Week 5

So I am officially half way through my summer down here. Who would have ever thought that it would come? Now I am wrestling with the emotions that I don't want it to be over, but too soon 3:30 am on August 8th ready to come back home. God has used this time in so many powerful ways so far and I am so excited about what the next 5 weeks hold. Let me tell you about this week... :)

SOOO this week we did a VBS and English camp for 132 kids at a church about 15 minutes from the orphanage. It was so great to see the town and get to meet the kids outside of the school and orphanage here. They have been such a blessing. My part was to teach the English station.. which I LOVED. The theme for this week's camp was: Holidays (Birthday, Valentine's Day, Christmas and Easter) I taught parts of the body (monday), shapes (tuesday), family members (Wednesday), Colors/ Numbers (thursday) and review (friday). It was so cool to be able to try some new games and new lesson ideas. I am so excited about all of the "teacher juice" conversations that I am going to have with Rachel and Susan :). God has really blessed me with a great team and they have really given me a lot of ideas throughout the summer so far!! A lot of really exciting things happened this week at camp, but one of my highlights would have to be with the older boys group at camp. All week they were rowdy and not paying attention. According to them, they had better things to do than be at camp. So I tried to establish myself as the teacher and they finally responded. Friday was an extra day of camp added on because we did our fun day on Saturday (July 4th)... so I was tired and prayed faithfully for strength and patience. I used a vocabulary baseball game that the boys loved!!! I am so excited to work again with them next week.
Other than camp, we did an activity with the boys at the orphanage each morning. All of that leads to VERY full weeks.

So this upcoming week will look a lot like last week. Please pray for new ideas because I will be in the English station again this week :). Also pray for health and strength. Some of us are going into our 6th week and becoming weary and sick. Please pray specifically for Rachel a girl on my team. She has had some family stuff going on back home and she has not been feeling well today.

Thank you to everyone who continues to pray and offer encouragement. You truly are a sweet blessing.
Talk to you next weekend.
In Him,
Monica