M&M Yenatsky: Camp Week

This is what this trip is all about! Bill and Lyuba have been organizing this trip for years. While on the trip, you are ministering to lots of people - widows, orphans, members of the church there, people of the community, your host family, translators, and of course the kids in the camp (and also their parents and family members).

This is the basic structure of the mission trip:

Week one → get to know the translators! These translators are Ukrainian university students studying English in school. This is hands-on experience for them with native English-speaking Americans. Most are girls, however we did have a great group of guys this year! Most are studying to be teachers. They are all college age (18-24ish) and do this on a volunteer basis.

Our translators (including Misha)

Most of this week is spent hearing presentations, reviewing lesson plans, singing songs, sharing stories, practicing translation, and just getting to know everyone. Each person was required to share a brief presentation in front of the group. The presentations were interesting and it was fun to hear about different things from different people.

Rachel Kempf (an American team member) teaching us a song in sign language

My presentation was on

but I get so nervous speaking in front of groups of people. Doing the presentation was hard for me, but the great part was that one of the female translators, Vika, was interested in this. It turns out that she is a dance teacher so we spent some afternoons dancing and doing Zumba together! It was so fun!

Me & Vika (this picture is from the group dance we performed - post to come!)

Week two → camp week! This is the week that we teach in public school #10. These kids who attend the camp work hard and are on their best behavior all during the school year in order to attend the camp. It's basically like a VBS all week from 8:00-2:00 everyday. We have kids from five years old all the way up through high school. This year our theme was superheroes and growth. We are able to use the Bible and stories from the Bible to teach and promote good morals. The kids are then invited to come back at night with their parents, grandparents, or other adults to attend our night classes and Bible study.

Monday - the first day of camp - is a crazy day! Kids are being registered, it's your first time in the classroom, you are trying to establish a schedule, and it takes awhile for the kids (especially the younger ones) to get that you can't understand what they are saying without a translator.

Registration and greetings on the first morning of camp

Zen and I were the teachers in the youngest class. We had (20) five, six, and seven year olds who did not speak English. Oh what fun! Thank goodness for our translators - Dasha and Dasha....no...them having the same name wasn't confusing at all! LOL! D&D did a fantastic job though!

We also had Lydia in our class! Lydia is in the Peace Corps and is stationed in Dzerzhinsk. She teaches English in one of the schools there. One of her teacher friends brought her to the school we were at during the first week. All Lydia knew was that there were Americans at this school and she wanted to hang out! I was the first one that she spotted and started talking to. Haha - at first she thought I was Ukrainian! Too funny! So happy to have her in our class during camp week!

Our class

with the teachers

The camp is actually really cool. The kids get to participate in Bible stories

and do cool things like arts & crafts

puppets (they go nuts over this)

health lessons

and PE (AKA run around outside and play soccer)

They also get breakfast and lunch during camp. We have 30 minutes dedicated for lunch, but the kids inhale their food in five minutes flat. We timed them. The teachers and translators had to eat fast!

The kids are also phyched about the end-of-camp performance that we do. On Friday - the last day of camp - all the classes sing a song, do a skit, etc. showcasing what they learned during the week of camp. In keeping with our theme this year (superheroes), our class sang "My God is So Big...so Strong...and so Mighty" in English. Too cute!!! They also sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" in Russian. We got to learn that one! ;-)

On stage performing "My God is So Big"

and the Russian version of "If You're Happy and You Know It"

Every afternoon after camp, we would have dance practice. This is not just Vika and I doing Zumba, but it was a large group of some Americans and translators who would perform a traditional Russian dance at Friday's celebration. It was really a lot of fun! The next post will be our performance. :-)

Guys practicing their part in the dance