ASP Camp

Well, ASP (After School Program) Camp is well over now!  We had one day to rest and then the Academy kids (high schoolers) came back from Easter weekend ready for us.  We've had a blast with them these past few days, but first I'll talk about camp... (this was written a few days ago)

The 77 children arrived on Wednesday morning around 10:30, and we greeted them with hugs and cheers as they got off the bus.  There were also 14 "facilitators" - young adults around ages 18-25 who came with them; these are their leaders during the After School Program they are in, and also their counselors here at camp (along with our team).  We were all paired with a facilitator or two and the kids were put in cabins.  Each of the girls is paired with another American girl and a facilitator or two, and each boy is on his own.  Even us 4 leaders have cabins, which is really fun for us!  We each have around 5-6 kids, and one girls' cabin has 12 (but there are 3 Americans together in that one!).  It is so fun trying to communicate with these kids - most of them at least understand some English, but a lot of them are also quite good at speaking it as well!  Their native language is Xhosa, which is a language that has English lettering, so it's easy for us to sound out, but it also has 3 different types of "clicks" in it, which makes it really funny when we try to learn some of the words and phrases!  Apparently it's considered one of the hardest languages to learn in all of Africa!  But we're trying, and having fun with it :).  For some of the little kids who don't know any English, there are always other ways of communicating, especially with children.  And the facilitators help us a lot with translating!

We have spend the last few days playing games in the sun, jumping on the trampoline, swimming with way too many kids in the pool (who mostly don't know how to swim haha), making crafts, singing songs in Xhosa and English, and sharing lots of interesting meals together.  It has been wild; there are so many kids here!!  But it's just like any other church camp - we have morning and night talks and testimonies, and cabin times afterward.  Some of our students have had really cool stories about their kids sharing prayer requests and asking good questions and having discussions.  We're really excited about what God is doing in the lives of these children and the facilitatiors we've gotten to know.

No one has gotten sick or hurt (besides the normal scrapes and bumps of camp), and we really didn't have any jetlag or trouble adjusting.  God has taken such great care of us!  The weather has even been great :)

I can't think of too much else to update on... I think my brain is a little scrambled from the low sleep and mixed languages around me! Haha. Sorry if this has been rambling or if I haven't given you all the information you were hoping to get!  Feel free to ask any questions, specific or general, and please continue praying for us!  Pray that this last day and a half of camp can be really effective in getting the kids to understand what kind of relationship they can have with Jesus.  And pray especially for the facilitators; a good half of them are not committed Christians, and we've gotten to be good friends with them and care about them a lot.  Pray for sleep for our team, but other than that we really are doing so great! We just want to be effective leaders for our kids!

Missing you all!