A Quick Update from Dehradun (India Journals, June 24)

I have to be honest in saying that I wasn't too sure how everything was going to work out this week. I'd been up to the base in Dehradun before and I knew it was small (and when I say small, I mean it's a house). So the prospect of having over 500 kids here for camp scared me a little bit. I wasn't terribly enthused by the idea either. We took the train up on Monday morning and we had our first day of camp yesterday. We were relieved to hear that there are 2 other camps going on in the area this week. So far we've had about 300 both days, still not a small number, but the kids have been extremely co-operative with our limited amount of space and so far I'd say this has gone smoother than the last one; which in of itself is a miracle as we have more kids and less volunteers. The language barrier hasn't been as ackward as I expected and our translators have been phenomenal.

We're getting a true taste of what it's like to live in India this week. The weather has been just as hot as in Delhi and we have no airconditioning. Because of the space limitations we've been spending most of our time outside for the camp. For this reason we also moved the timing of the camp earlier (8am) so we could finish by noon (the fact that the kids started showing up shortly after 7 on the first day when we weren't starting till 9 helped that decision as well). I've been really tired. I don't know if it's the heat, the lack of sleep, or both, but I've been finding myself needing to sleep after lunch everyday this week, which is really odd for me. I've been thrilled with the way this camp is running and meeting the new kids this week, but I feel sapped of energy all the time. It's okay though, because even in this I find that
God is sustaining me. I know that in everything I do it's not my own strength that is carrying me through but the strength of Christ being shown through me. Thank you all for your amazing prayers; I hope to see you in a week or so!