can't believe i'm entering my 6th week of camp!

alright, so week 5 of Tabara Vetca was with the Livada Orphan Care kids (or as we say, LOC kids). it was such a different week as there were less kids, they knew a good bit of english and we did not have our volunteers for the week. also what made it different is that it was Brian and Sarah's first week leading camp. the talks were different while remaining on the same topic. while i miss Paul and Fiona and it was sad to say goodbye to them, sometimes the Lord uses a change in leadership to change perspective. this new perspective was needed as the interns have been doing the same thing for five weeks now. it was good to change it up a bit and refresh the soul.

i did not have a team again this week, so that i could be a stations leader and also help Sarah with some of the details things. i love building relationships with people and i would call myself a people-person, but there is something about having a task and seeing your work completed that i really enjoy. i think this is the "beaver" side of me coming out (or some of you may know it as the "C" personality).

LOC kids are divided up into the three group homes, Casa Ana, Casa Nadia, and Casa Rebeca. they love coming to camp, which makes it easy to handle behavior issues and to build relationships. since they have been so exposed to the gospel and to good care, it is so much easier for these kids to receive love. i was able to spend alot of time with two brothers, Geza and Bela. They are such a joy to be around. Both of them are very loving, but polar opposites. Geza has the best English i've heard out of all the kids. it's funny because he will speak to Romanians in English, even to the kids who don't know as much English. Geza is an extremely talented and intelligent boy. I really enjoyed playing cards with him or just sitting and chatting. (Jeremy, Geza asked about you and called you his friend. He did so well this week at camp, you would have been proud of how he got involved with everything). Geza's brother Bela was all over me this week. He loves to hug and kiss on you all the time. His English is fairly good as well, so it made part of our time together a little bit easier. Bela was a bundle of energy and loved for me to play basketball, futbol (soccer) and any kind of game with him. by the end of the week, Bela called me mom. many of the kids like to call us mom, dad, brother, sister, etc. i just find this so interesting that these kids long to identify with us as their family. and we are so quick to love on them as if they were. that's one of the things i love about camp, is being the mom, the sister, the friend that these kids need. (Jenn, Bela asked about you tons this past week and kept asking when you would be coming back to see him. He really missed you this week. i will put up pictures soon, as i have so many of him!). Geza and Bela were just two of the handful of kids that i got to build a relationship with this week. They were all such a joy and blessing.

We are now starting our 6th week of camp and I can't believe that we have this week and then our last week of camp. This week is with the kids (who are all mostly teenagers) from the Reghin Orphanage. Most of the kids have some kind of special needs issue, yet they are all so loving. It was a good first day, despite some confusion with who was actually coming to camp. Be praying for us this week as this tends to be one of the harder weeks of the summer. Many of the interns are very tired and in need of some encouragement and rest. We had a sweet time together last night praying over eachother and sharing about what the Lord was teaching us. Also, the Lord provided some great laughs as we had our Christmas in July yesterday. We did the gift swap game with all kinds of funny and some quite useful gifts. I was excited to get an actual elephant figurine (as the gifts were to be "white elephant"). Andrea got clever with her gift there. :-) Some of the hot items were a four pack of Hell energy drink and sunflower seeds, a nice picture of our three boys with their "staches" and a Berry College shirt! Everyone jokes with me that all i have is Berry clothes. This is mostly because they see me in tshirts all week at camp (which of course are Berry because of the jillions i have), i wear my Berry flip flops at camp, i wear my Berry sweatpants at night and my Berry shorts during the day. So, for the wrapping of my gift, i thought i'd give one of my tshirts away. it was great fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it. This party was out of control with Christmas music, Chinese food (fa-ra-ra-ra), and a paper Christmas tree! We really enjoyed our crazy time together. (And girls, i would have you know that i even had a mini dance party to "walking around the christmas tree" and some other great christmas tunes. haha!!)

Please be praying for us this week as i know so many of you are. We need energy and excitement for the week, but more importantly love. One of our prayers as interns is that we be sensitive to the Spirit in what we are being led to do. Please pray with us in that.
Also, i need for all of you to pray for my body. Last week was really rough pain-wise for me as it was very rainy. Please pray that the pain in my joints would cease.

I thank all of you for your love and prayers. Three weeks from today, I will be returning home, so we are in the home-stretch now!