This last week, my whole school had outreach (which was why I haven't been on the computer for awhile...sorry). There were about four different groups that went different places and stayed there for a week. My group went to Friolsheim which is an English Camp near Stuttgart. It was a lot of fun! I, of course, right away bonded with a lot of the girls and just hung out and talked with them. They were the sweetest little things. The kids that were at the English Camp were aged from 14-18. I think the oldest we had this year though was 17. There were a lot of different kids there. Some group up in Christian homes, others were just there because their friends went, and some were just so rebellious and really didn't want to be there (but I could tell God wanted them for a reason and was going to do something in their lives that week). The guys that were there were extremely flirty and asking all of our Bodenseehof girl's ages. It was pretty weird. All the kids followed us around and took random pictures of us and always asked us questions about America, our school, and our families. It was soooo cute! Also, while we were there we had the chance to help out with different workshops. My workshop was baking and a group of kids would come and make cookies and totally have a blast! That was definitely a lot of fun!
Alright, I mentioned that there were some rebellious kids...well they were actually a group of "too cool for school kids" or "thug life" or as I liked to call them "European Gangsters." It was the funniest thing, they thought they were all thuggish and cool when really they didn't look "gangster" at all! They wore baggy sweatpants, black t-shirt, zip up European style sweatshirt, baseball cap (facing the right way), man bag, and a SCARF! lol...it was absolutely hilarious! The sad thing is, they would constantly sneek out of lectures and Bible studies to go smoke or drink in their rooms, randomly say cuss words (which by the way were never in the right order and never made sense anyway), listened to really bad music in English, and it was really sad....they were like 15 or 16 years old! One of the boys named Lars looked about 12, but was actually 15, snuck back in from smoking and walked right passed me hoping I wouldn't notice. I asked him if he had been smoking and he was like...."no way, man, NO" I asked him a few other times and he kept saying no. I told him he wasn't going to be able to lie to me because I knew what he'd been up too. Right at that second, the teacher walked by and commented on the room smelling like smoke. I told him it was Lars. At that time another guy who was older than Lars named Jonas came in and found out what was happening and gave me the death glare. I told him that there was no fooling me and that it wasn't my fault they got in trouble. Apparently, the guys also had a lot of trouble with them and had to constantly get on them about not getting to bed on time, being too loud, not yelling cuss words, and not playing their music too loud especially at night. Since we were the counselors, we were like their parents almost. We had to lay down the law with them. To a lot of them, we were the parents they never had. The cool thing is, our group always gave testimonies everyday and on the last day, my friend Christine gave her testimony about questioning her faith and making sure she believed because she knew it was true instead of believing because her parents believed. The head of the camp who did the Bible devotions or bible study each day had something planned to talk about and after Christine gave her testimony, he totally changed up his lesson and talked about testing their faith. It was so cool! I could tell that God had a message to give to everyone. During that devotion time, I saw Jonas and Lars paying close attention to everything he said and never once looked away! I was so amazed! I had really been praying for them a lot that week and will continue to pray for them. Even though the devotions were in German, I could still see God speaking through the teacher just looking around the room!
There was also a boy at the camp who was 16 and his name was Sam. He was actually in the English Class I was helping in. He told me that the only reason why he was at the camp was because he forgot to sign is name off the list. I think he was pretty much fluent in English because he was an exchange student in America for 10 months and really there was no reason for him to be there, but God certainly had a message and a plan for that boy and it was really cool to see also, how God was speaking to him as well!
Anyway, one night we had a comedy night and the first act was my friends Jake, Phil, and Jeremy. Jake rapped while Jeremy played the drums and Phil played the guitar and all the thugs thought it was the coolest thing in the world! They watched them as if they were thinking, "finally someone understands me!" It was sooo cute! Then we did a lot of fun skits, games, and other fun things and it was the talk of the week! All the kids really enjoyed it.
English classes were pretty fun. I helped out in the highest English Class which was made up of kids who had had the most English out of the whole camp. In each class there were about 6 "Bohoffers" (that's what the head of the camp called us) and in each class period we told a little about ourselves. When we used slang, the teacher would right the slang phrases and words up on the board and we had to explain what it meant. It was pretty hilarious! All the kids thought that was the funniest thing! In class, I met a sweet girl named Sonya who took to me like fresh baked bread and nutella. She introduced me to all her friends and invited me to sit at their table at meals. She was very open with me and discussed a lot of personal stuff with me. Also, when all her friends at the table were speaking in German, she would translate for me and would encourage her friends to do the same.
On the last day when we were getting in our vans to leave and go to the train station, my huge group of friends came up to me and asked if I could "make a picture with them." Of course, I did, and then they all gave me a couple more hugs each and stood on the curb and waved goodbye to me until they couldn't see the van anymore. It was the sweetest thing! Our trip was about 3 hours long we figured and we took 3 different trains. When we were getting off the second train, we were hardly warned that it was our stop, so we were all in a rush to get off the train. We all made it off except two guys...haha. It was one of those things where you knew it could happened but believed it wouldn't. Well, it did...and they were panicked, and I was standing on the side in shock with my mouth wide open and pointing at them as the train pulled out of the station! lol...it was bad. We left a German speaker who was used to traveling by train and two other guys behind hoping that if they got a train back to where we were, they would be able to find the little group of guys we left behind. They actually never did and they bought two more train tickets and took a train back home. Sam (the German speaker) and the two other guys were waiting there for 2 hours when they finally decided to take a train to place they would have been and asked if anyone had seen two Americans in the past couple of hours. To their surprise, they had and told them exactly where they had gone. Luckily, they caught up with them and they all made it home before lock up!!
If ya'll could just keep the kids that went to the English Camp in your prayers, that would be great! Also, if you could specifically pray for Jonas, Lars, and Sam, that would be great. God's really laid it on my heart to pray for those boys, and I really think God has some major plans for them!!!
I love and miss ya'll!! I hope all is well! If you have anything you'd like for me to pray about, just let me know!
Love in Christ,
Jill<><
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment