Catching Up

We've neglected to post anything so far about the youth camps we were involved with a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd rectify that. Aileen and I were asked to be the activities directors for junior high and high school summer camps (it's summer here) located about 2 hours north of Santa Cruz. We were definitely excited about the opportunity, but I'll admit, it was a lot more effort than what we anticipated. Planning games and activities for 3-4 hours each day (not counting their "free time") really sucked the ol' creative juices dry, even though we were given a couple of resource books to help things along. We now have a deep, deep respect for youth pastors around the world who do this for a living.

Moving on... I've gotta say, the thing that made this whole experience so amazing was the great attitudes the kids had. We ran into our share of obstacles in arriving at the camp. On the way to HS camp, the biggest of the 3 buses broke down just outside the city, resulting in 3 hours of "down time" along the side of a road in the Bolivian heat. Through all this there was very little complaining. When we finally arrived at the camp it started "raining pets" (as I've heard one Bolivian put it). So what do 75 teenagers do in pouring rain? They play Red Rover, of course.



I was so amazed by the flexibility of these kids. Amazing. The rest of the time at camp was pretty much sweet. A speaker named Dan Hardesty and his family flew down from the states to give talks at both camps twice a day. He was formerly a missionary in La Paz and currently runs a family and adventure camp called Triple-R Ranch as a ministry in Virginia. I learned much from him as did the kids. Plus I had the privelege of sharing a cabin with him and the senior boys.

I'll end with a small section of our supply list from our activities, and let you use your imagination to figure out the games.

40 kilograms of flour
18 dozen eggs
45 pairs of nylon panty hose
200 rubber "smiley balls"
Lots of Jell-O
2 water balloon launchers and a couple hundred balloons
12 sponges
4 toilet plungers
1 box of Fruit Loops

Oh yeah, check out Chad and Emily's link to the right to see some more pics and stories.