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Summer camp June 2nd-15th
The first of the summer camps was held in the Moscow region, 42 children attended the camp. The Director and leaders of the camp were all Russian so this presented a challenge for me in daily communication. I had responsibility at the camp for the girl’s health and their general well being. Thankfully we had no big health problems the main difficulty we encountered on a daily basis were the mosquitoes and few people managed to avoid these including myself. Despite their daily persistence everyone enjoyed the time there.
During the camp I had the opportunity to spend time with many of the kids playing sports, watching movies, at meals times. We had a lot of fun trying to communicate and I began to understand love is not bound by our ability to communicate with words.
One girl that caught my attention was Lilya she was 13 and came from an orphanage she stood out from the rest of the girls, her face didn’t show any particular expression and in the first days we did not see her smile at all. Lilya did not want to get involved in any of the games and many times she wandered away from her group. But during the time in camp something changed with Lilya we began to see her smile more often, with encouragement she began to get involved. I believe it was because of the love she was shown.
Svetya aged 8 was very shy and closed at the beginning of camp she was not comfortable with hugs and would hide her face sometimes when people were talking to her .Over the ten days she also began to open up and became very affectionate .She would take our hands when we went to dinner and she gave me a gift of a mouse that she had made in crafts.
On our last night we had a bonfire, all the kids were asked what the liked/disliked about the camp many of the children told how the liked the leaders, the games, the food and the new friends they had made.
One boy’s response really touched my heart, he said that he had made a new friend in Jesus, he said he was very happy because he knew God loved him.
Jenifer Karson
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