Of Lasting Impact

We returned this past week from our weeklong camp in the village of Kalinenska...a remote part of the Kherson region. This was our 4th summer heading back to work with these kids. 

The hardest part about going back every year is seeing that they are still there.  I look at my pictures from the previous years and I see how the kids are growing and changing... and yet there they remain, isolated in a tiny village, waiting for the next group of guests to arrive...hoping for a change from the normal.

What amazes me each year about these kids is their memory.  These are kids who struggle in school and have a hard time putting letters together and remembering one English word I teach them, and yet they remember specific details of previous years together as if the events happened only yesterday.  They will recite which games we played in 2009, they recite song lyrics from two years ago, they will go into detail about films we showed them and they can even remember which day of the week we showed up  last year!

 Honestly it was mind blowing to hear the kind of details they remembered.  After doing dozens of these camps I have a hard time separating them in my mind, and truthfully they all start to blur together. I have to look at the pictures to remind myself who was who and what we did.  Not for these kids. They remember the specifics.  The moments are engrained in their minds.... because for them these moments are significant.  The monotonous routine is broken and they are given a break.  The scenery stays the same perhaps, but the people who fill it are now different.

I started thinking more about this because I realized that to us the camp might just seem like a lot of work at times-- Details to coordinate, games to organize, lessons to create.  And then we wonder whether it makes a difference, if there is any lasting impact??  Well this year as I was hearing child after child rattle off details about previous camps I felt as if God was whispering to my heart....Yes, Karen, it does matter.  Don't let yourself think otherwise.

So this year as we played silly games, taught the lessons, sang the songs and pointed them to the truth of Jesus I found comfort in knowing that even though they don't always seem to pay attention...something here is sticking...something is getting through.    When we leave and they go back to their normal, they will draw upon these precious memories and they will find comfort. 

Maybe it will start as just a simple memory about one of the games, but prayerfully they will draw up words of scripture, words of hope and truth that have the power to change them forever.  

"As the rain and the snow

    come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

    without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish, 

    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 

¹¹ 

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

    It will not return to me empty, 

but will accomplish what I desire

    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

Isaiah 55:10-11

Leaving for another camp tomorrow...this time for 2 weeks. Please keep our team in your prayers.