The first day was the hardest as we were meeting the children and we weren't sure how they would take to us. It would be difficult, as here we were, four foreigners who didn't speak their language and children who didn't speak our language. But, that was a hurdle we would soon overcome.
Throughout the week we would all meet in the church (which was on the campsite) and Ilona in Hungarian would go through the theme of the day and also the Bible verse, which was both in English and Hungarian. She would then call all four of us English speakers up to the front to teach the children a song. The songs were in English and we made up actions with them to help make it easier for the children to learn. The songs were as follows:
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKVery4zI2c
No Greater Gift than God's Great Love
(I couldn't get the video to come up on the page, so you can see the video by clicking on the link above).
Day 5:
We did encourage the children to join in with us and by the end of the week even the teenagers were doing the actions - which we were really pleased about! The five days each had different themes all of them relating to God and His son Jesus Christ. The main aim of the camp was to teach children the Gospel and the unconditional love of Jesus, as well as teaching them the basics of English. The theme of the days all corresponded to a different colour and each colour had a different message and a different story.
On the first day the theme was Yellow is for God. The story relating to that colour was the story of Creation and during our English teaching lessons we would teach the words that come up in the version of that story for example: sea, stars, sun, moon, land, animals, birds and fish. The children would learn the Bible verse for that day which was taken from Jeremiah 29 v 13: "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."
On the second day the theme was Black is for Sin. The children learned the story of Adam and Eve and how sin had separated them from God. They also learned that God can forgive them if they sin and they are truly sorry for what they have done. In the English teaching lessons, I asked the children if they knew what different English words were good and which were bad. They answered correctly each time and I was really impressed that they knew their good from bad in English. The Bible verse for that day, Romans 6 v 23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord."
The third day the theme Red is for Jesus. This day was slightly different to the others as the children were shown a film simply known as 'Jesus'. The Jesus film was made in 1979, but various translations and different versions of the film have been produced since then. This one was a children's version and it was in their native language, so was easy for them to understand. Normally back at home children become restless when sitting down for an hour watching a film which normally they're not interested in, but here it was different. At the crucifixion scene the room was silent and there were a few tears shed from a number of the leaders there. It was just amazing how the kids were able to sit still and take it all in. During our English lesson we read the story of Jesus to them again and filled in various worksheets and towards the end of the lesson got them to occupy themselves by colouring in. The Bible verse for that day is probably the best known of them all John 3 v 16: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not die but have eternal life."
Day four had the theme White is for a Clean Heart. The story was that of the Ten Lepers, whom Jesus healed and only one came back to say thank you. The Bible verse learned that day was from John 1 v 12: "To all who received Him to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." The final day we learned about the vine and the branches, how the Lord made us to produce much fruit, in other words to do many good things. The colour for the day was green and the theme Green is for Growing. As Christians we are still very much growing spiritually, praying and reading God's word and trying to live like Christ. The final Bible verse: "I am the vine, you are the branches if you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit." John 15 v 5.
During the afternoons at the camp the children involved themselves in crafts and in games which were a lot of fun. The kids enjoyed learning the numbers in English through card games such as Skip-Bo and Uno, learning names of animals and objects in the game Who Am I? and of course playing games where we were just simply having fun.
We encouraged the children as much as we could to learn these Bible verses and if they had any questions about God or Jesus to ask us and we would try and answer them as best we can. It was so incredible to see these young lives touched by the camp and how by the end of the week we were their friends. It was also great to meet the parents of the children on the Saturday, where we spent the day playing games, talking and interacting with them and generally having a good time.
The camp is probably the only place these kids get to hear the Gospel and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.
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