Week two in Campamento Roblealto was intense, joyful and growing. Our work and service here in camp took off in the form of two camp days with children, a day of labouring in the workshop, and a weekend of training.

The camp days with children were wonderful. To live and serve in an environment where God is shared with children through recreation and games is incredibly inspiring, and provokes beautiful moments where children are laughing and smiling in His presence. Just as Dan said one evening ‘the children really bring this place alive’. You cannot help but share in their smiles.

Working with a team of volunteers has also been hugely encouraging in helping us to grow and learn. Their experience on this camp has given them skills of leadership and wisdom which we have been so fortunate to learn from, and their absolute devotion to God’s work, shown in both their service, and their committed and faithful relationships to the Father, has also been greatly inspiring. When the days are long, starting just after 6am, the readiness of the volunteers to share God’s love and spirit with others is an amazing boost. Over time the team has been getting more involved with the activities, through contribution in the morning briefings and afternoon debriefings, as well as physical involvement for example Maria and Dan leading some incredibly successful games.

We have also had the opportunity to serve the camp in a more practical way. Everyone in the team has thrown themselves into the work, chopping wood, organising the worship, building a table for the meeting room and plenty more. Being able to serve in a much more clear way has been really refreshing for the team, and enables us to give something back to the camp which has given us so much.

Over the weekend we had training for the camp, along with around 50 volunteers. It was exhausting but the team really made the most of the opportunity to form relationships with many of the volunteers, to learn about the way that God moves through the camp, and to receive training on many areas such as team building, finding God’s wonders in nature, recreative games and many more skills which we can utilise over the next 6 weeks, and bring home with us after that. When the team came together to eat on Sunday night we were buzzing about the entire weekend, and we were all able to share special moments and answers to prayer that had excited us, like particular relationships that had been formed, or moments which had inspired us. A popular one was the experience in nature that had been part of the weekend, where we were encouraged to forage, draw, listen and rest in God’s creation. It was a breathtaking experience where every member of the team agreed they had experienced God in a completely new way, from a fresh perspective, and had learned something new about God’s character from looking closer into his creation. I was in awe of the vastness and variation of God, taking note of the difference between the smallest and largest things you could see in a single eyeshot. We shared and prayed into the experience with other volunteers, which closed the activity in a beautiful way.

We are looking hopefully into the next week as we delve deeper into life in camp and our relationships with God.

To read the previous report click here.