Last Friday we left Germany for the 12 hour bus trip down to Camp Darby, Italy. It is my first time in Italy so I was very excited!! The first part of the week was a little hectic but it all ended up being a fun trip overall. I ended up being able to stay with the high school girls from Germany and I had two awesome girls, D and H in my tent.
I have to admit to you I'm not the hugest fan of camping. We never really did it growing up and I'm usually fine for one night of it as long as roasting marshmallows and sitting around a campfire is involved. But the thought of sleeping on the ground (I brought an air mattress at the suggestion of other people but our tent was too small for it to fit) and sharing 8 showers with 250 girls does not sound like my idea of a good time. I also seem to have no luck when I camp as a natural disaster seems to strike every time I attempt to do it. The very first night, there were horrible thunder and lightening storms and the entire camp had to move down to the gym (on the other side of base) to sleep. Nothing like being woken up at 3 am and told to grab your sleeping bag and walk in the pouring rain! Here a blurry, dark picture of 400 kids and adults crammed into the gym.
Then in the morning we had to go to church like we were (aka morning breath and whatever we had slept in the night before). Always an adventure! We did pray for no more rain the rest of the week but the girls still packed an emergency bag every night just in case. Luckily I don't think it rained the rest of the week! I made it through an entire week of camping with little complaining (after a while you just quit caring what you look or smell like) but I have to do it again next week so please pray that my attitude and my back will make it through!
We did a lot of hanging out at the beach, which was awesome. I could seriously live at the beach. Most of the days there were pretty relaxing which was nice considering the entire week's schedule was jam packed full of stuff from morning to night. We did eat a ton of pizza and gelato in every town we went to. My favorite finds of the week were quattro formaggi and pesto pizza and coconut gelato (this picture actually shows coconut and pistachio). We also did a lot of walking this week which is good after all that pizza and gelato I'm eating (except for the quarter size blister I had on the bottom of my foot all week).
Every night we would get back to camp and have dinner together and then do Club, which is a fun time where we sing, play games, and here a message about the gospel. After Club, we split off into our groups and have something called Cabin Time where we will talk about the message we heard and what is going on in their lives. My girls really opened up to me and we were able to have some great conversations about Jesus. It was such a blessing that God helped us to build a quick bond so our short time together would be meaningful. You can pray for me that I will have time to follow up with the girls through the rest of the summer.
Club and Games
We got to see some amazing places in Italy too but I'll have to post those another day :)
1 comments
It looks like you are having a wonderful time. I'm so glad everything has worked out. Praying for you!-aj
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