I love Camp Arc-en-Ciel and the children therein ;)

Hello from the mountains once again! :)

This week has been quite wonderful. I continued to work in the kitchen during the junior and teen camp and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also continued with the daily chalet inspections. It is a two week camp, and we finished this past Monday. A man from Jessica's church in AL also joined us starting this week. He is here for a month to do renovations and repairs around the camp. It's been a joy getting to know him and have another American here! :)

Again, the days sort of all run together here, but I shall try to recount as much as possible. :) On Thursday, I did the usual activities, but I had some free time in the afternoon, so I went across the street from the main camp building to see the inside of the local Catholic church. It is open daily but only used for mass about twice a year. The building is about 8 or 900 years old (!). So basically, there's this amazing, gorgeous historical building that is empty all day, every day. And since the weather had been hot, and there is really no AC here, it was a cool place to hang out. :) I went in and explored, and then settled and read a bit and caught up on journaling the details of the trip--something I really want to be doing! Here's a little of what it looks like inside:

So amazing!

Check out the stained glass. And no one is ever here!

Friday was a special day at camp. They had this fun game that they set up the night before... basically called "Monkey and Peanuts." Everyone in the camp was given a name of another person there, including the personnel of the camp. You didn't reveal the name that you received, but for the entire following day, it was your job as a monkey to give "peanuts" to your monkey. :) Basically it was a way to get the campers thinking about people other than themselves. Some typical peanuts: a bouquet of flowers, some chocolate, a hand-made bracelet, sweet notes with verses on them or kind words about the person and anything else you could find. You could also have your monkey get an extra dessert at lunch, or have their snack in the middle of the day paid for, etc. It was really neat to see everyone getting creative.

One of the peanuts I gave. :) Some souvenirs from America!

In the evening on Friday, we had a big banquet for the whole camp. The campers spent the whole afternoon preparing for it. Some were assigned to music, some for preparing skits, others helped serve the meal itself, others made decorations... it was so wonderful! The theme was "futuristic," so there were a lot of interesting elements. We all dressed up in whatever we could find that we thought would look futuristic yet still dressy for the dinner. I decided to wear a ton of the jewelry that I brought, so I wore four necklaces and two pairs of earrings, plus a whole lot of gold eye shadow. ;) (Oh, and side note: some inspectors came and found things in the main building that were not up to par with electric requirements and such, so we had not not allow the kids inside it any more. So basically we lost the use of our dining room/classroom. Thankfully, we were able to take the games out of the game tent outside and convert that into the dining area. Pray that they can fix the problems quickly and be back inside.) 

The evening was a great bonding time with the campers--full of laughs, skits, special music, great food, and more. The American girls led a game for everybody and sang a very silly rendition of "White Christmas" in English. Jessica and I particularly hammed things up. ;) It was especially cool to see so many of the campers going all out in their particular responsibilities for the evening. Here are a few fun photos from the night:

A few of the counselors looking very futuristic :)

Some of my favorite boys 

And favorite girls :)

Gaby!

a skit

Lynn and I-- kitchen and chalet inspection buddy. She improved my French, and I improved her English. :)

Rewind a little bit: on Friday I had another wonderful experience... and at the Catholic Church no less! I shared it on Facebook already, but for those of you who only see my blog, here it is from my post. I posted a video there as well, but unfortunately I am not sure how to do that on the blog.: Tim said it'd be fine if I wanted to practice there...so here's me singing a little bit in French from a piece I did for a competition this year (minus the acting and accompaniment)  . Cool story: some people in the village heard me singing, and I got to have some great conversations with them. And there was no way to escape speaking in French!  I got to share what I do in America, and also what I'm doing in France. There were two young girls in the group, and after the other two people left, they came back inside. By that time I was reading my Bible on my iPad. They were interested, so I told them I read it because I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I asked them if they ever read it. I told them it is an important book. We talked about a number of other things, and I found out that they had just arrived on vacation in the village. I told them that I have many friends at the camp who are their age and invited them to come to our meetings where we sing and study the Bible if they want. I also offered for them to meet my friends, so we walked over to the camp building. On the way I met their dad and uncle and got to talk with them a bit too. Then the girls got to meet many campers, counselors, and Mrs. Knickerbocker got to talk to them too. I'm glad they could finally talk to some people who really know French. Anyway, just pray that maybe if they are bored in little Larodde these next two weeks that they might join us for a gathering. It was such an special opportunity to talk to them!

So that was pretty awesome. And getting to sing in there for a while was also just wonderful! It had fantastic acoustics. Also, I DID get to see the girls again... the next day in fact! Jessica and I were preparing "The Power of the Cross" to sing in French for church on Sunday, and they came and listened to us practicing it in the town hall. They were outside the building looking in. We told them that they could hear us sing the next day in the service if they want and mentioned the time. The next day, apparently they showed up after the service and asked Mr. Knickerbocker if they could hear us sing, but the service was done. Pray that their curiosity continues over the two weeks that they are here, and that God would plant seeds of truth in their hearts.

So Friday was a very full day. Saturday was my day off, so I joined the juniors on a special trip they took to to a sort of adventure park about 1.5 hours away. I loved seeing the countryside on the drive. Once we got there, we just spent about 3 or 4 hours letting the kids play on the different games (trampolines, tubing hills, bounce houses, petting zoo, etc.). Lots of French speaking and lots of fun. I just love these children! Here are me and a few of the girl counselors and a dear little camper, Noah, at the park.

Sunday I sang with Jessica in the church service and then did the final chalet inspections before helping with lunch prep. I rested a bit in the afternoon and evening and enjoyed watching a film with the Americans. The campers also had a special time of sharing testimonies of what God had done in their hearts during camp. Quite a few of my little buddies gave their hearts to Christ within these last few days of camp!

Since it was the last night of camp, the teens stayed up late into the night, and I got to play games with them. Playing "Whisper Down the Lane" in French at 2 AM is not exactly the easiest thing I've ever done. :p 

The next day the campers left starting around 10 AM, and all of them were gone by about 4. The goodbyes were very long and emotional. I definitely experienced the true French goodbye. Some photos taken as they were heading out:

My special girls! :)

my "little French boyfriend" ;)

Cutest kid ever!

Being silly with some of the last kids to leave

During much of the evening on Monday we began deep cleaning the chalets. This was a very long process! Tuesday morning and afternoon we spent cleaning them as well. I have a sort of uncanny love for cleaning, so I greatly enjoyed these times! The teen boys' chalets were a special challenge. :) 

Tuesday night began the retreat for pastors and elders from across France. Two families from the church in Rouen came, so I got to see some friends again! Yay! Just love them. 

I will be babysitting children for most of the retreat and helping out in the kitchen as needed. Today was a full day of babysitting. Some children speak only French, others only English, and some both. That made things kinda tricky today when I'd need to tell the kids something. Or they'd run up and start talking to me or asking me something, and I'd have to switch gears back and forth with no warning. It's very good for me! :) Also got to learn a few French children's playground games today. Very fun. 

Finally, I got to see some dear friends today who are missionaries nearby, Jared and Rebekah Stevenson. So good to catch up with them. They also gave us American girls and Mrs. Knickerbocker a surprise by offering us one of their kittens. Mr. K caved in and agreed that we could have one at the camp to help with pest control. So he was dropped off tonight, and we've already had a great snuggle time. :) Photos to come. 

Anyway, thanks for reading through all of this... I hope it is a blessing! Please pray as I leave the camp this Saturday and spend the weekend in Rouen before heading to England on Monday. I will then begin ministering with Art and Debbie Cunningham for two weeks. May you see God's grace in a thousand ways today. I so appreciate your prayers and support.