All over

All Camp
These guys kept us fed - who will next year?
Our counselors.
Our translators
Our funniest camper - X

All Staff photo
Our graduates - next year they'll be too old. One asked, "How come no English Camp for 18-year-olds?" That is a very good question!
The now annual traditional auction of "stuff" paid for by "Teekets" earned all week long.
Here I got to share the story of one of my Iraqi refugee contacts in Jordan who once believedGod could not exist and who now knows that He does - the topic, "What is real?"

Well, I've not updated in a few days. This is largely due to the sheer busyness and fatigue of the last few days of any given English Camp. There's the basics of camp itself - all the closing activities (talent shows, banquets, bonfires, etc) midst the point of greatest community (meaning campers and staff alike have lost all ability to refrain from acting crazy! and valuable spiritual milestones are often reached). Then there are the practical bits - paperwork, pick-ups and drop-offs, cleaning, lots more cleaning, then some cleaning, the staff trip to Freiburg (dinner at Martin's Brau - if you're ever in Freiburg, it's a great place), materials and linens returned to base, some more cleaning. The emotional toll of balancing relief that camp is over with saying goodbye to those staff and campers who have been part of your life for the past 216-314 hours during an intensive time is also exhausting.

Then you have the episodes that come from nowhere - the camper mentioned earlier returned to camp after one ambulance ride and day in the hospital only to repeat the trip the following day (camp's last full day). Pray that God would use this in his life. The drama of it all did help focus camp in important and healthy ways.

But is is so worth it. Staff and campers alike leave changed. God has been at work. The gospel was delivered over nine nights and days to 100 campers. One of our third year campers - a guy who has got it rough family wise, who came to camp 3 years ago hating the idea of a "religious" camp, who fell in love with the love he felt at camp (he gave testimony before this next fact for longer than the evening message took), finally professed to giving his life to Christ (as did others). Pray for this "J" and for another "J" who thought she wasn't good enough for God and the others who came to faith - pray that God would make it so real in their lives and that churches could be found for them and so many of our other campers without good church homes.

Like I said - It is so worth all the time and money and hard work. Pray for us that we could recover to face the school year ready. We're weekending near Grenoble, France to attend a wedding and staff conferences start next week (well, actually they started this week but for self-preservation and with permission, I'm missing most of those).

Thanks to all who've read these and prayed for, given to, or served at (Did I mention the incredible staff we had?) English Camp Wittlingen (or any of the other camps) this year.

The top photo shows two young "drop-ins" to our evening meeting time. They were drawn in by the strength of the talent exhibited in the next photo (third year in a row that "Tell Me Why" was performed just to show you the enduring legacy of the Back Street Boys). The next two shot are from pool day - a perfect afternoon for it - but then the morning was a different story.

Gloria, one of our very your but very dedicated and talented translators spent the morning with myself and one of the campers at the local hospital after the camper was wisked off in an ambulance due to some sort of attack that involved severe abdominal pains and hyper-ventilation. He's ok - we actually brought him back to camp about 10PM and the boys gave him a big welcome. The first words he said at the hospital after regaining responsiveness were, "Will I be able to go back to English Camp" and, "Why would God allow let this sort of thing happen to me?" So that leaves us with the encouragement of how much the campers love camp and a classic difficulty of the faith.

Well, that's about all I'm good for writing tonight.

Adventure Day

Here are scenes of this morning performances of Bible stories - can you guess which ones?

We spent the afternoon at BFA going games along with the other 2 camps, followed by a joint worship/teaching time. I got to play the role of the visiting philosopher discussing the question of "What is real?" as I did two weeks ago during the previous EC sessions. The kids are pretty wired tonight so we hope they'll settle down for room time with their counselors.

Tomorrow we're off to the pool after morning classes. There's talk of a talent show but very few signed up as yet.

Pray that the "breakthrough" moments will continue.

Well, I have had easier days at English Camp. Today, for the first time in seven camps, I had to send someone home. After days of breaking virtually every rule of the camp and repeated interventions by multiple staff members, I was convinced it was time. Pray that the climate of the camp would not suffer for this - there are some good things happening - real progress with both repeat and new campers.

As you can see from today's pictures, we've had some worship time (we do that every evening) and we've had some "visitors". There was a brief appearance by Heidi (one of our counselors who brought along her dirndl) and the return of the legendary Ricki - a veteran of 3 previous camps (that's him in the mullet wig). His former campers that are attending are thrilled to see him - he's spending the night- and we are too (both thrilled and sending the night).

Tomorrow is a break in the "routine" (nothing is routine at EC) for "Adventure Day".

Superbowl

As you can guess from the title and the photo, today's theme was American football. For this we had a very special guest - Robbie Shuman, who's on leave from his football coaching (oh yeah, he's a guidance counselor too) in Narragansett, RI and here in the Kandern area to serve at Black Forest Academy for a year - to put the kids through their paces. How many teams can boast a wide reciever who speaks French with a German accent wearing a green shirt, blue shorts and bright yellow sneakers.

It is a bit surreal to see a number of folks in the area with First Baptist Narragansett connections. There's us, three additional team members (well four if you count Jason Hodges who "attended" FBC till he was about six months old, the Shumans - now our neighbors, and Jay, Haley, and Zoe Ashcraft working at a sister English Camp. Way to go FBCN - never lose your knack for sending directly or indirectly!

Many conversations are growing deeper between staff and campers. Please pray that nothing would impede this process as it progresses. We're seeing some kids with a deep desire to experience God in a deep way.

Sunday

Today was a change in the schedule for Sunday. We take the whole camp to Black Forest Christian Fellowship for the morning service. Picture 6 rickety vans in formation descending on your church bearing 30 or so kids and 15 of so people who are living for a time in a strange land. Oh, then multiply that by 3 (te number of camps running in this area). What kind of an impact would that have on your Sunday morning service? What kind of an impact would your Sunday morning service have on such a group? BFCF has been very intentional this summer about making the service a good fit for these peculiar circumstances - we really appreciate the good efforts of all involved.

The weather was not good enough for the pool so we made a switch. Instead of taking the afternoon off of English classes we ran them so that on the first clear hot day we could skip it and spend the time at the pool. Flexibility on the part of staff is so beneficial to making this run - we've got a great team. After classes Hannah organized an Ultimate Frisbee tournament among our four sub-teams of campers. We had to cut it only a tad short due to another of the local menacing thunderstorms loomed over the field.

Tonight's message was on the Truth part of John 14:6 - good stuff. Pray that truth would be easily approached and understood by our campers. Pray also for the ones who are in the "testing" phase - resistant to the rules and basic trust necessary to run camp well - as ever we know we're in a battle so help us out with your prayers.

Long Day

At the close of the second full day, you start to feel the length of a day of camp. The spirit is good but the kids are busy and comfortable enough to stretch you. Bed time drags on and we want to be serious, they, sometimes, want to be silly. This is a real short post because I need some sleep - pray for sunshine tomorrow - it would mean a long afternoon at the pool - a good thing. Pray also for the focus of the campers - that they would begin to get more spiritually tuned in to God, to the staff, and to each other.