Tomorrow marks the beginning of the craziness that is otherwise known as English camps. The schedule is crazy and exhausting, fun and frantic, orderly and chaotic....all at the same time. We're starting with Family Camp out at a base(June 23-Aug. 3) and then will come back to Odessa to do a day camp(Aug. 7-11) in our own neighborhood. All of our summer camps are Christian English Camps. The students come, knowing that they will get a large amount of English, but that many of the resources that we use are from the Bible and that we will be openly discussing "religious" things.
We keep our weekly English clubs "religion free," which enables us to establish relationships with the people and gain their trust. The people here are very quick to ask if we're a sect or cult and we do our best to work on establishing their trust and building friendships, so that they might eventually be interested in hearing about the God that we serve.
They come to the camps, however, knowing that we are going to talk about God. They can choose to come or not to come, but if they choose to come, they choose to listen to what we will share. We have a week of one on one time to share our lives and love of Christ with them. We hope and pray that His love will shine through us and leave them wondering how they can have that joy. They will work through studies from Luke in their conversation classes and will learn about the God/man who gave His life for them, that they might be forgiven of their sins and have new life with Him. Many struggle with the decision that is laid before them and most choose to reject Him. But our job is not to drag them to Jesus, but to point them in the right direction and show them that He truly loves each and every one of them. Please pray for God to soften and prepare hearts for the incredible message that they'll be hearing over the next couple of weeks.
2 comments:
Havin' a southern gal teach English. Trying to imagine them saying, "Ya'll" with a Prussian accent!
Sounds like it's going to be a great camp and a good time of stretching and growing! I'll be praying for you!
I'm not actually teaching english this year. I'm just in charge of everyone else who is. =-) But, my friend Julia will be there and she has a Southern accent, for sure. and there's a guy coming from Nigeria, plus a guy from our church here, who's from Nigeria. So we're giving them all varieties of accents this year!
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