Camp 3 - Day 1 - The Kids Arrive!

The day started with decorating for camp. Sidewalk chalk, balloons, and streamers greet the children. This sign says, "Hi." We do anything we can think of to brighten their day.

Just finishing a camp a few days ago, where the kids are always smiling, I almost forgot what the first day is like. Many of the kids are unsure of this place. A few kids started smiling throughout the day, and yet others have yet to smile. They take everything in, but haven't yet learned if they can trust us, or let their guard down long enough to let in the love. This is one of our prayers from the very beginning. Pray that as they

open up, we can, through the grace and power of Christ lead them to the cross.

To help the kids enjoy themselves in the morning and afternoon, we made balloon animals, blew bubbles, jumped rope, colored, played Frisbee, catch, football (AKA soccer),

volleyball, basketball and cards. After checking in at the doctor and getting settled in the dorms they were able to choose any of these things to do.

After this each of the groups used some time to

create ward names and work on their skits for the opening ceremony which will be tomorrow. Then before supper we got to celebrate one of our campers birthday's. Maxim turned 12 today.

Then after supper we played a game to get to know some of the names of the international team and Ukrainian staff. It was a type of scavenger hunt for names. They had 16 names to collect, after which Tommy quizzed them on what they remembered.

The day ended with a name tag craft and bedtime stories. We are

now waiting up for our last group of kids to arrive tonight. The train is supposed to get in at 11:50 pm and then it takes a little while for them to actually get here. When they are all here, I think that we will have