Hiding in the Scum

July 15th

Patate, Ecuador

Today was one of the fullest days I’ve had at the camp so far this summer. Our first full day of youth camp was an enjoyable and, of course, an adventurous one. The day started early with a time of devotion before the mid-morning games began. And games they were. My duty for a good part of the morning was popping out from under my pond scum camouflage to scary away teams from getting their team’s flag in the middle of the camp’s pond. I never even knew the camp had a pond until today when a couple of the guys showed me the trail that goes back to it. Thankfully, it wasn’t too scummy and no fish lived in it, so getting covered with a whole bunch of green pond foliage wasn’t too bad I guess.

We protected our fort in the middle pretty well, half startling our visitors as they came. After lunch, our entire youth camp walked down the road to go to Vino del Rio, a hosteria (think a small hotel out in the country)with an amazing water slide and plenty of fun water pools to jump into to, one of the camp’s neighbors. The water was freezing cold and the outside temperature wasn’t much better, but we all had an amazing time for the hour and a half we were there.

The evening ended with a talent show and our group, Equipo Azul (the Blue team…our names were based of the colors they gave us), performed a skit about a couple at a movie theatre. The basic plot is that the only two seats available in the theatre are at the opposite ends of this aisle. Therefore, the guy (that’s me) tried his best to share his drink, popcorn, Kleenex (for the sad parts), and so on during the movie with his girlfriend; unfortunately, while these items were being passed down the row, they were all completely used up by the time they arrived to here and she ends up leaving the theatre with the guy sitting next to her.

If it doesn’t make sense, I understand, it didn’t the first time to me. However, it went over great and we ended up tying for first place in our mini-competition tonight. Two more days of camp remain before our staff returns for the jungle for camps in the city of Tena. In addition, I only have two and a half more weeks here in Ecuador, a sad thought to know that the summer is coming to a close. But God’s work is never finished and I’m sure He’ll continue to do amazing things here in my finally few days.