Hey everyone!

Rachel Hartig here. Well here we are on the third day of camp! With all of the activities we’ve been cramming in, it seems as though we’ve been here way longer! With the time I have, I’m going to fill you in on some of the neat things that are going on around here.

Every day we have English lessons for one hour in the morning. These have been pretty darn fun and we all can’t wait for the English competition we’re going to have at the end of the week.  The only challenges I have encountered thus far are keeping the energy/attention levels high, and finding a way to include all ability and knowledge levels in one class. It definitely helps that Pat and Hannah are circulating throughout the groups with a big bag of reward candy!

We all know that camp wouldn’t be camp without some awesome talks and speakers each day. Every evening at 7:30, we start our nightly sessions in the dining hall. As Jimmy mentioned earlier, the theme of the week is “Who I am”. Last night was the first full talk given by Daniel, and he spoke about how we see ourselves and how the world sees us. Tonight Jimmy speaks on how God sees us. I can already tell that many campers are being touched and challenged by these talks! Yay! [The talk has happened since this was written and another blog post will come soon, I’m sure]

Another great experience has been getting to know all of the campers on a more personal level. Every night after the talks, we gather with our roommates and discuss things on a deeper level. There have, and are, been a few trust issues looming within some of the campers, but I have personally seen this mistrust transformed to trust in many of the girls in my group. Hopefully these examples will encourage the others! Language is definitely a barrier, but the other Americans and I are learning to overcome that by learning bits of Romanian, teaching English, and “occasionally” bringing in a translator.

If time allowed, I could fill up several more pages with all of the amazing things God is doing here. Not only is He doing major things like softening hearts and making friendships, but He is also addressing the little details of camp. This may sound a bit cliché, but just wait till you hear our stories-it’s honestly crazy!

So that’s about it! Here are a couple general prayer requests you can be making as the days go on:

1-Rest and encouragement for all of us leaders. Camp is fun, but tiring and we need energy to keep going strong.

2- Health and safety for all. We are taking a long walk/hike tomorrow so this will be important then!

3- Wisdom and discernment for the leaders on how to handle challenging campers and other random problems.

5- This is kind of a no-brainer, but just that the campers would soak in the truth they are hearing and that it would change their hearts. This will be a hard for some of the campers.

Thank you for all of your prayers so far, they are greatly valued. Also, thanks to those of you who wrote letters to us student leaders. We read them this morning and boy did they power us through the day!  We’ll try to update the blog soon!

-Rachel Hartig

P.S. This is a special hello to my fellow Hartigs. I miss you guys and hope that you’re lives aren’t too juristically changed (for the worse of course), by my absence. I love you and look forward to seeing you on the 26^th, give Sammy a hug for me!