First Full Day

Here are our campers for this year - 16 girls ⇑ and 15 guys ⇓.


Our first day ran very smoothly. There seems to be a healthy spirit among staff and campers alike. All the phases of the day seemed to run without much of a hitch - three meals prepared, eaten, and cleaned up afterwards, classes in the morning and afternoon taught and attended, the first set of crazy activities, good singing and Bible teaching rounded out by Rice Krispie Treats and a demonstration of the sounds that farm animals make (practice for tomorrow's Country Fair Day) - all in all a typical day at camp.

I found a local pool that is willing to have the campers come and NOT force them to wear only the Speedo type of trunks - lots of people happy about that news! The weather continues to be sweet - pray that Sunday it would be as well because that is a good day to spend the afternoon at the pool.

Pray that community would continue to develop. Pray for safety and protection. Pray for a camper at a sister camp who is spending the night in the hospital due to complications of a previous surgery. Pray that Many in all these camps would come to better recognize Jesus as the "one way".

Well, after a year's thinking, praying, and planning - especially on Diane's part, the campers have arrived at our new site for this year - no more Maugenhard, now we're at a dorm in Wittlingen. We'll just call it Witt and, if you want to sound "Cherman" you'd pronounce it "Vitt". Thirty-one kids have arrived and settled in. Well over a third are new to English Camp this year and then we've got some one to three year veterans. The same ratio applies to our staff - and, as usual, God seems to .

After the afternoon and evening together the spirit seems relatively positive. The evening walk following our evening meeting was spectacular - half moon bright in the sky as we walked the farm roads at dusk between fields of just harvested grains and yet to be harvested tall cornstalks. I'm not doing th Bible speaking this year - one of our new staff wanted to give it a go and convinced me he had the passion for it so we're giving him a go. One of my counselors is a former student of mine from BFA that I had back in 2001-2002 as a freshman, one is a recent BFA grad, and another staff is a student I had in Narragansett just a few years ago. We've got two young translators - not much older than the campers - and they're great.

Diane has worked so hard all this past year to see these camps come to fruition - very neat to se the kids stream in. Some are glad to be here because they've been here before and remember what a good time it was for them on many levels. Some are new and nervous. Some are new and thrilled with the opportunities that await.

Pray for us as we face our first full day together. Pray that our theme of "One Way - Jesus" based on John 14:6 would become absolutely real to each and every camper.

Whirlwinds

\


Well, It has been a whirlwind of activity since the last blog update. Home in the States living in Mom’s basement (the American Dream) and attending to all sorts of issues, needs, urgencies and the one huge pleasure of seeing Amanda married to Brad. Five churches in four weeks, clearing out the house for future rental (pray for that situation) caring for grandson Cameron, getting Hannah’s driver’s license taken care of, visiting friends and supporters, stocking up on supplies for the year (shopping ahead on Carl’s jeans as he grows exponentially, cheap ibuprofen, etc.), and more. We were busy and exhausted.


That hasn’t changed since returning. Each day until now has been full of either moving from one home to another or setting up and launching this year’s English Camps. Diane and I are training, shopping (enormous amounts of food are consumed by 150 campers and staff in a few short days) and “troubleshooting” for the first session of camp. It’s been exciting to see first the staffs arrive and begin to gel as teams and now working camper pickups we’re seeing the same thing happen with them. We’ll be directing at the second season of camp in a facility new to us – its structure is reminiscent of a maze. Our staff will be a mix of veterans and newbies and it will be great to see how God works out this team’s efforts.

When it’s all said and done it will be time for school to start again for staff at BFA although we might be able to sneak in a few day’s rest (plus the wedding of a former BFA student to be held in France) – I hope so. We’re also looking forward to welcoming our friends the Shumans to the staff here at BFA – they’ll be living just four doors down in our row house building.