One thing I learned at camp this week is that God speaks Spanish too. We couldn't understand everything our kids said, what the pastor said, what the music was about, or what the directions were but we saw hearts changing.
We were able to take 35 students to camp from Monday to Thursday from two cities we work with; Los Guido and Alajuelita. The camp was called La montaña and it was a beautiful camp surrounded by mountains.
Our first night we played in the gym while the staff "washed the cabins". Kelly, one of the interns was put in charge of one of our girls cabins and Sami and I were put in charge of the other. We had 6 girls with us from Los Guido.
We spend a couple of hours with these guys every Saturday but it has been hard to really get close to them. This week was an amazing opportunity to get to know them and love on them. 😊
The theme of the week was Paradox and they opened the night with a skit and a video but I'm still not sure what it was all about. Then we had dinner, 6 out of 8 of the meals we had there were rice and beans(including breakfast), but they did make us BBQ chicken the last day. The first night we were to bed by about 11pm and in the morning up by 5:30am. The first activity was a mud obstacle course. We had to dive into muddy water under logs, then climb over a ladder, swing from a rope into another mud bath, slide down a mud slide, army crawl under ropes and through a ditch, and then finally walked down part of the mountain to a creek to get rinsed off. Then we trekked back to the cabins to take showers but I'm pretty sure I still haven't gotten all the dirt off.
Later we had lunch and small group bible study time. The first day none of the girls would say anything but that slowly changed. In small group we learned about John, Peter, and James. In the afternoon they had the options to go mountain biking, do archery, or go in the lake. After changing again that day we had dinner and then chapel. The camp used a lot of videos and music and also the man that preached really seemed to relate to the kids and kept them laughing and interested in what he was talking about. After chapel we all went to the gym for roller skating and rock wall climbing but at this point most of our girls were exhausted.
Again they all went to bed by 11pm and wanted to get up at 5:30am but when their alarms went off not a single one of them moved. It took until 6:30 to get them out of their beds and we had to get them to chapel by 7. Kelly, Sami, and I did all of the activities with the kids at the lake. We were flung off the blob, shot down the slide, and swung into the lake. Then I attempted to teach some girls to swim but we haven't taken a "swim lessons in Spanish" class yet so I didn't exactly know a lot of swimming vocab.
After changing and then lunch we had more small group time and more activities. This time the kids raced to be the fastest team to run up and down a hill, through a maze, find the key to unlock the gate, and swim their whole team on a tube across the lake. Then it was time to change again but this time we had to be dressed in some kind of costumes with our whole cabin. We were thinking about being Hawaiian girls or princesses but we decided instead to switch places, the girls would dress like gringas (Americans) and we would dress like them. So our girls wore our chacos, fanny packs, camera, hats, and water bottles. They looked exactly like what you would picture a typical American tourist to look like and we let them do our makeup and dress us. We got third place, some of the kids dressed up and acted out one of the bible stories we had learned so I guess they deserved to win. As soon as dinner was over the girls wanted to go change, guess they didn't like the gringa look.
Our last night in chapel was truly amazing. They had an awesome worship band and God was really working on the kids there. Even when I couldn't understand I could feel the Holy Spirit in the room. After chapel we had a bonfire and split into our cabin groups to pray together. It was great to hear the girls open up and pray for each other and for strength as they return home and go back to school. They were happy to hear us pray for them all as well, even though they didn't know what we were saying. We ended with a group hug and headed to the cabin together.
Our last day was Thursday. In the morning we had one last small group, a few more games, and a final chapel. Some of our group filled out cards saying they committed or recommitted their lives to Christ. We saw some our of girls super interested in Gods word and they became much more active in the bible time. Because of the time we spent with them at camp we were able to build much closer relationships with them. I am so amazed by what God did at camp in our hearts and in theirs. It was awesome to be used for such an awesome purpose even when I thought I would be so useless because of my lack of Spanish skills, because our relationship with our girls was not that strong before, and because I had never been a camp counselor before. However...
2 Corinthians 12:10 says
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
#Paradox
We were able to take 35 students to camp from Monday to Thursday from two cities we work with; Los Guido and Alajuelita. The camp was called La montaña and it was a beautiful camp surrounded by mountains.
Our first night we played in the gym while the staff "washed the cabins". Kelly, one of the interns was put in charge of one of our girls cabins and Sami and I were put in charge of the other. We had 6 girls with us from Los Guido.
We spend a couple of hours with these guys every Saturday but it has been hard to really get close to them. This week was an amazing opportunity to get to know them and love on them. 😊
The theme of the week was Paradox and they opened the night with a skit and a video but I'm still not sure what it was all about. Then we had dinner, 6 out of 8 of the meals we had there were rice and beans(including breakfast), but they did make us BBQ chicken the last day. The first night we were to bed by about 11pm and in the morning up by 5:30am. The first activity was a mud obstacle course. We had to dive into muddy water under logs, then climb over a ladder, swing from a rope into another mud bath, slide down a mud slide, army crawl under ropes and through a ditch, and then finally walked down part of the mountain to a creek to get rinsed off. Then we trekked back to the cabins to take showers but I'm pretty sure I still haven't gotten all the dirt off.
Later we had lunch and small group bible study time. The first day none of the girls would say anything but that slowly changed. In small group we learned about John, Peter, and James. In the afternoon they had the options to go mountain biking, do archery, or go in the lake. After changing again that day we had dinner and then chapel. The camp used a lot of videos and music and also the man that preached really seemed to relate to the kids and kept them laughing and interested in what he was talking about. After chapel we all went to the gym for roller skating and rock wall climbing but at this point most of our girls were exhausted.
Again they all went to bed by 11pm and wanted to get up at 5:30am but when their alarms went off not a single one of them moved. It took until 6:30 to get them out of their beds and we had to get them to chapel by 7. Kelly, Sami, and I did all of the activities with the kids at the lake. We were flung off the blob, shot down the slide, and swung into the lake. Then I attempted to teach some girls to swim but we haven't taken a "swim lessons in Spanish" class yet so I didn't exactly know a lot of swimming vocab.
After changing and then lunch we had more small group time and more activities. This time the kids raced to be the fastest team to run up and down a hill, through a maze, find the key to unlock the gate, and swim their whole team on a tube across the lake. Then it was time to change again but this time we had to be dressed in some kind of costumes with our whole cabin. We were thinking about being Hawaiian girls or princesses but we decided instead to switch places, the girls would dress like gringas (Americans) and we would dress like them. So our girls wore our chacos, fanny packs, camera, hats, and water bottles. They looked exactly like what you would picture a typical American tourist to look like and we let them do our makeup and dress us. We got third place, some of the kids dressed up and acted out one of the bible stories we had learned so I guess they deserved to win. As soon as dinner was over the girls wanted to go change, guess they didn't like the gringa look.
Our last night in chapel was truly amazing. They had an awesome worship band and God was really working on the kids there. Even when I couldn't understand I could feel the Holy Spirit in the room. After chapel we had a bonfire and split into our cabin groups to pray together. It was great to hear the girls open up and pray for each other and for strength as they return home and go back to school. They were happy to hear us pray for them all as well, even though they didn't know what we were saying. We ended with a group hug and headed to the cabin together.
Our last day was Thursday. In the morning we had one last small group, a few more games, and a final chapel. Some of our group filled out cards saying they committed or recommitted their lives to Christ. We saw some our of girls super interested in Gods word and they became much more active in the bible time. Because of the time we spent with them at camp we were able to build much closer relationships with them. I am so amazed by what God did at camp in our hearts and in theirs. It was awesome to be used for such an awesome purpose even when I thought I would be so useless because of my lack of Spanish skills, because our relationship with our girls was not that strong before, and because I had never been a camp counselor before. However...
2 Corinthians 12:10 says
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
#Paradox
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