group discussions haven’t been very serious so far this week, mostly about random things, sometimes repeating more in depth about what Karlis had talked about in the meetings. But tonight, I think there was a little bit of a yearning to learn more about being a child of God. I had been praying that God would be able to give my girls some good questions, and that he would help me be able to answer them. And I’m thankful he answered my prayers because my girls asked really really tough questions. Why do people suffer, why do people rape other people, what does being a Christian mean. One girl even told me that she was confused and that she believed that Heaven existed but Hell didn’t because God would never want to send us to Hell if he loved us. It's really scary answering things like this to these kids, because you never know how they're going to take it and what they're going to learn. What if I mess something up or say something wrong? I believe God was using this opportunity to teach me how he can speak through me. I’m not the type to pull out scripture, and I get really nervous talking about these types of things sometimes, but I did my best to explain to my girls that the the world is full of suffering and pain, but when we become Christians and accept Christ, we will have an eternity of life without pain and suffering in heaven. I even got to hear my girls pray a little bit out loud, even if it was just a simple “God, thank you for Hope Camp.” I continue to pray that my group continues to ask questions and seek answers, to be curious about becoming a Christian and what they have to do to accept Jesus into their hearts.

Olivia: In my group we have some girls who will answer the questions that Karlis gives us but most of them stick to themselves. On Wednesday night we asked our girls how they would feel if God called them on a mission and one of my girls responded by saying that it would really help to boost her self esteem. She said that if God believed that she could do something she would believe in herself so much more and think more highly of herself. It was really cool to hear her say that if God called her to a mission she would feel honored by the call and believe that she was worth more because of it. Last night was a very emotional night for my group. My Latvian leader, Ilze informed me that during the sermon my girls told her that they were ready to share their life story. I think it’s really interesting that the girls felt so called to do this without being prompted at all. Ilze said that she wasn’t going to translate during the talk so I was prepared to not understand what was going on but I really wasn’t prepared for my reaction. One of my girls started talking about her life and almost immediately started crying and I was overcome with sadness and couldn’t help but shed tears. After two of my girls shared their stories they asked me why I was crying if I didn’t understand what they were saying and I responded, “You cry, I cry.” I hate that they have anything to cry about. This time was rough and very emotional but I now have a bond with these girls that I didn’t have before. We all cried and hugged and confessed and I will never forget that night.

So yeah, yesterday was an emotional rollercoaster, starting with a day full of games and fun, followed by a powerful message and discussion time full of really difficult questions and tears, but the end of the night was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced – we had a crazy mad sweaty dance party. Watching these kids evolve over these 5 days is mind-blowing and heart-changing. Day 1 they hardly would even stand up to sing the worship songs, but tonight, I didn’t see one person sitting down. And not only that, everybody was right in front of the stage screaming singing and dancing their faces off like they were front row at a concert… praising the Lord. It gives me goose-bumps even thinking about how fun and amazing last night was. The feeling that I had while praising Him and dancing with my campers is a feeling I wish I could have forever. Absolute overwhelming joy.