Junior High Camp - Day Two

Another day in Turgen!!! So thankful to have such a good team of workers with us. Tom and Michelle have been great assistance in the kitchen, helping with the fires, water fetching, sandwich making, dish washing. . . Marina has organized a fabulous games and recreation program and is keeping the youth volunteers focused and busy. Marlen and Aselia are natural youth leaders, too - Marlen is a riot, playing games and interacting with the kids as well as splitting the devotional talks with Dan. Aselia is a wonderful small group leader and care-taker of so many, answering the emotional and physical needs of these young people. And Dan is keeping it all together with talk-giving, fire-building, water-fetching, capture-the-flag referee-ing, task-dividing. . . It is wonderful to see and feel the body of Christ in action!We started off the day with another large group meeting, followed by small discussion groups. A group of girls worked to get some energy going in "Rayoni-Kvartali". . . Wake up, campers!!

After our discussion groups, the kids spent the morning and early afternoon doing adventure ropes - climbing the rock wall and crossing the river on a zip-line! Exciting stuff!!!

The ropes were set by our alpinist friend, Vasya, who was with us last week at camp. For the zip-line, Dan attached the kids on one side of the river and Marlen "caught" them on the other, detaching their safey harness and sending it back on the pulley. Because the kids were shorter than the high school/college crew last week, the zip-line had to be set a little lower. Thus, there was a small tree in the way of their landing. Marlen was careful to catch each kid so they wouldn't end up with large hip bruises (like Daniel did as the guinea pig/safety inspector).
After all the kids had gone, I took my own turn zipping across the river. It was so much fun that I ran back to camp and talked Marina and Michelle into coming and taking a turn. Nervously, they agreed. Marina zipped across just fine, then it was Michelle's turn. She got hooked up and started her zip. Suddenly, she found herself in the river!!! What a shock to all of us! Thankfully, she was not hurt as the water was deep enough and the safety line had indeed caught her and kept her from being swept down the river. As we examined the sequence of events, we determined what must have happened. Marlen, afraid of Michelle hitting the tree, had pushed the rope so that she would be steered clear of it. One of the major rules in this type of zip-line, however, is NEVER touch the rope under pressure. Thus, there was a quick release and Michelle went for a swim! We were so thankful that Michelle was okay and that this teaching lesson occurred with an adult and not a camper on the line!!After a hot lunch, the kids went out to the field for races. The best was the speed-eating watermelon relay. You could use these kids for fruit and vegetable juicers, so much excess juice was flowing out of their mouths. It was quite entertaining to watch!

And then some water relays. . .Which turned into an all-out water war. . .

Daniel's weapon of choice was a bucket:

What an imp (but a lovable imp). . .

A near miss. . .

Allison was feeling pretty good about that!

But not for long!

When the sun went behind the high hills, it suddenly got VERY cold and the water games came to an end. After everyone dried off, Daniel divided the campers into teams and gave them materials for a technology project - protecting a raw egg with all the given materials so that the egg could be dropped from a height of at least three meters and remain whole. The kids got to work and came up with a number of different designs.

The eggs were dropped from increasing heights and still remained whole!

Then, games of soccer were played with the protected packages and STILL three out of four eggs were unbroken. Which team would win the grand prize??? Daniel asked for the teams to pick representatives who could elaborate on the reasons why their design was best and why they should be the ones to win the coveted prize.

After these young campers gave their speeches, Daniel asked for the team leaders come up to be awarded the prize. These girls are ALL smart enough to know what was coming at that moment.

And look, Allison won the GRAND PRIZE!!!

What a great sport she is!!

And Daniel was a big enough man to give her an egg for pay-back. . .

That felt good, at least for a second. . .

Of course, there were THREE eggs. . .

My wonderful children!!! Great sports and great leaders. The campers thought this was the funniest thing ever! And we did give Allison the pot of water which had been heated for evening tea so that she could wash the double-egg-mask out of her hair!