Kids' Camp

Well, it's that time of the week again. For those of you who remember, or have just been paying attention, seven weeks ago I decided to start video blogging. Every week. On Tuesday. And I've been very good about it.

However, I am currently teaching extra classes, yesterday and today we had testing - which meant even more work (11 hrs total each day), and I was gone all weekend at a summer camp.

Summer camp would have been a great opportunity to take videos, right? And I thought I took a few, but I think that a couple of them may have accidentally been deleted (alternatively, I may have just imagined them). Consequently, here it is 11:00 pm on Tuesday night and all I have to share with you is one rather pathetic excuse for a video clip. In the spirit of consistency, I'm going to upload it anyway and supplement it with a few pictures and a blog about the camp, ok?

So here it is, the camp report.

Camp was great. I'm really glad I went, even though I didn't know anyone before Friday. Two weeks ago, I saw a notice in the bulletin saying that they were looking for volunteers for Vacation Sunday School for the weekend of Aug 8-10. I assumed that it was VBS and they just needed someone for a few hours during the day. I tried to talk to someone after church, but nobody was available. So I tried again after church last Sunday. This time I was able to talk to one of the children's church leaders and later, the children's pastor. At this point I found out that it was a children's camp. The leader that I talked with was very excited that I was volunteering and said that they needed more volunteers. They were heading out on Friday morning, but he said I could carpool with some other people who weren't able to make it Friday night.

So after work on Friday, I met up with some other volunteers and headed out to the camp. By the time we got there, it was nearly 11:00 and most people had gone to bed. I was fortunate enough to be sharing a room with three other women, rather than a room full of kids. Don't get me wrong, I love kids. But after teaching all week and having extra classes, then spending the weekend at a kids' camp - it was nice to at least get a break at night!

I had a group of 6 six kids - 3 boys and 3 girls. But most of the time, we combined our group with another group. A lot of the kids were friends and a few of them could be a bit difficult, so it was easier for Misol (the other counselor) and I to combine the groups. Here we all are!:

On Saturday, we went on some waterslides. We only had about an hour, though, so I decided that it was not worth the effort for just an hour and I wasn't going to participate- I'd just go alone. But when we got there, I saw that these were not your typical waterslides. Behold:
It appeared to be astroturf with hoses spraying it down. After a bunch of people went down, they told us that you really don't get all that wet - just a sprinkle on the legs - but it was a lot of fun. So Misol and I caved. Naturally, just as we were about to go down, tons of water started spraying everywhere. We got wet.

It was fun, though. I'm glad we went.

Kids' camp in Korea was a lot like kid's camp in the states. We had Bible stories:

In this picture, the kids were acting out the story of Jesus coming to see Mary and Martha after Lazarus died. The kid lying down isn't just taking a nap - he's supposed to be Lazarus.

We had crafts and games:

Our group won the games on Saturday night, which meant they got all the snacks they wanted. You can see that they were pretty happy about that.

We even had a campfire. Alas, there were no smores to be had, but this kid seemed to be enjoying the fire anyway.

We also lit candles to symbolize a commitment to share Jesus with our friends. This is where my ever-so-brief video comes in:


Campfire from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

Like I said, I'm really glad I went. I haven't really been involved in my church since coming to Korea. I didn't know anyone before this weekend and I basically just go to church and leave right after the service. But helping out at kids' camp showed me how much I miss being involved and now I know some people, too! It was also a good opportunity to spend more time hanging out with Koreans. Including me, there were only three foreigners at the camp this weekend. I have a few Korean friends, but I spend most of my time hanging out with foreigners. So it was nice to get to know more Koreans.

I said that kids' camp here was a lot like kids' camp back home, but one thing that was a lot different was the food. Although I like Korean food, after eating kimchi and rice with every meal for two days, I was happy to come home and have a salad for dinner and breakfast food for breakfast the next morning.

So that's it for today, folks. I'll do my best to have a better video for you next week!