July 11th Field Trip Day

Czesh from our ninth day of the Poland trip. Today was different because instead of another day of English Camp we had our field trip day. The field trip is designed to break up the days of camp and to start conversations with the campers. The end goal of the field trip is to connect campers with people in the Polish youth group. The field trip was supposed to be a hike up a “small mountain” (words that I’ve heard before and been deceived by), hang out at the top, roast sausages and take a train back down the mountain. This morning there was an eighty percent chance of rain so the plans changed. We took a bus to a mall and the campers watched the new Minion movie. We (the Americans) had the option to watch the movie with them but because it was in Polish, 3-D, and the fact that I personally have a large amount of disdain for the Minions (whoops), we decided to hangout in the mall. After the movie was done we took the bus to where a hiking trail starts and we started walking. We walked quite a far way, everyone spurring conversations with campers. We eventually walked by H2O (Josiah Venture’s headquarters) and made it to a stopping point by the river. Everyone ate lunch and Domi brought us ice cream from H2O. In the distance there were some real ominous storm clouds that started moving fast, eventually they hit and it started raining.

*Side note, if no one else has mentioned it we are on the first floor and almost every night/morning we are woken by people smoking, yelling, and playing bad Polish music in the courtyard that is right outside our windows. As I’m writing this in the lobby I look out and see EMT’s attending to one of the fellows in the courtyard and police arrive, hopefully the problem of being too loud is now solved.

            Anyway, it rained for a bit and stopped and I had a great conversation with a camper named Daniel. He is 17 and we had a lot in common, we talked about school, church, economics, Google, music, driving, cars and eventually camp. Once we started talking about camp I asked what he liked and disliked. He said he liked everything except the evening program, which includes worship, testimonies, Abby’s talk and cell groups. It was a hard pill to swallow for me because that’s the most important part of camp in my opinion. He goes to a religious school and said that he hears too much about religion there so he is bored of it at camp. I know God can change his heart and I’ve been praying about it a good amount so if you could too I would very much appreciate it. It eventually started to pour and now everyone has soaking wet shoes. The Holy Spirit has been working in many ways big and small such as Pete encouraging me to buy some shoes at the mall. If that hadn’t happened I would either be sloshing around in my wet shoes tomorrow or I would be wearing dress shoes to camp.

            Camp is going well overall, I’m very excited to see what God is going to do with these kids, it’s awesome. Peace and blessings, I miss you all very much. Love you guys, continue praying for God to keep showing up in big ways.

~Kon