Wingapo friends!
Many of you read the blog my mom wrote when she came to visit in Romania. She did a great job explaining that week, so I won’t make you listen to the same thing twice.
Before my mom joined us, my team was several hours north of our meet up place at a place called Friendship Camp. Friendship camp is a camp designed for low-income families (or too many kids for the income families) to have a way to go to summer camp.
It is up in the mountains; it has beautiful scenery, and not much else around. Perfect for summer camp! In the Ukraine we were constantly around people. We ate at their houses, we talked in the square, we visited schools, we hosted a school, between classes we talked to teachers, between that we talked to students. It allowed us to connect to the people and the culture of the Ukraine deeply. But it also left us exhausted.
In contrast, in Romania, for most of the time we were around our host Callum (the camp director) and not much else. Camp had not started yet, so there were no kids. For the first two or three days another team was there as well, then they left. Sometimes the neighbor would come by and wave.
This left us with lots of time with each other an our thoughts. A lot of the work that was around was odd jobs (organizing, cleaning, breaking down broken chairs), with occasional team jobs (painting, plastering, panting, clearing weeds), and the heavy work with power tools (building the challenge course, backing the basketball goals, assembling the tepees). So either you got really close to your friend or you were spending some quality time with yourself.
This time rarely felt good. Afterwards it would make a good laugh or story, but a lot of the conversations that were had (self or with others) were about the ways that we were growing with the Lord. For most of us that was a growing season that may not have been the most fun, but the memories and connections with each other that came from it were pretty great.
For our season of going out, there was a season of going in to match. The Lord knows exactly what we need, when we need, and how we need it. His provision is beyond what we can grasp, and all the more beautiful in reflection. What has God provided you with in difficult seasons?
