Thursday, July 13, 2017

Camp Day 6 from Paulette Sievert

Dear Friends and Family at Timberwood,

It is July 13, 2017. Day eleven on the “Poland Express”, where each day begins before yours in the United States and is filled to capacity at every turn. This is Paulette Sievert writing tonight.

I know that every day only holds twenty-four hours, yet when you are here, it feels like there must be at least seventy-two. It is like when the little boy who brought the fishes and loaves lunch to Jesus when a crowd needed to get fed, and he made it enough to feed the masses. Somehow, Jesus makes MORE out of what we give Him as a team. And when I say “team” you need to know that it includes the Polish team that works along side of us in every aspect of making this time for the twelve to twenty year old’s unique, memorable, inspirational and definitely filled with fun.

Here are some snapshots (We have a photography theme going for the English portion of our camp so this is fitting) of our Thursday.

            Morning devotions with our English speaking friends happens right afterstrong coffee, eggs,     
            sausage, sliced tomatoes, curdy cheese, bread and some
            added tasty condiments of Nutella and peanut butter. Today the focus was
            Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in   your heart that 
            God raised him from the dead, you will be saved:”

            Backpacks filled with what you will need for the entire day and evening.
            Walk to school, fill water bottles, greet students, put lessons together.

            English classes: Today we played Bingo with vocabulary from previous lessons. Words like 
            focus, zoom, composition and the like. The students
            can’t get enough of Bingo. They love it! One guy had never played.

            Part of the joy of teaching English, is that there is such fun in discovering
            your student’s personalities and in watching them act out things, write
            a perspective about a project, and become relaxed in sharing a photo they    have taken as a 
            group. Some of these photos are perfect examples of what
            the English camp is designed to do. I hope you get to see some of them
            later on.

            Then we have lunch brought in, play card games, sports games. Today was    Squat Ball. You 
            should see Noah fly across the court and back in his sporty  
            Bandana! There are all sorts of icebreakers (Abby made it to the finals in
            blowing a decent bubble for her team.) Plus, we always do the Camp Dance
            , Feelin It, by Toby Mac and we are all getting pretty good at making the         moves ROCK!

            A Scavenger Hunt around Skoczów that included giving video footage of
            bouquet that we had made away to someone and conducting an interview,
            were all just one aspect of this crazy day and we haven’t even gotten
            to the evening program where I get to run around and create more
            excitement about the scores each of teams are building.

            The best part of our day was yet to come. Here we get to be intentional
            in sharing God’s word with a personal testimony by Pati M. on how
            Jesus helped her to overcome drug use in her life. She is preparing to
            be a doctor and I saw her earlier that evening rebandaging one of the
            Polish team’s fingers he split open earlier this week when he was
            trying to repair a microphone.

            The worship music led by Kris, Kon and Emily all help us to hear God
            better and after Abby shared the gospel, the students were invited to
            go to different stations called the Labyrinth for personal reflection on what sin does to our     
            hearts and how the power of Christ’s sacrifice gives us forgiveness.
           
            The students responded in different ways- but we know that the gospel was preached and that  
            God will continue to use that in their lives. He is at work here!
            After a day at camp,  we had a meal back at the church and a review of the   day session, we 
            reflected as a team on how amazing God’s good news is forall of us.

Well, the bells on the church are ringing and the dog that usually barks at night must have fallen asleep. (The best roommate in the world who will make you laugh until your gut splits, Deb, is asleep.) I think Pete is waiting for the computer to send
Photos for tomorrow’s activities and so I need to say “Good Night.”


Thanks for all of your prayers.  We have needed every single one.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for the update, Paulette! I'm so excited for the work your team is doing, to love these people, teach them some valuable content, and share the gospel! Thank you, each of you team members, for your willingness to make the trip, get out of your comfort zones, perhaps even use up some vacation time, to serve these folks!

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  2. So happy to hear of each day's events and feel the energy being poured into theses students. Praying for continued strength to finish well! Miss you

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  3. Your days are so full & we can feel the love you all have... for the people, the "work" you are doing & the fun you are having. God bless each of you & bring you safely home at the end of your physical and spiritual journey.
    "...for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose."
    Philippians 2:13 NIV

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