slovakia, part 9: our mission-relationships and camp

well hey there, friends! welcome back. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend.

so today I want to share some details with you about what we were DOING while in Slovakia. our main goal, purpose, mission....all those good words.

primarily, from the beginning, the goal was to build relationships. Mr. Hayward laid the relationships out this way:

-a relationship between us (individually) and God
-a relationship between us and the other team mates
-a relationship between us and the kids

one of my favorite parts was that we ate together every night

one morning I got up at 5:30 to have my Jesus time and sat in the window seat. it was so peaceful

me, Hutch, Emily and Paul studied James 1 together with Mr. Lou and Mrs. Sue

I would say we accomplished the relationship goal.

our next mission was the VBS/English camp. so I'll talk about that now....

every morning we got to the school around 8:00 a.m, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later...it all depended on who you rode with! we all gathered in the "Hawaii" room to prepare for the day. we would have a devotional, led by Mr. Hayward, Pica and Mr. Lou and then we would pray, write out our kids' name tags, drink Kofola, and just chat. then we would proceed out into the hallways to greet the kids as they arrived.

we would all eventually make our way into the "Slovakia" room. we all assembled there every morning. we sang songs, maybe played a game, prayed and then we would split up into our individual groups.

there was a morning rotation and an afternoon rotation. throughout the morning my group of kids went to three different classrooms: crafts, Bible, then English. they ate a snack in between crafts and Bible, then had a fifteen minute break in between Bible and English. they usually used the break to try and run away from me and cause as much trouble as possible.

so that's how morning rotation worked. then at 12:15 we all went downstairs and ate lunch in the cafeteria. yep, 62 Slovak children eating in the same room with all the leaders. it was loud, to say the very least. but it was always a good time of the day. I had to sit at the table with my kiddos while they ate their lunch and Zsolt and Brian would take turns feeding me bites of their lunch until I could get my own plate. sweet, evil boys...

and then afternoon rotation would start. it involved inside relays, outside activities and crafts. I kind of floated during this time. a couple of days I helped Gabby lead the youngest kids around, one day I worked in crafts, one day I helped in relays. it all depended on where I was most needed. the afternoons always seemed longer than the mornings. finally, 3:15 would roll round and we would all meet back up in the Slovakia room for closing. we would sing, play a game, and then the kids all ran downstairs. this was the hardest part of the day. 

we were each in charge of making sure that our children were delivered to their aunt, grandpa, mom, dad, sister, whoever...and not letting them escape. I DON'T SPEAK SLOVAK. my children didn't cut me any slack here either, because they were all very ready to go home. it was a stressful process, but none of my kids ever got kidnapped, so it all turned out alright.

and then all of the leaders would go to the Hawaii room and eat some sort of  snack and drink Kofola and talk over the day. we would discuss what had gone well and what hadn't, and if anything could be changed for the next day. it was really so nice and relaxing to just sit for a while.

and those were two of the reasons we went...but you'll have to come back to hear more...