Grace in the Midst of a Storm

The last week of camp begins today and as I start packing up my bags again I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for what to expect. This summer is supposed to be for on-the-job learning about ministry and I certainly have been getting that. It can be difficult to process what I observe and experience and somehow this blog seems to ask me to write about what I've processed and that's a big part of why I haven't written it until now. I don't really know what I've learned so far - other than this: ministry is challenging and I need the grace of God to keep going. The first week of camp was full of challenges and if I listed them all, you'd just think I was complaining... and you'd be right, so I won't. Just trust me that I was stretched physically, emotionally, spiritually and linguistically. We had a group of about 15 girls who came from broken backgrounds and they displayed their hurts in the form of very tough shells. They didn't want to be there with us, they didn't especially want to follow rules, and I think they believed that they weren't wanted there. Our challenge was to keep reaching out to them, keep trying to show them love, to not give up on them. That's where the grace came in... each time I thought I could not go on and I was ready to walk the 100 or so km back to Sibiu something would happen that would give me hope or (in the case of the boys from the other group at the camp - this was one of the challenges - spraying me with water when I was already dealing with a lot of frustration) something would happen that would wake me up to realize that it's not all about me and what I'm dealing with. It took me by surprise when the girls responded... with just a few days left, after we had taken a few girls who didn't want to be there home and also had the camp to ourselves, they opened up and let us in. My first surprise was when one of the tough girls leaned her head on my shoulder and told me she would miss me. I helped another girl fill her bag when we went blueberry picking in the mountains and teased her a little about her blueberry "lipstick." She was a girl who I had been trying to reach out to and include in activities and social time, and that night she also let her hard shell slip. When we took them home she kissed me (Romanian style) on both cheeks and smiled a genuine, real smile. She was one of the few who wanted a Bible of her own. Grace breaks through walls. Grace keeps us going in the midst of troubles so overwhelming that they are the stories worth telling our kids someday. The second week of camp was very different. When we picked up the kids - this time teenage girls and boys - we assessed the situation and didn't see the hard shells. We thought it would be easier. It was harder. Unlike the last group, these were church kids... but they were also spoiled kids. They knew better, but didn't care. The first rule the kids got (before the vans even left their hometown) was that after 11pm the lights were to be off and there was to be silence in the rooms. They agreed to it. If all of the kids and workers were not staying on the same hallway we wouldn't care so much, but we are and the walls are thin. At 2am the first night we were still having to get up and tell them to shush and stay in their rooms. The next day they cleaned the entire camp. Curfews, schedules, and respect were all a problem for them even after that. These were not the underprivileged kids who were supposed to be at the camp, which was designed to be a week of mentoring. But they were kids who needed a bit of mentoring... unfortunately crowd control was what we had to address first, until after the second night that they couldn't be quiet. That was when they learned (hopefully) that sometimes grace looks like consequences. We all went home early that week. Stephanie and Leslie talked with the kids, who made that choice themselves. We had threatened them with going home if they didn't follow the rules and we had to stand by that, but the kids decided that if we had to send one of them home, then all of them had to go home. The week wasn't a failure - and there were moments of grace in it just as in the last one, where the kids opened up and we were able to talk with them, pray with them, sing with them and enjoy time with them. But they learned a mentoring lesson tougher than the ones we had planned to teach them. They learned that character means standing by your word and that consequences follow actions. This week we are changing the plan a little bit, so that we don't have to be the teachers, mentors, friends, and after-hours hallway police. We have just girls again, which is a very good thing. I'll be focusing on crafts and ESL, which hopefully will leave me enough time to actually sleep at night and connect with the girls during the day. Please pray for us, that the camp will go well and be a fruitful time of reaching out to these girls, who (hopefully) are the underprivileged group that Stephanie and Leslie had wanted to work with. Please pray that the Lord's grace will be poured out over them and us this week. Until next week, Lydia

Playing Uno with some of our group and the other group the first week

 On a walk after one of the rainy days

Group picture the last day of the first week

Everybody wants to see the pictures!