Well, just a few days ago we arrived back from Montana. We spent almost a week at a camp and then we spent another…almost a week at a Day Vacation Bible School. For the camp part we had the privilege of staying with the Carolls and with the family that Janelle and Coralie stayed with last year, Tom and Anne. It was a great time there. At camp, there wasn’t many people who showed up, but I knew a good number of them and because there weren’t many of us we were able to have everyone hanging out a lot of the time.
The weird thing was that, even though it was June, they had been having a lot of rain. Then when we started up the camp, it snowed. Not just the little wimpy snow either. It was that fat, wet, thick snow. We got near 6 inches in total. As such, we were freezing often in the Hall where we had been meeting for chapels. It was a long log cabin with holes through it here and there. One thing I liked about it was a big fireplace in the side of the hall. While we were all standing around the fireplace trying to stay warm, Dave Caroll (camp director guy) lamented the fact that most of the heat was actually going up the chimney. Not missing a beat, Dylan (who I might add has been VTI’s biggest fan for years) spoke up, “Let’s block up the chimney!!” It was a lot of fun being at camp. While it was snowing the rest of the week we eventually moved everything into the dining hall. We did EVERYTHING in there. Chapel, eating, board games, music, talking, movies, cup stackers… It was great. I even learned how to play Axis & Allies (it’s a WW2 board game that’s pretty complicated) while I was there.
After camp, and right before we left Tom and Anne’s, Tom and Dave took, Rhys, Karina, and myself out to some random road with a small valley between us and the next hillside. He brought with us a 30odd6 and a gun that was a little less powerful. In any case, we had fun trying to shoot some rocks. Being that I had never shot anything bigger than a pellet gun, it was a pretty big shock. We had a great time though and it was an experience that I will probably never have up here in Canada.
After that we went to Ulm, Montana. It’s a really small town about an hour and a half south of the border near Great Falls. Last year, Ulm was our first stop in the USA. It was nice ending there and again seeing some old faces. We even met another few kids from camp last year. I realized around then how tired I really was. When I sleep now, I can sleep a lot longer and soak it up like a sponge. As such, this week I’ve really tried to get a little more sleep this week because GAP teams are coming up very soon. Karina and I were briefed a little on our trip that’s coming up and I know it’s going to be a stretching experience. I thought we had to be flexible in Russia! It’s going to be a whole new experience… In fact, I don’t think VTI has ever sent a team there yet, so we’re going to be treading on fresh turf. Actually, Rhys and Janelle will be too, they’re going to Rwanda and I don’t know if VTI has ever sent a team there either.
So, what this all means is that in the next while Karina and myself will be closely watching some videos that Mark brought back of how to pronounce the words of certain songs and say certain phrases. We have to see if we can learn how to say these things to some extent so that we can teach the kids who are coming in less than a week. It’s pretty crazy stuff!
And that brings us to now I think. I’m in the van again driving towards Calgary to practice more Hungarian. I feel for Rhys and Janelle even more… they have to learn some French AND Kinyarwanda… that will be stretching for them I’m sure too.
Please be praying that we will do our best as we get ready for GAP teams and that God will not only be stretching and showing new things to us and to the kids, but that God would really do some awesome stuff in the lives of the people we’ll be with overseas… and the many orphans we’ll be with while we’re in the Hungary area.
Grace and Peace to you all! Fare thee well.
