Covie Camp

The rain is finally here , hopefully is goes away soon. Last Wednesday night at church went really well. We showed the kids two shorts video clips, one was from Louie Giglio where he describes the size of some of the other stars in the universe. And then we showed them a video clip describing the Gospel. All of the kids sat through them both very quietly and listened. We are taking small steps to show them the truth about God. One of the older boys texted Jon the next day and asked “did you show that video clip about the Gospel for me?” Jon said “no, we showed it for everyone.” Obviously the clip spoke directly to at least one person in the room.
I spent last weekend away in a place called Exford, we took the Sunday school class, called Covies, down there for a weekend camp. It was a lot of fun; I uploaded some pictures to Facebook already. The first night we got there we had a bonfire and just hung out. The next day we went to a place called Minehead and played rugby on the beach after going for a long walk in the woods. When we got back to the house we played a game on this muddy hill where half the boys had to climb up the hill and the other half had to push them back down. Needless to say, by the end of the day everyone was very tired and ready to sleep.
I had a lot of fun getting to know the Covies, most of their parents go to church, and that is the only time I get to see them is on Sunday morning. Each of the counselors gave a short talk at some point during the camp, and then on the last day before leaving each of the kids shared what they had learned at camp. It was encouraging to see that they remembered a lot of what was said during the camp. We met last night to plan another Covie trip before Christmas because this one went so well and not everyone got to go. Loretta will be here for the next one, so she is going to be an honorary Covie haha. Before I came to England I imagined spending a lot more time with the church kids but I have spent most of my time here with the non-church kids who just use the church parking lot to skateboard and scooter.
I had an interesting day today, I met up with 3 of the skaters today at the church and we walked to McDonalds for lunch. After we went in this store called Sainsbury’s, it is very similar to a place like Target. I just wanted to see how much it cost to get a pair of pants but it was a very interesting trip into this store. The boys had taken straws from McDonalds, and they started shooting spit balls at each other. At first it seemed under control, but then while walking down one of the aisles I noticed one of them had pinned the other one to the floor and then started dragging him by his feet. There were moms with their kids walking by and just staring with their mouths open. I was trying to pretend like I did not know them in case one of the workers came over and yelled at them.
Then we started making our way across the store and I ran into a lady from the church, she asked how I was doing, I told her I was just hanging out with some of the boys and before I finished the sentence I noticed she was looking past me with a smirk on her face. I turned around to see that things had gotten out of control again. One of them was in the middle of a flying drop kick to the other one’s back. I saw a mom with one hand on her shopping cart use her other hand to pull her daughter out of the way. Story gets better though…
They wanted to go to the deodorant and cologne aisle. I had no idea what was about to happen next. The three of them started spraying themselves with stuff very similar to Axe. But instead of just a small spray, they were holding the top down until it had nothing left. Then they started spraying each other, I saw one of them spray another one directly in the face. Eyes and mouth both open because he was not expecting it. This time I really thought a worker was going to come over and yell at us but it never happened. We just left the store smelling very strange.
This isn’t funny, but one of these boys wrote an apology letter to Jon while we were sitting in McDonalds today because Sunday night while I was away at camp, he pulled his pants down and mooned some of the people in the church.
On our walk back to the church from Sainsbury’s we met a girl named Georgia who goes to school with them. She asked why I was here, I told her, and then she said “I hate God”. I asked why, she said “he made me sick when I was little and then he made my dad have an affair.” Later on in the conversation she told me she would rather go to hell because you can get a tan there and heaven is cold and boring. Sad because the truth is God did not make her dad have an affair, and hell is a terrible place. I left the conversation with the simple truth, I told her she can believe whatever she wants while she is alive on earth, but the second she dies she will no longer have the choice and she will stand before Him.