Camp El Rancho

For the past week I’ve had the privilege to work at a Christian Camp called El Rancho in Waikanae, New Zealand (I am pointing to it on the map). The camp’s director is a wonderful man of God, Rob Namba and his wife Jen. They are from California and moved here with there three boys about 8 months ago. They immediately made us feel at home. I was so excited this was our first ministry. I love working with kids and I was praying that we were going to have a great experience while we were here. I was also excited to see how a children’s camp is run in another country. We recieved a such a warm welcome when we arrived. There was a welcome dinner, which included cultural, tribal traditions. We were then introduced to the staff we’d be working with for the week (Kiwi’s/New Zealander’s who were between the ages of 15-19). We then spent a couple days of training before our campers arrived for the week.

I was in a cabin with five girls all who were 10 years old and two co-counselors, one of my teammates, Kendall Hawley and a Kiwi, Gabby who is actually from Romania, but has been living here for the past two years.

At El Rancho, they pair one girls cabin with one boys cabin to form a team (we were the Tsunamis) to compete in different activities throughout the week. So along with my cabin of girls, (Christi, Yvonne, Sophie, Alesha & Tiffany) I met three great boys (TK, Stephan & Zach) as well. We had a great week and I was so proud of all the kids. Many of the kids at camp committed their lives to Christ this week. It was such an exciting week. Our three boys even brought their Bibles to the rock climbing wall to read while they waited for their turn, it was great!