Getting placed in a kids summer camp almost felt like such a natural transition for me. As a few of you may or my not know I have worked with youth groups for about 3 years during college (although I worked with high school students). Now we get about 115 new kids a week, ages 6-13 from all over Albania. Many of the kids live in very poor impoverished areas of the country. I feel so honored to get to serve them and give them a taste of Gods love and normal childhood fun with no worries of responsibility. It broke my heart to find out one of the boys last week was summoned out of camp by his father because the boy needed to come home and watch his family's cows. Many of these kids have responsibilities such as these because the animals become a families livelihood. Again, I am so excited for these next few weeks because I get to love on kids, and have them teach me Albanian. (Yep I'm learning a ton of it!)
During the camp kids get to do things like archery, obstacle course, tennis, rock climbing, soccer, crafts, swimming and a bunch of other fun stuff. Our job is to assist the teachers in the activities since we cant fully communicate with the kids. I have found it so interesting how even though we can't communicate the kids are so craving love and affection. I think the Albanian culture is very affectionate as it is but it is so sweet to see the kids get excited to see you and run over and hug you even if they have only played with you a day or two.
As you can tell life here is not roughing it at all and we are all very grateful for it! We get beds, meals and cold showers (cold showers are better than no showers, so be grateful for your HOT WATER!!). Usually, once we get into our country we would divide into our teams of 6 and 7 and each go to different ministry sites for the month. This month we were able to stay together as a squad and do ministry together which is an experience in itself as we also get to know one another more personally. Any who, I will try to upload photos soon.
Over and out from a table in the pizzeria in Albaina,
<3 Janice
PS. Please pray for our safety, along with the US Troops who have recently deployed.
