Lesozavodsk: Day 2

Monday was the first full day of camp. The men woke up and made breakfast at the church. I enjoyed this male bonding time as we prepared breakfast for the ladies. They were always so happy to come over from the apartments to a hot breakfast.

After the team—which consisted of the 13 FOCUS members, two sisters, and our two translators, Victor and Yury—ate and cleaned up, the kids came in for breakfast, songs, and a couple of talks. Each day Father Steve would talk to the kids a little bit, then a team member or two would give a short talk about our faith. The topics of the talks ranged from the creation story all the way to love of the Father and heaven. I gave my talk on the first day, which was about prayer. Some of the talks the kids really seemed to understand and get. Other talks the kids seemed hyper and inattentive. It was hard to tell what was sinking in since we couldn’t understand their responses. Victor and Yury did a wonderful job of keeping up with us translating our talks and questions to the kids. For many of them, hearing about Catholicism was a new topic that they didn’t know much about.

            After all the talking the kids got rambunctious, so we took the guys outside. The girls stayed inside again to do some crafts. I am told that the little girls were very loving and generous in sharing with the team the bracelets and pictures they made. Outside the boys got dirty! We took them to a field and ran free with them playing baseball, football, Frisbee, and Tyler and I even taught a few of the boys how to set up a tent. Though new to them, the older boys seemed to really like the American football. After tossing it around for a while, Matt and TJ organized a game of “Ultimate Football.” Basically we played ultimate Frisbee with a football instead. It was great to see the boys start to build team spirit and sportsmanship in an organized sport (which they don’t play very often).

            After lunch, a few more songs, and a talk (mine), we all went to the river. The kids could not contain their excitement and were bouncing off the walls. Down the hill from the small parish there was quite a big river that ran through Lesozavodsk. It was nice to go out swimming with the kids and relax. Unfortunately, being in Russia, the water was quite cold. Matt and Tyler, both from Minnesota, both admitted it was pretty frigid water, so you can only imagine how this Florida boy felt getting in. I did it though! We also skipped some rocks, gave shoulder rides, and played lots of “rock, paper, scissors.”

            The day ended with a few more songs and the kids were shuffled out as the team finally got a moment to breathe and relax. We then prayed, had mass, ate dinner, had a holy hour, and did our debrief for the day. It was a completely full day of activities, and we were feeling pretty tired, so we all crashed for bed.