Day 5

Let me start by saying - the rumors you may hear of Jay and I being incarcerated by the local police are greatly exaggerated. Just saying.

Today started with the very normal occurrence of the power being out.  Fortunately I was still able to get a shower.  For Laurie and Gen, this is reminiscent of your YC video of about 10 years ago. "The water trickles just a little."  

Jay and I got an early breakfast because we needed to head over to a local "shop" where we could assemble the Stand poles needed for our Youth Camp. We had to do this because we could not compile the tools needed to build them at Spree.  We got dropped off and were told that one of the shop drivers would drop us back off at Spree once we were done along with our Stand Poles.  Once we finished we loaded up the lorry, piled into the cab with the driver and headed back to Spree.  Along the way we got a little lost.  As we were getting our bearings again we got pulled over by the local police.  Apparently there was a very bad tire on the back of the lorry and they needed to give him a ticket.  That meant driving to the local police station.  

Once there at the station the driver had to go into the station leaving Jay and I in the cab wondering exactly what was going on. The drive had his keys taken away from him.  Jay was frantically texting Doug to let him know and Doug contacted Wilbroad to come over to the station to get things straightened out. Wilbroad arrived and began talking with the police.  He seemed a little put out.  He then walked back by the cab and said "I don't understand this!", jumped in his car and drove away leaving Jay and I with no explanation of what that meant.  Jay and I looked at one another with an unspoken "Um, ok?!" look on both our faces.  Then we just burst into hysterical laughter as we sat there in the cab wondering what the heck was going on.  Wilbroad came back a minute later and worked everything out, but we still didn't know what was going on.  Apparently Wilbroad was not able to understand why they were making such a big deal over the tire (and it's associated "fee") and wanted to talk to his friend in the police to "interpret" what was going on.  That's why he left to go do that.  Once that happened the ticket, with the corrected "fee" was written and we were on our way.

We then proceeded to the game fields where we held Youth Camp.  It took about an hour to set everything out and be ready for the kids to arrive.  They began arriving by bus - I think we had close to 100 registered for the day - and we divided them up into 6 teams.  While we waited for the last bus to arrive all the team leaders spent time interacting with the kids - dancing, singing, getting to know each other.  It was a special time of interaction. Then Joel called the first formation and we're off!

First Formation!

The afternoon consisted of worship (wow that was fun), a teaching from Joel on Mary and Martha, then games.  Everyone was having a blast.  Then we took a snack break and had some discussions.  Then more games and then finished up for the day.  It was so much fun watching our leaders with the kids.  I don't know who was having more fun - the kids playing Stand for the first time or the leaders being able to play it with them.  I was really impressed with our leaders.  A paragraph isn't sufficient to describe all that happened and the affect doing something like this has on us.  Needless to say, we are looking forward to another great day tomorrow.

Joel teaching

After that we picked up, headed back Spree for showers, dinner (again outstanding), team meeting and games for us.