Russian Jane: Russian Jane is back from camp!

Camp ended 10 days ago, and I have to be honest, I still haven't made a full recovery. The volume of activity, roller coaster of emotions, 220 excited campers and long lack of sleep are still making their effects felt in the form of a terrible cold that just won't go away. That being said - worth it.

Don't worry, all the wounds are fake - it was for our game, "Plane Crash"

My team from America arrived on June 2 at the Krasnodar airport. They came from A B Simpson University in California, the same place that my team came from last year. There were three repeats (their leader Lauren P, Alicia, and Zach) and four new faces (Amy, Lauren M, Megan, and Daniel) plus my very own cousin Griffin! I got them settled into their new home at Mountain Springs and from June 2-7 we got ready for the campers.

Here are most of them (we're missing Megan and Amy)

Lauren P and I - I'm so glad she came back this summer!

On our town tour, hanging out with Lenin in front of the city theater

Alicia and Lauren exhibiting both friendship and classic tourist behavior

Getting ready meant printing books, finishing the rec-room Archie and I had been working on all Spring (now called "The Cube"), and building mini-golf. It was a lot of work, and I'm very proud of how my team got everything done in time for camp. And a good thing they did, because The Cube and mini-golf were incredibly popular, and will be for years of use to come, and without those books my English lessons couldn't have taken place.

Assembling books for the little kiddos was a surprisingly large task

Dan at the mini-golf course that he helped build

This years theme was "The Net", all about social networking, the internet, and gadgets. We had lessons, activities, and evening stories aimed at helping the kids to analyze the proper place of technology in their lives. I feel that we gave the kids, especially in the second session, a lot of good information to chew on when they get home, and I hope that it leads to some positive changes in some of their lives.

The kids listening to one of Andrey's stories at our evening meeting; by far their favorite part of the day

We had two 10-day sessions of camp, the first session for kids 7-13 and the second for 11-18. Unfortunately, we had a cool and rainy June, so we didn't make it to the sea very often, but everything else went very smoothly. We were all amazed at the end of camp to look back and realize that we had not major traumas, no crises, and not particularly problematic children. It was 20 days of pure and simple fun. So fun in fact that we had about 30 new kids buy tickets to come to Logos camp in August!

Super Hero night, first session

Alicia hanging out in The Cube

I don't see her but I'm sure Megan was near- she was the queen of volleyball

They didn't catch any hedgehogs this year but look at that sweet frog!

Lauren played the sax at our talent show, second session

Wheelbarrow races during second session

We did make it to the beach a time or two...

The next day housekeeping was searching all over for their garbage can lids, but look at this rad turtle!

Tony Stark, naturally

Looking back at the previous two summer English camps I've participated in, this one stands out in terms of organization and quality. I'm happy with the way the lessons went, happy with my team, happy with the games and evening meetings - in general, I feel satisfied that English camp this year was a job well done. Now I have the month of July off to prepare for Logos in August - all about the life of King David and what he can teach us about friendship.