Hello and welcome to day 3 of Family Camp!
We start off the day with a worship time and staff meeting to make sure we’re all on the same page each day, then head up to breakfast! Sherry is on the Breakfast Team so spends the early mornings preparing massive bowls of cereal, fruit cocktail, Greek yogurt and honey, along with bread and jam for around 200 people. We found the tea pot the other morning and Ali was delighted to have tea instead of all the coffee. =]
After breakfast the campers head down to the outdoor sanctuary for their first teaching session of the day. After the teaching, they have breakout groups for discussion. We hear reports of great questions, deep discussion and meaningful conversations.
After this we have a snack, and then separate the men and women for our activities. The men go swimming and the ladies get to enjoy the climbing wall and archery on the football (soccer) pitch. Sarah and Jennica are helping out with archery, which is a lot of fun. Today though they wrangled children, while their mama’s learned to shoot a bow and arrow.
All this activity works up and appetite for lunch, which many hands help to prepare and serve to this large crowd. Today we had an Iranian favourite, a dish called the Bride of Iran it is so well loved. It is called gourmet Sabzi. It was a mixture of ground spinach, some other greens and dried lemon, garlic, many seasonings and with a few kidney beans and beef. It is served over a large bed of rice, with pita on the side. Whatever it sounds like to you, it tasted delicious and was a hit at camp.
After lunch we do more dishes than any of us have done in the last 3 years combined, and then we do devotions followed by siesta! This leads right into women’s swim time and activities for the men. Today we had a special treat and got to go tubing behind the Jet Ski. Sherry and Jennica got to go together and had an absolute blast! Zydi made sure we had quite the ride! Such fun!
Once the afternoon activities are over, it’s time to prep for supper, or have free time if you’re not on dinner prep. Dinner is followed by more dish washing time for staff and then the second teaching session begins. Tonight they are showing a Jesus movie. The staff on kids programs are amazing and I am impressed with the patience and perseverance they all seem to have! Sarah, Kelvin and Ryan are in full kid mode and are fully demonstrating that the language of loving kids is the same across nations and languages.
It is getting late here, but things are still in full swing. Time is important, but relationships are valued even more and so there is lots of flexibility in the schedule. Evenings wind down around 11pm and which can make for short nights.
We are holding up pretty well, with the shorter nights and busy days, but please continue to pray for the team to have strength and stamina for all that we must do. Pray for the families to have open eyes and ears to the love of Christ. Pray that our hearts are tuned to the Holy Spirit’s leading that we may be useful as camp comes to a close.
