Romania #4

Prelude: Tuesday the 2nd ended with an insane storm, causing everyone to evacuate chapel early and seek refuge within the main building. Due to high winds, heavy rain, and frequent lightning strikes, the power and water went out for several hours. Using flashlights, we were made aware of many leaks throughout our lodging and did our best to deter them with sheets and pillow cases from the laundry room. Thankfully it wasn't too long before the storm subsided and we were able to continue the rest of camp for the night. The team cleaned what we could, then headed to bed to get some much needed rest.

After the craziness of last night, the team started the day a little earlier to finish cleaning the messes of yesterday's storm. Then Jess, Heather, and Jim were off to the kitchen, preparing breakfast over the next hour. Everyone else jumped into a meeting with the Ukrainian crew to debrief on the the first day of camp over some hot coffee. Watching them converse was a very different experience compared to our culture back home. They are all very forward with their opinions, often talking over one-another to convey ideas. In the States, this might spark controversy, but everyone here reacted with grace and intrigue at every idea. The Ukrainians and Romanians are admirable problem solvers and will dive boldly into any problem to get it fixed.

After eating some breakfast and sitting in on chapel, we headed down to the soccer field for our first game of the day: "Air Raid". In this game, one team would attempt to run across the field without getting hit by dodge balls the other teams would be throwing. The only catch came from the muddy state of the field; it was a chaotic slip-n-slide campers had to dash across, adding to the fun.

Today's afternoon brought another fun activity modeled after the board game: "Settlers of Catan". Campers would go to different stations around the property and compete in challenges to collect resource cards. They would then turn in the resources to score their team some points. Our team's role in this was to cause strife by chasing the teens around with pool noodles, stealing resource cards from everyone we hit. Unfortunately for us, it did not take long for the campers to exhaust their fear of us. Instead they began to chase us and steal our noodles. Overall, the game was a ton of fun and allowed us to participate in plenty of good memories the kids will have looking back on.

The day ended with one last chapel session and some small fire pits Jim and the rest of us set up for the campers to do devotionals around. Most of us couldn't quite get ours to light right away, but the counselors came out to save our fires. Once our jobs were taken over, we did a quick debrief, then headed inside to take some much needed showers and hit the hay!

- Jackson for the team