Lesozavodsk Day 4

Wednesday stood apart from Sunday through Tuesday. First, it rained. All day. Nonstop. We were able to take the boys to the Orthodox Church and the Pro-Life center in the morning, but the long walk in the rain cause a lot of the boys to just leave us and go home. I have never been in an Orthodox Church before then, so it was quite a new experience for me. I felt like a fish out of water. The pro-life center was actually pretty nice. It was just a room in the hospital, but the woman in charge had a lot of useful diagrams, models, and explanations for the kids to help them understand. One neat thing was that the hospital placed the pro-life office just up the hall from where all pregnant women have to go to get information about how to behave during pregnancy as well as tests and other minor prenatal care. That means that every time the woman came to the hospital to get checked up, she would have to walk by the Pro- Life office.

The afternoon was rough on everyone. The boys got very rambunctious because they were stuck inside all afternoon with us. They were hyper, but we didn’t really have the space to entertain them. All of the kids, even the girls, seemed to be more hyper and disobedient on Wednesday. I don’t know if Emily put something in the kids’ tea or what, but the team just couldn’t seem to keep up with the kids. This wore on all of us. By the time the kids left we all felt dead and defeated, at our wits ends. I can’t really describe the feeling, but it just seemed like the whole team was kind of just slipping out of the groove of things after working so hard for three days.

Toward the end of the night, Father Steve gave a rally talk during his homily at Mass. He encouraged each of us to rest up, and remember why we were there. We each had to step it up for the final day of camp and be willing to break our comfort zones and even do what we didn’t want to do. It seemed to help us a lot. Then before our Holy Hour, he led us in the prayer that we received on prayer cards from the Little Sisters of the Poor in NY. Their pray cards with a quote from their founder really did comfort us as we began our Adoration.

I don’t want to make this sound like the whole day was horrible. We each had our own little highs for the day. I had quite the adventure making popcorn with Missy for snack. The kids loved it, but it took a little to figure out the trick to it with the pot and stove we had. Then, I kind of lit a towel on fire on accident. While I was shaking the popcorn it was dragging across the burner and started to char and then set aflame without me realizing it. We both flipped out, but managed the crisis and I did not burn down the kitchen. Or myself. Or Missy. I just burned the towel, so I think it was a successful day in the kitchen.

Needless to say, after this long day we all crashed and geared up for our final day of camp, praying that we could make our final impact on the kids in the final hours we had with them.