Camp Day 3 - Sunday

- Today, I was given a task. Go and gather a plant for tea. Unfortunately when Leana, our camp director, asked if I knew what that plant was, Volva was there and overheard the question and answered for me “yes, she knows”. It was one of the plants he showed me yesterday. Now, if I had known there was going to be a test, I would have paid more attention to the lesson – I am sure there is a moral lesson to be learned from that statement! So off I went on my own to find this little purple flower that grows around your “legs” (just a language point: feet, ankles, calves, knees, thighs, really the height of this plant would have been a help, but in Russian you just say leg). Soon I found a little purple flower, but the leaves didn’t look right, but really, what do I know. Then I remembered, everything Vovla showed me had a non-flower scent. So I smelled it - not the right thing. Upon further searching, I found a different little purple flower growing right at ground level with a non-flower scent. I was so proud of my botanical skills and picked a whole bag full. I returned to discover it was the right stuff! After separating out the stems and letting the flowers and leaves dry we made tea for dinner. Sadly, I found the tea to be not very tasty, but everyone else really liked it so - Praise the Lord!

- fun quotes from today
“quick, give me a Bible, right now!”
“Shushan, you are strange, but cool.”
“write, we want to see you write in English” then after a pause
“can you really read that?”

- tonight, I was not forgotten for dinner. As a matter of fact, I was counted several times with many reminders to Dema “Don’t forget Shushan”. It is nice to feel loved. Also during dinner, I learned I say Pastor Arkoti’s name wrong. Mostly because I said his name and Dema and Veta laughed at me and asked me to say it again. Let’s forget for a moment, this is how I have been saying his name for almost 2 years, so feeling a little dumb, everyone tried to help me pronounce his name correctly. It really is more Arkodye. After several attempts that made everyone laugh it was determined I get to call him Arkasha, which is a nickname for Arkodye that is normally reserved for small boys – just a reminder, it is good to be humble.

- During tonight’s service the older girls were supposed to lead the singing, but they stumbled over the words and stopped. The younger girls in the audience kept going. The music leader stopped and tried again, but the younger girls were louder than the older girls, so again, they stopped. Finally, the music leader, asked the audience to sit down and the older girls preformed the song for us. It was pretty funny.

- Answered prayers: one of the little boys, Keereal, maybe seven years of age shared in the evening service tonight that he was afraid of the water yesterday, but last night he prayed that God would help him and today when they went to swim he was not afraid. How sweet he was when Leana asked if anyone wanted to share about how God answers prayer and he raised his hand and boldly spoke into the microphone. How sweet his little voice was as he praised God. I pray he will always remember God hears us when we pray and we can trust him!