From Camp to Camp to Camp...

Camp season has started and we've been busy.  Our 1st big camp at the kids Rehab Centre finished this past week and tomorrow we start another camp at the dorms downtown.  I've also been helping out at camps at a couple of the public schools.  This past year a door has opened where we can go into these schools to talk about love and be good examples as well as do some activities with the kids.  So I've literally been going from camp to camp to camp.

These camps are having an amazing impact on the kids as well as the staff of the schools and institutions.  One really good story happened at the Rehab Centre camp.  One morning as we were preparing for the day our leader Lena T. came into the room in tears after talking with somebody on staff.  We thought something was wrong since we were already talked to for a small issue they had.  (Apparently one day our room wasn't as tidy as they wanted.)  Once Lena composed herself she said that the staff member was telling her about 2 boys who came to the centre a couple of weeks before we came with camp.

I'll have to back up a bit here and give some background about the centre.  The Rehab Centre when it opened was for boys who had drug addictions, hence the name.  Nowadays it's sort of a transition place for boys and girls when they're 1st taken from their families for the same reasons that kids get put into foster care in Canada.  The kids will live at the centre until their family life can be more stable and they can go back to their families but if that's not possible they will be transferred to another orphanage.

So these 2 boys came to the centre and were not adjusting to their new reality very well.  They were deemed as being aggressive by whatever standards are used here.  We hadn't noticed anything like that.  The staff member told Lena that because of our camp these boys were smiling for the 1st time, settling down and were having fun with us.  It was amazing to hear that.

Now we're looking forward to an amazing time at the dorms camp as well as the other camps this summer.  Stay tuned.

Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.  Thank you for seeing my heart.  Till next time...я люблю вас!!

Our theme this year is "Finding the True Treasure"

Our Team for the Rehab Centre camp

The little boy in the picture is one of the boys I mentioned.

The Rehab Centre kids.

The school camps team.

This school camp was a lesson in planting seeds of love where we planted flower seeds in the school's garden.

We heard that one of the schools didn't have a proper ball to play with.  Some schools have no budget for this.  So we went and bought them 6 balls and a pump.  I don't know who was happier...the kids or the teachers.

School trip to a play centre...

...you didn't expect I'd be sitting on the sidelines did you?  :)

In this school camp the kids were asked to draw their families.