Easter Camp

Thank you so much for your prayers for us over these past few days while at the Easter youth camp.  We were exhausted going in to the camp, and we are even more so now afterwards.  However, the time between was truly used by God and we are so thankful for His daily strength and grace he gave us.  Speaking twice daily on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is a lot!  Not to mention that sometimes Jonathan didn't even get to start speaking until 9:30 or 10 at night!  Jonathan spoke on our new identity in Christ using the gospel of Mark.  There were 27 campers in total.  One girl put her trust in Jesus on the final night!  Many others came forward to rededicate their lives and confess sin in their lives.

We are so grateful to have had this opportunity to minister to teens.  We also were able to develop friendships with many of the staff and counselors.  They were truly a blessing to us.  This camp was run by another evangelical church in Torino, so these brothers and sisters in Christ are new friends to us.  How encouraging it was to us to see this national run church serving and growing.  25 years ago they were a handful of families (like us in Caselle), now they are around 150.  That seems to be the trend in Italy...25 years to see a church grow to this size and serving on their own initiatives.  Yes, we are in this for the long haul and yes, we need to remind ourselves of this often when we get discouraged.

Jonathan began each morning with 7am staff meetings and his day ended around midnight on most nights (the final night was 2am).  The kids and I began our day with breakfast at 8:30 followed by some free time before the morning meeting.  I brought a storage container of activities, books and games for the kids to do during our free time.  They were well occupied with Leapsters during the speaking sessions, so I was able to listen and take in what was being said.  We had fairly good weather during our time.  Lots and lots of wind and just one day of light rain.  But what can you expect from the mountains in the early spring?  The kids stayed up late each night, which went over much better than our camp experience 3 years ago.  Emma and Luca got naps a couple of days which helped.  The food was awesome!  Next time, the kids should be big enough that I can work on staff in the kitchen.  How great would that be?!  The dishes are so simple, but the flavors are absolutely incredible.  Our kids scarfed everything down (all except Luca of course).

I took snippets of video and put them together in the following video.  Nothing spectacular, but it does put more life in to our time at camp for you to see versus just pictures.