This year, the FMT participants worship with the Cayambe Church of Christ on Sunday morning. In the afternoon, there is a medical clinic at the camp and preparations continue for VBS. We have a campfire complete with s'mores and a devo in the evening.
On Monday, the 4-day VBS begins. The basic structure of the FMT is as follows: VBS runs at the camp in the mornings, and then in the afternoons, there are medical clinics, some at the camp, some at off-site locations. Also, throughout the week, we have construction and community service projects for people to work on. This year, we are putting a new roof on a neighbor's house, and pushing hard to get the last section of the prayer trail around the perimeter of the camp completed.
On Wednesday afternoon, July 4th, we take a break from our work to celebrate Independence Day! We play baseball, make festive desserts, have a cookout, and end the evening with a grand fireworks display.
Thursday is the last day of work projects. The medical team spends all day doing a clinic at a new church in Machachi, a couple of hours south of Quito. VBS ends with a bang -- over 100 kids! We complete the prayer trail (a project several years in the making), and take a celebratory walk on it after lunch.
On Friday after breakfast, we leave on the bus for Mindo. We will spend the next couple of days playing and having fun after working hard all week! We stay at a cute hotel in Mindo, and have dinner all together. The next day, we enjoy Mindo until after lunch, then head back to Quito. We tour the Middle of the World Museum, then have dinner at everyone's favorite, Crepes and Waffles, before dropping the group off at the airport on Saturday night for their flights home. It has been another great FMT!
While we were in Mindo with the FMT, another U.S. group has arrived at the camp. So on Sunday, we jump right into preparing meals and taking care of them. I also begin working on publicity for our upcoming camps, while Rusty is in the middle of designing and installing a disc golf course for the camp. Work continues on the apartment for Guillermo and Syndi's family, and we hope to have it move-in ready soon!
The U.S. group leaves at the end of the week, and I squeeze in a few more days of homeschool lessons with the boys in the midst of planning and prepping for camps. We are nearly done with our school year and will complete all but two weeks before summer camps begin. Stephen Lockwood arrives from Bellevue (our sponsoring congregation) to spend a few days with us at the camp. We enjoy our visits with him.
A Young Friends (Let's Start Talking) team from the Bellevue Church of Christ arrives on July 21st. These are members of the youth group, plus a couple of adult sponsors. They will put on our first camp of the summer, English Camp! We take them to worship with the church in Cayambe on Sunday; then they spend the rest of the day organizing their supplies and getting ready for their camp.
English Camp begins on Monday. It is a day camp, so the campers come each morning and leave each afternoon. We provide lunch. We have nearly 40 kids register on the first day, which is a bit more than the team feels prepared to handle, but they make it work. After camp ends on Wednesday afternoon, the Young Friends team pitches in to help the Racines family move in to the now completed apartment. Cabin 3 (where the Racines have been living) is now vacant again, just in time for our big youth camp coming up!
On Thursday night, the campers get to stay the night for a sleepover at the camp! The team plans some afternoon activities, and we serve dinner. This is followed by a campfire devo with s'mores, and then a zombie game with glow-sticks. On Friday morning, we serve breakfast, and there are some closing activities, and then English Camp ends. In the afternoon, the team helps us clean up, make beds, and get the camp ready for youth camp the following week. We are hosting a graduation dinner at the camp that evening for a part-time employee, so we invite the team up to our house for games and a movie.
On Saturday, Rusty takes the Young Friends team to Otavalo for shopping and to Chachimbiro to enjoy the hot springs. I stay back at the camp to welcome the US team who will be putting on the youth camp next week. They arrive in the afternoon and begin preparations for camp. We have a shared dinner with both groups that evening.
On Sunday, Rusty accompanies the Young Friends team to Quito. They attend services at the Pisulí Church of Christ, then spend the rest of the day sightseeing in Quito before flying home that night. I stay at the camp to oversee meals for the camp team. Their Ecuadorian helpers arrive on Sunday afternoon, and preparations are now in full swing for youth camp, which begins the next day.
On Monday, July 30, youth camp begins. It is our largest group of the year with close to 200 people, sometimes a few more! The campers arrive in the afternoon, and our first meal for the entire group is dinner. We decide to try something different this year, and make sancochco de pescado, a hearty fish soup. It is a big hit!
The last day of July is our first full day of youth camp. I spend a long day in the kitchen, busy with cooking and food prep. Cooking for this number of people, we need 8 staff, working 12-hour shifts, plus me overseeing everything. We finish serving one meal and move right into preparations for the next. It is a lot of work, but we have a lot of fun, too!
- Family Mission Trippers working on the camp's prayer trail.
- Everyone loves the craft station at VBS!
- Working together to give an elderly neighbor a new roof for her home.
- English Camp opening activity.
- Soup for 200!
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