Lakota 2015 - What's Happening?

It's late Tuesday evening, so where are all the updates from the trip? With a couple of changes with team members and trying to coordinate four churches at camp and another two staying at the camp for work projects, we've had our hands full! We've settled into the camp schedule now, and our week has started off very well. I'm going to include a couple snippets from Matt Ediger, youth pastor with Hope Bible Church in O'Fallon, to bring us up to date:

Saturday we had an uneventful trip, enjoying minimal traffic on the 4th for the holiday. On Sunday we joined Sharps Corner Baptist Church where Matt Hadden, full-time missionary and camp director, preached. We spent Sunday afternoon in our respective groups (lessons, games, crafts, and big idea) getting things unpacked and organized for the week. We are expecting more kids than in years' past, which is both an area of praise and prayer because we have a few less people than years' past to supervise all the new kids. In the evening Matt's wife, Amanda Hadden led a camp orientation, which was a reminder of the reality in which these kids live. 90-95% of the kids coming to camp are abused in some form or fashion; this offers us some challenges with how the kids respond to us, but is also a reminder for the great need of the gospel.

Monday kicked off our first day of camp. Most of our teens work in teams from Grace and Hope Bible Church alongside each other in four main groups: Lessons, Crafts, Big Idea, and Games. Our teens work for several months preparing to essentially run a camp for 40-70 kids ages 4-12 with little hands-on help from adults during camp! It is always exciting and humbling to see. Matt Ediger, Conrad, Tessa, and a couple people from the Indiana team worked with the teens. We had 19 in our group plus the leaders. Creating discussion is always challenging; we are hoping to address worldview questions with the teens in a smaller group setting. Please pray for relationships to be built (or reestablished in some cases) so we can engage more fully. We also took some time with this group to get away from the camp to visit some of the Badlands.

Tuesday, day two of camp, was another good day. We had a total of 64 kids, 25 of which were teens. Today had a few ups and downs with some stations going better than others (and some having better morning than afternoon sessions and vice versa), but that's not too unusual. Tomorrow will already be the midweek point, which is hard to believe! This is where both our kids and the campers are more tired and more comfortable with one another, which allows for good conversations.

Thank you once again for your continued prayer!