Day 1 of Camp

      The first day of camp and it was CRAZY!  We're doing two camps:  one in the morning for the kids at Eagle's Nest and one in the afternoon for the kids from the village who come to the Manna Feeding program.   This morning we knew roughly how many kids we had, which helped us divide them into 3 groups to rotate through music, games and crafts.  Probably the highlight of the morning was starting with worship.  Jared did an amazing job leading in Spanish, Caleb played guitar and Tammy gave a beautiful devotion.  It was very stirring to worship in Spanish.  The first day is hard, because you figure out who you have, what their ability and attention span is and if you have planned enough to keep them occupied.  So we all had to bend and flex. . . but the kids had a great time.  The older kids especially loved learning percussion with Jared.  In God's providence, there is a wonderful family here for the week and the father and son are drummers. . . so they were very helpful! 
    We finished by 12, had lunch at 12:30 and then had to re-group for our afternoon camp at 2:00.  The tricky part was not knowing how many kids would come.  All schools are closed this week, so that means that many of the village kids are needed to help their parents during the week.  While they usually have 60 kids attend, today there were just 30. . . but they were a great group.  We  just divided them into two groups and mixed the ages so family groups could stay together.  It worked beautifully and those kids LOVED every activity we did with them.  Many of them had come to the CCG camp last year and remembered us, which was sweet!  Because the village kids have fewer cultural opportunities, they were super receptive and enthusiastic and our entire team loved working with them.
   By 4:00 we were finished and ready for siestas. . . although some of us (i.e. the teenagers) had the energy to keep going.  Beth went and held babies in the orphanage for 3 hours!  Caleb, Audrey and Madeline played cops and robbers with the Patlan kids and the orphanage kids all over the grounds.  I loved seeing the spontaneous interactions!