"We gotta do something different."
Cory is tired from living in the forest for 2 weeks and I'm tired of him living in the forest for 2 weeks too.
And then, somewhere between the middle of the summer and the end, something shifts in our perspective. And by the end of the summer we are talking about how we can do more next year than we did that year.
We start making lists of what could be better.
We start thinking about which churches could bring teams.
We start thinking about how we can reach more kids.
It happens every summer.
We go from feeling exhausted and done to exhausted and fired up.
And I think this summer, this week shifted my perspective.
The camp this week is made of of kids entirely from our city of Pogradec. There are about 60 of them.
5 years ago when we did our first summer camp in Albania, there were 6 boys from Pogradec.
The first summer we did one camp. The second summer we did 2. Since then, we have done between 3 and 5 every summer.
This year, with Jr. High and High school combined, there were a total of 160 kids from Pogradec at camp.
I can't do the math on that, but that is an insane rate of growth. 6 to 160.
But what is more striking than the rate of growth is the spiritual growth.
We now have a group of leaders in our church. A group of students that serve and work and invite and reach out. And they are "staff" at camp this week.
Most of them got saved 3 years ago or less.
And what makes it so amazing to me is that they didn't grow up around church. They didn't grow up around morality. They didn't grow up even hearing the name of Christ.
They grew up celebrating Muslim holidays and wondering why Allah was mean and unfeeling. Or they grew up believing in nothing at all.
But now, they have real, true, deep relationships with the Lord. They are asking real questions. They are living out their faith in real ways.
And they are serving. And I think this has grown them in a way that is hard to describe.
They have a sense of ownership. They care because they are invested.
They have served in VBS for the younger kids. They have done bible studies with the Jr. Highers. They have spent hours decorating the church for Easter and Christmas. They have cleaned and worked at the sound board and taught Sunday school lessons.
And all the while they are being trained and equipped. This summer they are going through a book on Nehemiah together.
So what they are learning, is being immediately put into practice. There is no lull. There is no waiting for them to become spiritual giants.
Even those with minimal knowledge can set the table for dinner. They can wash dishes at camp. They can learn what it means to be a part of the body, no matter what part you are.
And while there is ministry taking place all year long, this week of camp is condensed and intense and focused in a way that can't be recreated in any other way.
And so when I saw those kids this week, that 3 years ago came to Christ, I remembered why we do this.
I remembered why we spend the time and the money and the resources to take hundreds of kids camping in the middle of the Albanian forest.
I remembered why we partner with churches from America and convince them again, to come camp in the middle of the Albanian forest.
I am reminded to pray for my husband on as he speaks every night at every camp this summer to hundreds of Albanian kids about the promises of God in the Bible.
And I am reminded to not feel sorry for myself when my kids are tired and cranky because they're sick of me :) Cory is their favorite by a long shot.
And I am reminded of the summer, 5 years ago, when Cory and I first came to Albania, engaged (to be married) and ready for whatever God wanted to do with us.
And around the 3rd day at camp we passed each other and all we said was "This is awesome." We loved Albania, we loved the people, we loved their hunger for Christ and we loved watching God change lives.
And that was it for us. We never really talked about it again. We kept taking the next step until we found ourselves getting off the plane in Tirana 2 years later with all of our stuff and our 5 month old baby.
And if you could have told me all that God would do since that day I would never have believed you.
I cannot believe how many lives we have watched God change.
I cannot believe what He is doing here.
And it is an incredible privilege.
So here is the part in the summer where I start brainstorming all the ways we can follow up with all the kids that have been reached this summer and all the ways we can reach more next year.
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| First Camp 2012 |
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| Pogradec Jr. High 2017 |
