The title of this post came from a sermon I was listening to recently by Shawn Maze, the pastor of the church I attend when I'm at school in Charleston. It's such a relief to know that in spite of who I am and how much I mess up - God loves me!
Let's see... camp last week ended well! I was able to share my testimony on Thursday during small group time in the morning and afternoon and while I'm not sure how much the kids got out of it - they were all calm and listening which was a huge step. On Friday we took them to the zoo. In the morning I walked with Erica, a 22 year-old girl with some kind of mental disability. She had been in my group and was fun to hang out with. She seemed to have the mind of about a 7 year-old so it was difficult at times, but she clung to me the entire morning. In the afternoon I walked with Alin, one of the boys in my group. He's 13 and frustrating but sweet. Thinking about how different our lives are and that I was here to show God's love to him made the fact that he really really needed a shower not matter at all :)
Our (the interns) weekend was, again, filled with catching up on sleep, eating, spending time in the Word, and hanging out. This week a team from Jupiter, FL is here. They are great! Most of them haven't been here before but you wouldn't know it because they have jumped right in and are great with the LOC kids and the kids we have at camp this week.
This week we go to camp in Rehgin in the morning and have a group of about 40 kids ranging in ages 5-25. Many of them are special needs, some higher degrees that others. I have figured this is a test to see if the major I have in school right now (Special Education) is what I am really called too!
To stay on good terms with Child Protective Services, we are not allowed to take pictures with any kids in state care (which are the kids we have the next 4 weeks). They have said that only 2 Livada staff members are allowed to take pictures - which is better than none so we are happy! As we went to camp this morning, we knew it was going to be a difficult week but we were in for another curveball. We were told about an hour into camp that CPS doesn't want us to talk about God this week. Yeah, I know... It is actually a law that you can't try to change someone's religion - but these kids have been going to camps by Livada for years (the official religion is Orthodox). So please please pray for us to still be effective and respect their rules. It's hard because it even limits our personal stories - because my testimony/life story without God... is nothing!
Also, tomorrow (Tuesday), my dad gets results back from the testing he had done a few weeks ago. The results should let us know how much the chemo and stem-cell transplant worked. Please pray for good results and peace.
Te iubesc toti.
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