This post is actually about the amazing weekend we all had here in Latvia. The 14-17 camp ended on Friday, and Family Camp didn’t start until Thursday, which meant we had a five day weekend, (or six, depending on how you count it.) Saturday and Sunday was spent just lazying around, but on Monday the real fun began.

On Monday we got to go to Old Riga and the beach. We did a little shopping, a little tourist-ing, some hanging-out-at-the-beach. Here are some pictures of that.

Then on Tuesday, several of us got our hair done. It was so fun.

My new hair

 Clark's red mohock.

Unda's hair, very red

All of us were supposed to get before and after

pictures, but Shelby and Paige were the only

two who did.

Before

After

To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like my hair or not. I went in with a certain idea of what it was going to look like in my mind, which was pretty much the hair style I had, but trimmed a little and with some tame, auburn highlights. There were two hair dressers, and I was one of the first people to go. Undja translated to the hair dresser for me what I wanted, and the hair dresser started to put dye in my hair. I was really excited and a little nervous, because I had never had my hair dyed, or even highlighted, mostly because I don’t like having to put effort into how my hair looks. I was very jittery as the hairdresser took off the towel to cut my hair.

After several moments of garbled communication on how to cut my hair, I made the mistake of saying that as long as she stayed in the spesifications I had given, the hair dresser could do whatever she thought would look best. Next thing I know, she is giving me something completely different from what I had originally wanted. Plus my “auburn” highlights were red, and the “light tone” were...really light, almost blond. Not to mention she cut up my bangs weird. I began to get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It looked like I was going to have a hard to up keep, brightly colored, not really me-ish looking hair style.

When the hair dresser was done, I wasn’t sure if I liked my hair or not. As time went on though, I began to like it more, and realized my initial hesitation was due to getting something I wasn’t expecting, not that I didn’t like it. The hair cut looks like me, just different from what I’ve had before. I think it will even air dry nicely, which for me is very important, as I only blow dry and straighten my hair occasionally. Now I love it.

Making up for last time

Hello everybody! Sorry that the last post was not very good. I was going to do what I had done the time before, but the internet was really slow so the pictures weren’t loading. Instead of writing something, I just gave up. These next two posts I plan on doing though should make up for it. Or at least a little bit.

After the 7-10 year we had the 11-13 year olds. This was by far the biggest camp as in there being the most kids, and it seemed we had a very small amount of leaders to go around. It was pretty basic week. Games and crafts and swimming and ropes course. Here are some cool pictures from the week.

Me looking "smart"

Paige on the bottom, Shelby in the middle, and Agrita on top

                            Rock wall

                                                                           Ropes course

                                                                           Fun during big games

The week after that was 14-17 year olds, which for me personally was probably the hardest week, but it was still fun.

                                            This actually wasn't during a camp, but all of  girls

                                             got all dressed up and took random pictues.

                                           

                                                                                               

                                                                                                                      B kool

                                                       Breakfast in the meadow.

There is one thing that I do not have pictures of that I would like to tell about. Night games. The idea basically is to make the kids so tired that they don’t try to sneak out during the night. Unfortunately that meant that all of us leaders were also really tired. Night games would not start till around midnight, and they would then go till about two. Then there was even sauna afterwards for half the camp. The first night it was capture the flag, where I pretty much stumbled around not doing anything effective accept make a lot of noise. The second night was more fun though. We played a game call “stations,” where the four teams we were decided into had to find random fires. At each of the fires there was a quest we had to complete. That game I had quite a bit of fun with. Tromping through the fields in the middle of the night was quite enjoyable actually.

To end things, here is a poem I wrote the day after the 14-17 year old camp.

I'll always come up short

Failure branded in my heart.

I fall back down again,

Before I even start.

I'm too week to even stumble,

Through half my own ambitions,

Too blind to even see,

Past my inhibitions.

But you're stronger than my weakness,

More glorious than my shame.

The faith to move a mountain,

Rests only in your name.

You've broken through my bitter faults,

Made a miracle of me.

For the power that spoke the universe,

Is the power holding me.

Long over due

I was unable to use the internet last week. A part of me doesn't even want to really post anything right now and simply post all about Latvia when I come back. It has been two weeks now and there is a lot I would like to say, but it almost doesn't seem worth it. It will also take too much time to put all the pictues I want to put up, so I won't. I'll tell you all about it when I come home though, and maybe have more time to share.

The Second Week

Hi everybody from Latvia. This is my second week here, and the first week of “real” camp. This week were children from 7-11, and I only have one thing to say, I am tired.


Okay, so I have more to say than that, maybe a lot more. There is so much I want to say and tell about, but I know there is no way I can, so instead I will post a bunch of pictures and maybe through in a couple interesting facts when appropriate.

 Paige, one of the interns, working on the path from the first to the second cabin.

Dustin and Shelby

Here is the dragonfly that landed on my arm while we were working on the path.

This is registration.

This is the tipi I got to sleep in two of the three nights.

Here are a couple of the kids from my group.

I let some of the kids in my group draw on my hand, next thing I know my whole body is covered with drawings.

Shelby, Paige, and I soaking wet after playing games in the rain.

Swiming seemed to be the thing to do. Whenever there was

free time all the kids wanted to swim, even when it was raining.

One of my kids climbing the rock wall.

During the last night we all gathered around the camp fire.

We also let these lanterns go. It was so cool, I couldn't help

but think of Tangled when we did this.

The First Week

Whew! It has been quite the week, as was expected. I haven’t had any Internet during this week of the Latvian trip. The camp doesn’t have any. It hasn’t really been that bad, just a little annoying, but also kind of nice in a way. Obviously, I can’t give the week in detail, as that would take far too long...well, my week is written in detail on my journal, but it would still take a while to write it all, so I’ll only give the highlights. It is rather long, just be forewarned.

And for anyone who may not know, I am helping out at a Christian based camp in Latvia for about six weeks.

June 24th, and 25th- The rest of the flight went well, nothing too exciting went on. The flight from Portland to Amsterdam went well. At the Amsterdam airport we had to pick up our luggage and check it in again. On the airplane I sat by interesting people. One was a teenager boy who had nothing with him but an umbrella. He did not say a single word throughout the flight, or made a noise, or even moved his facial muscles in such a way as to resemble emotions. Then my other neighbor was a British man who would occasionally mumble under his breath.

I got to the camp and basically fell asleep a few minutes after that. Technically, it had been two days when I got to the camp, but it only felt like one really, really long day.

June 26th-In the morning there was church to go to, but not until 11:30 in the morning. It took about forty minutes to drive to the church, so we had to leave at about 10:40. After church there was a little picnic thingy.

That night there was sauna, which I was really happy about. I typically don’t get into the whole spa thing, but the sauna is absolutely lovely. The really fun thing to do is let your body get really warm, and then jump into the lake.

June, 27th-In the morning the girls and I made signs of our names for our beds. Mine was okay, I wish I was more creative with things like that though. I’m still not satisfied. Here are some pics.

We mostly did it because the boys kept bragging about how much better the cabin they were sleeping in was better. In all honesty theirs is better. It is more of a mini house, with a fridge and a washing machine, and stuff. Us girls get to sleep in one of the camp cabins, which is pretty much bunk beds.

Also, that morning during worship we had to worship with art. We could draw or make sculptors with some colored clay, or make a poster like thing. At least those were the things that were mentioned. I didn’t do any of those things. Instead I wrote a poem. I actually do not have it with me at the moment. I will try to get it up later.

June 28th-The morning of the 28th there was a "team building activity." All the workers were divided into two teams, and then each team was tied all together with a rope. Then we had to race. My team lost, just to let you know from the start. So all tied together we had to tramp through the forest. Ha, ha. I'm not sure which was more fun, getting covered in mud while crossing the creak, or accidentally getting into some stinging nettles.

The next activity was tug of war over a stream. Let's just say that I pretty much got pulled into the river and got soaked.

Then the "lecture" we had was interesting. We were divided up into teams again, four this time. Each team was given a passage of scripture, and from it we had to find the Gospel, and explain it. Three people from each team needed to explain in front of everyone. One person for seven year old, one for ten year old, and one for seventeen year old. In my team I got the seventeen year old. I did okay.

Our other lecture we divided into the same teams, and filled out a schedule. Though the order you put things really didn't matter, it was more about the ideas you came up with.

Then for dinner we had something interesting. When we sat down, there was half a pastry at each spot, and there was a bowl of milky liquid with white chunks in the middle. Turns out the milky stuff was macaroni in hot milk. It was interesting, and with some sugar tasted...good, I guess. I'm still not sure if I like it or not.

June 29th-This day was work day. I spent most of the morning painting wooden benches, then I helped to clean out the lake. That was actually really fun. We went out in boats to collect the weed. After the work was done it was pretty much free time, which we had quite a bit of.

Also something interesting to note. That morning it was pizza for breakfast, (or if you're Latvian, pica,) and pancakes for dinner. Is it just me, or is dinner and breakfast switched up?

That night there was a bonfire. One of the interns had brought marshmallows with him, so we roasted marshmallows. We had to find sticks for it though, like actually, sticky sticks. It took forever because we were having problems. Then one of the other workers came up and told us the tree we were taking the stick from was protected in Latvia so we couldn't take from it. It was obvious he was joking, but he kept it up for several minutes anyway.

I eventually got a stick, and roasted a marshmallow

June 30th-Safety training this day. There is a zip line, a climbing wall, and a ropes course. The ropes course takes the most training. Everything else took only a few seconds, but the ropes course took several moments to explain.

I didn't actually go up. I went up last year when I came to this camp. Didn't go up this time though.

July 1st-Today! Today it was a pretty easy morning, nothing but a worship session, which we actually have a couple times a day at the camp. Starting after lunch though we began to tear up the old stump path to replace it with a stone one. Here are some pics of that,

Now I am actually at the house of one of the Latvian missionaries where I am taking advantage of the Internet here and spending way too much time on the computer. Before this we went to a really cool restaurant. Here are some pics of that.

My dinner

That will be all for now. I may or may not post next week.