End of Summer Review

The summer session has officially closed. This past week we finished our last two camps and on Monday the Children head back to school. Both camps went very well, and we were able to find extra help for the last minute cancellations of a few councillors. At the first camp 10 children accepted Christ, and in the last camp, the pastor led the whole camp in a prayer of salvation, to which all of them raised their hand too. We were then able to hand out donated Bibles to each child. Both these Pastors have committed to following up with these children.

This summer ended off busy. 3 of the 5 camps happened in this last week and a half.

Here is a look at some of the summers numbers:
25 youth from 5 different churches attended councillor training
9 new councillors worked with us for the first time
10 councillors crashed at our place and for 5 of them it was their first time staying an overnight in the city
4 Churches ran camps
5 camps completed
134 kids attended camp this summer
40 kids made first time commitments to Christ
402 hugs shared
1 out of 7 balls survived the summer, leaving us with 1 volleyball for next year
Approximately 100,000,000 bug bites endured

We keep being asked, now that summers over what do we do?
Well, we need to keep these churches accountable and help them develop a follow-up program that will meet the needs of the Children and the Church. We are continuing to reach out to other churches who may be interested in working with us next year. We are currently putting together a fundraising basketball tournament that will act as a follow-up event connecting churches we’re working with, and inviting other churches to join us in some fun fellowship. Also this month is September celebration so we are putting together a group of councillors and kids to represent us in the business parade. There are also a few people and teams wanting to visit and see what we are doing so we need to prepare for that as well. There is also the task keeping contacted with our councillors and getting some of them involved in developing curriculum for next years summer camps. The to do list never ends…

Last Minute Changes

This past week did not go as we had planed, instead God had something better in mind. Our over night camp was cancelled, but with helpers coming from two other districts to help we were not willing to let the week go to waste.

Just a couple days before, we had made contact with a Spanish church who had a handful of youth, and were looking for something for children’s program. We decided to challenge them to work with us to put together a simple camp in two days and to our delight they rose to the challenge. Representing the church, Dulce and Rosario worked along side our outsider help Anita, Joseph, Elsie, Nichole and Ashton.
Probably one of the most significant parts of the three days was the challenge we put our councillors through. We challenged them to personally connect with at least one camper and report to us about what they were learning about what these kids were dealing with.
We found out that most of the children were living with only one parent or a grandparent. One young girl Maria has no idea who here father is, and she grew very attached to Joseph who we could clearly see she viewed as a father figure. We also found out that one of the young girls, no older than 8, her mother was teaching her how to use profane words and curse people, so that her daughter would be able to fight back if ever made fun of.
By the end of the three days when our volunteers were going home there were a few tears from the kids, in fear they would never see them again. We defiantly plan on having the same councillors working with these kids in the future and we reassured them of that – but as sad as it was for them, it was encouraging to see that an impact had been made on these children.

Coming up:
This up coming weekend we have two more camp. Its been in the works for awhile, but we have had some last minute cancellations from some key volunteers. Please pray for the gaps. And that God would have an impact on these kid’s and the church.
GOD Bless
GO Bless