English Camp

This past week I had the privilege to work with these beautiful people running and teaching an English Camp for 100 local teenagers.

We taught english.

We sang and danced together.

We played basketball, baseball, & American football.

We decorated prayer journals, made picture frames & tie-dyed shirts.

We became friends.

My class and co-teacher.

Neighborhood kids have the best smiles.

Even though the week did not turn out exactly how everyone expected, God's blessing was present.

Here are just a few of the many blessings I witnessed:

• None of us know very much french, but that never seemed to be a problem.
• It was awesome to get to witness the unity within the team; many of us come from different states, towns, or churches and our ages cover a range of generations.
• About 26 students came to know Jesus during the week and the students were constantly asking if we could sing the worship songs again and again.

1 Timothy 4:12

For the past few days I helped out at a youth retreat for some of the international kids who participate in the local youth group, WIRED (Walking In Righteousness Every Day), here in Ouaga.

A lot of these students are missionary kids and are constantly saying ‘hellos’ and ‘good-byes.‘ This camp provided an end of the year opportunity to hang out all together before a few girls head off to Ghana, a few families return to the States, and a few students graduate. They not only got to hang out all together, but they also got messy, got dirty, played silly games, went swimming, ate, and worshiped God together.

Only having known them for a short time, I was amazed at their great faith. They were constantly seeking out God and how their lives and their futures would bring glory to Him. They weren’t afraid to ask hard questions or search for the answers.

There was one game they liked to play at the pool: Jump or Dive. A few people would start running toward the pool to jump in and and then someone else would yell out ‘Jump‘ or ‘Dive‘ (or anything that came to mind in that moment) and the people jumping in would have to try to enter the pool in that fashion. (When ‘bellyflop‘ was yelled you could tell they hadn’t thought it completely through before hitting the water).

It was quite funny to watch. It was also neat because at one point one of the kids pointed out that we had 6 continents represented in the game. Talk about cross-cultural relationships.

I’m excited for their futures and all that they will accomplish. God is at work everywhere.

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Prayer:
For all the young students I met this past week.
For my itchiness; I have a bunch of bug bites.