Day 6 - July 25: The Long Day

The sun at this latitude begins to come up around 4:30 in the morning, and doesn’t set until 10:00. This makes for lots of opportunities for fun, and very long days. Such was today, were the leaders met for a morning lesson from our very own Jeremy around 7:30 before waking up the kids at 8:00. After a quick breakfast, we had our first worship/teaching session with Derek using Disney’s Toy Story as a theme. Because its a bit different for him to speak to the kids in English, he is only teaching in Welsh which makes the sermon quite difficult to follow. We try to nod approvingly and laugh appropriately, and we are learning as many words as possible, but we all have a L O N G way to go! During the first worship, Tomos Roberts-Young, a young man who was saved after camp last year, gave his testimony and did a fabulous job, and we celebrated Hannah Mac’s 22nd birthday! After a bit of free time, we immediately went into our teams of small groups of 2-3 boys with a couple of adult leaders. We used a series of questions developed by Derek and it generated a fantastic conversation in each group. In my group, we had a great discussion on whether we could earn our way to heaven with things like helping the poor, going to chapel, etc. We then looked at what the Bible has to say, and quickly realized there was nothing we could do on our own and that we desperately needed help because we are ALL sinners who have fallen outside of God’s design and need Christ. This generated some wonderful conversation and really gave the team a different perspective than they may have fully understood before. After small groups, these same teams enjoyed a Coleg y Bala scavenger hunt and lunch before meeting together for the first boys & girls time. For the boys, Jeremy Smith led a great lesson on what it means to be a man of God, while Tracy led a conversation on knowing we’re loved and understanding the reality of True Beauty. We continued the incredibly full agenda with a touch rugby tournament, featherball teams, a walk to central Bala for ice cream and back to the college for dinner. As you can tell, we’ve fit more into a camp day than I can possible relate, and the description above is only prelude to big activities of the day: team challenges. Each of the four teams spent the afternoon in 2 of the challenges (the remaining 2 will be completed tomorrow), and either developed a team poster (arts & crafts), built a bridge and egg parachute (engineering), performed a set of cultural songs (performance) or put together a play (movie). These went really well and were great fun for each team. Everyone was tired, but the final event of the night was still to come and would turn out to be one of the most remarkable experiences of our lives. After a few worship songs, our very own Nick Johnson got to present the Gospel at our nightly “Epilogue.” At the close, Nick ask for bowed head, closed eyes and a show of hands for those who wanted to give their lives to Christ or speak to someone about doing so. We prayed and raised our eyes, as Derek asked those who raised a hand to step out from the chapel to the sitting room next door. To everyone’s great astonishment, 38 of the 41 students stood from their chairs and marched out of the room to participate in counseling!! Now, of course, some number of these turned out to be children who saw the crowd or felt the pull of friends, but the work of the Lord was powerful and evident for all to see. This, obviously, posed an issue for our leadership team - one we were thrilled to address. Eventually, they split the girls up into two groups and walked them through another presentation of the Gospel with specific actions they could take if they were ready to give their lives to Christ. The boys had a enough for one-on-one conversations, and many - to their credit - understood enough to know they wanted to think about the decision a bit more. Amidst all this, a bat got into the dorm area and caused quite a stir; apparently, even the local wildlife wanted to come forward for a decision. (A “raiding party” made up of Aled Lloyd, Eistyn ap Hywel and others safely secured the bat, returned it to the outside and attempted to settle down the overly-excited children). At the end of the long, long night, we new of at least eight children giving their lives to Christ as their Lord and Savior…only our exhaustion kept us from a night-long celebration, but we understand that the angels carried on in our absence. Many others are close or want understand a bit more before making a final decision, and we expect another blessing tonight when Jeremy Smith offers the Gospel in his Epilogue.

Day 5 - July 24: Off to camp!

We can’t believe that camp is ACTUALLY here! We gathered ourselves and our luggage for an early pickup at the airport before driving across town to Capel Seion to meet the bus and the first group of kids. We met lots of parents as they dropped off their kids and started to get to know the students, most of which had never been to camp before. After meeting the other groups at a travel plaza, the bus headed out for the 4 hour journey to Coleg y Bala (Bala College). The weather has been remarkable since our very first day in Wales. Apparently, the day of our arrival was the first fully sunny, warm and dry day in at least two weeks. Everyone here was completely miserable and worn out by the rain, but we haven’t even seen a cloud in the 5 days we’ve been here. Today, the sun was as bright as ever - and the heat on the un-air conditioned bus became quite uncomfortable on the 2 hour trip to our lunch spot at a church in Aberystwyth. The winding country roads, hot bus and too many snacks always takes it toll, but we only had one student get sick, which is a considerable improvement from last year! (Note: when setting up a sick bag, be careful to get one without holes in the bottom). The second half of the drive - across some incredibly beautiful mountains, next to the sea, with vast views and scenery - went much more smoothly and got us to Bala in time to get the kids setup in rooms, establish the snack bank, and prepare for the first set of games: wacky relay’s and ultimate football (soccer). These events went fabulously well (more or less) with only minor injuries, not bad for 60 kids, teens and adults. The heat and activity did take its toll, and the group was getting pretty tired, but nothing could stop the enthusiasm for The Great Bala Water Fight of 2012. Nearly everyone was soaked (which, after all, was really the point) and had a blast. After drying and resting a bit, we were able to meet together in the chapel for our first service, learning a few songs in Welsh, and finishing the night with a nice hot drink of tea, hot chocolate or the Welsh equivalent of “Kool-aid” called “Squash.” After getting the kids to bed, Derek led a leaders’ de-brief where we discussed the day and made plans for tomorrow. The most common feedback was a great sense of fun and joy from seeing the kids from across multiple churches bond with each other and with the leaders. We are all anticipating great things in the next few days!

Day 4 - July 23: Planning & Prep

Monday was a great day to get started and organized. We didn’t have any scheduled agenda until Noon, so most of us had breakfast and spent the morning shopping and sightseeing in the Swansea Market: fresh Welsh cakes, cochels (a small oyster-ish type seafood), laver bread (basically seaweed, which even the Welsh don’t like) and may other fresh items to sample. After the morning tour, we met at Capel Gomer and brought in some Gregg’s pasties for lunch. Derek then led the Welsh and American team leaders step-by-step through each half-hour time slot and determined who would be doing what. We figured out the supplies we’d need and sent all the teams out to shop for the afternoon. After great fun and successful shopping, we re-grouped for a show-and-tell, and planned out the engineering, arts & crafts, Eisteddfod (cultural festival) and film/media team challenges as well as the sports & games sessions. We ended our planning session with a time of special prayer for Traci (son’s hip injury) and Genia’s home issues (water damage), lifting up these and other team issues to the Lord for peace, health and restoration. After a brief rest, we walked with Derek, Matthew and Tomos to the Swansea city center for dinner which turned out to be more problematic than expected. Two separate pubs (politely) kicked us out because we had students under 18 and the pub cannot accommodate children after 7PM. We finally settled at Pizza Express and had a really nice dinner with one of Tomos’ friends as our waitstaff. Someone had the brilliant idea to take a walk to Joe’s for ice cream, and many tried Derek & Matthew’s recommendation of a strawberry-marshmallow sunday. Another walk led us to the beach where we had a beautiful view of the Mumbles and opening of the Bristol Bay that separates portions of Wales from the southwestern coast of England. After another busy and successful day bonding with our new friends, we trudged home full of both food and blessing (and perhaps some trepidation).Tomorrow is the big day when we pick up the kids and head off to camp!

Camp Bala, Day 3 - Worshiping Together

Sunday turned out to be an excellent extension of our team-time from Saturday night. We got a good nights sleep finally and awoke to head off to Capel Seion where Jeremy Smith had been invited to preach while Derek was preaching in another church. It was really incredible for me personally to return to Capel Seion where I’d spent so much time last summer working on the building. I have a strange sense of “coming home” to this place, even though I only know a few people. Our team made up a large bulk of the attendees this Sunday as many were out for the start of the summer holiday here, but we were led in some wonderful hymns - in Welsh of course - by Davida and heard a great sermon from Jeremy that was perfect for situation. After returning to the hotel, we grabbed lunch before hearing Derek preach as the afternoon service at Capel Gomer. Then - one of best traditions around - afternoon tea and cakes!. Sunday night was a brilliant experience…We joined the Derek and the children from Hope Siloh chapel for their final “kids club” and had a fantastic time. We played games and made friends with many of the students who will be coming with us to camp on Tuesday. There is honestly more going on that I can keep up with (and I’m already a day behind in the blog), but God is doing wonderful things here and the Welsh and American teams are bonding and making great friendships. Tomorrow, we meet to plan the details of camp and shop for supplies. May God add to His already gracious blessings!

Kids Camp 2012 - Day 1 (and 2)

The team (minus Hannah P who joined us in Minneapolis) met at Will Rogers World Airport in time to sit together and get to know each other a bit. It’s already been a busy summer for most of us, but this is clearly the highlight and everyone is thrilled be be here. Interestingly, only 5 of the 14 team members of have been to Wales before, and only 2 of us have participated in Kid’s Camp before. We’ve done as much preparation as possible, but still, there is much to learn. One of our co-leaders, Tracy Hunt (one of the team who’s been to camp before), led the group in a brainstorming session to think through game ideas related to this year’s camp theme, based on the Disney movie, Toy Story. Travel itself went well, with short lines, well-timed layovers, easy boarding and smooth flights. We ran into a bit of a delay in getting out of Amsterdam, but got here on time (or there abouts). This delay seems to have thrown KLM into a tizzy and they lost one of the teams’ bags. Poor Vanessa may have go a day (or two!) while they track it down, but they seemed like this was not a rare occurrence for baggage coming from Amsterdam and that the likelihood of it showing up was quite good. Even better was Vanessa’s attitude and planning ahead to have a change of clothes in her carry on. The immigration/customs line was a bit more difficult than I was hoping, and one of the agents didn’t seemed terribly pleased to be letting in a group like ours, but we answered their questions, described out relationship to “Dr. Rice” from the university, and all got through as a group after about 20 minutes; we stopped and thanked God once we were outside the building! As always, the first day on the ground (while our family and friends were sleeping) was a long, tiring and interesting one. We visited Tintern Abbey and Caeraphilly Castle with our tour driver, Robert, who was very kind and gracious to help us get caught up on our schedule. We finally got to the hotel in time to clean up and rest of and make it to a Welsh pot-luck dinner held to honor and thank Jennifer Monsour for her fabulous work as a summer intern. It was thrilling to meet (or re-meet) many of our friends and make some new ones. To round out the night, Derek made a wonderful speech and gave Jennifer a gift that the Welsh kids thought was of questionable value but of which Derek himself was quite proud. Now, we desperately need some sleep before attending 3 of Derek’s churches tomorrow.

Guest Blogger: Chris Jones

It is with great joy - and some serious trepidation - that I get to be a guest-blogger here at the Friends of Wales blog. My name is Chris Jones and I have the distinct pleasure of co-leading the 2012 trip to Cardiff, Swansea and Bala, Wales, for Kids Camp. I’ll do my best to accurately and faithfully share the joys, the trails and the victories of our time here, but I can’t promise the same level of quality or wit as we find in Allen’s prose.