Wow, what an amazing experience I had at Kompas Park! “He will fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.” Job 8:21 This verse describes my experience because laughter and shouts of joy were a huge part of my first trip to Ukraine. Making the kids laugh was one of my favorite parts of the camp. Some of the things we did with them were play games, sing Christian camp songs (in English and Ukrainian,) and swing them as high as we could in the hammocks we brought. One unexpected challenge for me was the amount of sports we played. Not being a very athletic person, I was slightly daunted by the fact that every day we played hours of volleyball, soccer, kickball, Frisbee, ping-pong, football, and tennis. However, my lack of athletic ability allowed for many laughs, from the kids and also from my fellow camp counselors. That was one thing I learned on the trip: to laugh at myself.
The kids I met were wonderful. During the first week, I led a group of seven girls from the ages of ten to twelve. As with any group of girls, there was lots of giggling and many, many tears. Probably the most memorable experience with these girls was being put into a rowboat with four of them who spoke about ten words of English each and sent out onto the river. We got stuck quite a few times and through it, I learned to say ‘help,’ ‘that way,’ and ‘which way’ in Ukrainian. They learned a few phrases in English as well, and went around telling anyone who would listen to ‘go to the green boat.’ There was one special girl first week named Alina to whom I got very close. She was the youngest in my group, and when she first arrived she would speak to no one. It was my mission throughout the week to make her smile, and by the end she was talking to the other girls and enjoying herself. I’ll never forget her; I told her at the end of the week that I loved her and she told me that I was her big sister.
The second week I had a group of sixteen boys from the ages of seven to eleven. This was much more physically taxing, but I had the time of my life. My boys were rambunctious and lively, and since I was a girl they enjoyed finding different ways to make me squeal. My favorite times with these boys were at the river. We had two splash fights (all sixteen boys against me) and one huge weed war. There are these thick, sort of prickly weeds that grow on the bottom of the river and we spent an hour throwing them at each other and smashing them on each other’s heads – I found plant particles in my hair for three or four days afterwards. The boys were also very sweet. At lunch they gave me first choice of candy, and when we made s’mores they were very careful to make sure I was going to get one. The lesson I learned the second week was patience, particularly with one little boy. We ended up getting very close, but he cried eight times over four or five days for silly reasons. It was all I could do not to shake him, and in those times it was as if God put His hand on mine and told me to be gentle with him. I found out on the last day that he’d been homesick for the first two days and had cried every night – thank God I stuck with him!
Another challenge I had was knowing what sort of impact we were having on the kids. Every day we told a Bible story, had ‘team time’ when we talked about the story, and then had quiet time at night with a prayer. Some of the kids listened, some of them didn’t, and some didn’t seem to care. When we made salvation bracelets, many already knew what order the beads went in and what they meant, which gave me some hope. I’ve continued to pray for them and hope that you will as well. Pray that the seeds of truth we planted over those two weeks will grow and have a lasting impact on their lives.
I learned so much on this trip, and the friends I made are invaluable. The American team feels like a family to me now, after days of working together. Thank you for praying for the team; there were no major health issues, no injuries, and there was unity among all of us beyond what I thought possible. I have plans to return next year, God willing.
For twelve weeks during the summer, American and British volunteers
have joined Ukrainian Kompas Park team leaders to bring joy, laughter
and hope to youngsters and elderly people.
