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.

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

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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.

The class of 2009!

Here's a few shots of grad stuff. What a time it was for all involved - grads, families, friends, staff - a whirl of appreciation, celebration, transition, pleasure and pain. I'm comforted in all this by knowing that as much as we all love these seniors, God loves them more!



From "Senior Skip Day"




Above is one of my favorite students (I had about 79 favorites) with her family. Below, same girl (this time underneath another fave) at the all night open house for seniors after grad celebrations.



At one point - somewhere around 3AM - we had over 40 kids in the house eating homemade pizza and just being together for their last night as classmates.



Here's a few particiants in the Spring Party with a Viking theme:
Here's Serge - an unlikely and incredibly civil Viking:
One dorm's Seniors and heir dorm parents at grad reception: