First we would like to thank all of you back home for your prayers. Before we left Seattle one of our prayer requests was for strong dynamics and team unity. God answered that prayer in incredible ways. We never expected to have so much fun together while still getting so much done. We are in awe of how much creativity, joy, and laughter that God has blessed us with during our time together. God went above and beyond when putting together our team!
A typical day for our team looks like this: Leading morning exercises, breakfast, leading Extreme Time (our daily assembly where we play games, do skits, and sing with the kids in English), lead games and activities within cabins, lunch, Jesus Time with our DEP team, snack, planning session to prepare for the following day, dinner, big camp activity (disco or bon fire), snack. Basically, our motto for each day is EAT, CHANT, SLEEP, REPEAT. We are kept really busy but we are having so much fun so it is worth all of the effort.
The kids haven’t interacted much with Americans before coming to camp. They are all very anxious to speak with us and ask us LOTS of questions. We are constantly bombarded with KHELLOS and DAI PYATS (high fives). To them we are silly, goofy Americans (with killer dance moves, of course). They also have a lot of fun teaching us Russian tongue twisters!
We went all out the first couple of days of camp and are starting to run low on energy. If you all could be in constant prayer for our tired bodies and minds we would be very grateful. Pray specifically for our health, as we are all fighting off a bug that has been going around our team. Please also pray for our communication with the Russian team members so that things will run more smoothly and with less stress. Our team has identified a possible ministry with our Russian co-counselors. Prayer for opportunities to have meaningful conversations and fun memories would also be appreciated.
Thank you again for all of your support. We love you and miss you!
Paka Paka (bye-bye),
Team Russia!!