The children’s camp at Refilwe has had its ups and downs. We started camp on Monday morning. We weren’t sure how many to expect, so we prayed for God to bring the children to us. As many of you know, God is in the business of answering prayers. On Monday we planned for about 100 children, but over 200 showed up! While this is such a wonderful answer to prayer, it was slightly overwhelming with the staff-to-children ratio. Jessie and I led the oldest group of kids. They were all supposed to be about twelve to thirteen-years-old, but we ended up having a group of 23 twelve to seventeen-year-olds!
Honestly, Monday was pretty rough. The kids were fairly disrespectful and wouldn’t listen to us. It broke our hearts because Jessie and I could tell that they just wanted attention from men. They didn’t listen very well when we were sharing the Bible with them. After debriefing with the whole team after camp was over on Monday, we rearranged some of the staff and prayed that today would run more smoothly.
Our prayers were answered yet again! Sean joined Jessie and I so that we had a male presence, and they would hopefully show more respect to us. Today was also the day we shared the full out Gospel with them and gave them the opportunity to give their lives over to Christ. At the beginning of our discussion time with the kids, we learned that about half of them did not understand English well. Somehow we missed that after a full day of discussion yesterday. One of the girls offered to translate for us, but there were two different languages other than English spoken, so we had to have another boy translate as well. I would speak for a little bit it English, it would be translated into Setswana, and then that would be translated into Xhosa (there are clicks in that language, very fun to listen to!). With the translation, the kids were so much more attentive and receptive. Go figure, they could now understand what was being said!
Today we told the kids how they could accept Jesus into their hearts. When all of the groups met in a large group at the end of the day, Steve, the main camp director, asked if any of the children had accepted Jesus into their hearts. Several of the children in our group raised their hands. I don’t know if this was a true acceptance or if they just raised their hands because they felt like it was the right thing to do. But you know what, that’s not my place to judge. I shared with them what I felt God placing on my heart; that’s all I can do. God is the one who does the work anyway.
Please continue to keep these kids in your prayers. After camp today, a few of us visited their homes at a nearby squatter camp (blog to follow). My heart is completely broken for these kids.
