God is good.  It’s Saturday and the week has flown by.  I’m amazed at how well things went this past week, and I know it’s only because God showed up and his Spirit filled in the holes that we weren’t expecting.

 

First of all, I have to start off by thanking God for our team.  This team is full of amazing people who astound me everyday with their hearts for God and their surrender to Him.  They are humble and loving people.  Everyday I’m thankful for their flexibility and spontaneity.  This is the first team to do this type of trip, and I’m grateful for their willingness to go with the flow and my sometimes lack-of-plan way of doing things.  They are people that truly love to laugh, and I’ve never laughed so hard in one week ever.  We are silly and joyful people, and I’m glad for the group I’m spending this time with and sharing these experiences.

 

Secondly, the camp this week has been far better than I ever expected.  This week the group of kids we had were 10 and under, which means our oldest child was 9 and our youngest was 5 or 6.  I really expected that the camp would wildly flop, that all the kids would be bored out of their mind, not learn anything and hate us.  However that is hardly the case and I’m happy that we’ve had a different result.  I’ve seen teachers make a genuine connection with their kids, and the kids love the heck out of their teachers.  We’ve seen an amazing increase in the kids’ confidence in speaking English, and even the youngest can have a short conversation in English.  It’s very exciting to see the kids grow and interact with us.

 

Next week we have kids 10 and older, and I have to admit that I fear we might be under-prepared.  I came expecting the older kids to be at a basic English level, but based on the group this week, we will have to prepare new material this weekend to be able to offer a camp that will grow and challenge the group next week.

 

Keep praying that God’s Spirit speaks to us and fills us with His wisdom as we head forward into next week not knowing what to expect.  I thank God each and every day for the people who have supported this trip both financially and through prayer.  Your support means the world to me and the others on my team.  Thank you for partnering with us.

 

Much love, Jackie