Young Life College Camp

Young Life launched a new program for college students here in Zap and that means another camp to go to! We were invited along to simply hang out, speak English, make friends and share Christ with college students. We were told that the camp would be more relaxed than Young Life camp for teenagers (which involves running day and night) and would be at a "resort" because that's what college students like. Well "resort" and "Ukraine" don't really fit into the same sentence together so our expectations were low however that's not why we agreed to go! We knew this would be a great opportunity to build new relationships and to plug in to another ministry here in the city. 

The camp was about 130 km from Zap. They've redone the highway between Zap and Dnipro and while it's not completed, it was so smooth and lovely until Dnipro of course and then it was back to bumps and holes like usual! We sent our two Americans on the buses with the campers and took all the gear for the week in the car. It was a lovely short road trip. 

Some narrow, treed Ukrainian highway:

We arrived right behind the buses and oh my goodness! It WAS a resort!!! It was the nicest place we've ever stayed in Ukraine, and that's not even a joke! The room for our family was the whole top balcony of this cabin: 

There were poolS PLURAL! 

We were the only people staying there throughout the week but people from the nearby village could come and use the pool during the day. I didn't know that places this lovely existed in Ukraine other than at the sea!

I have yet to find a working hot tub in Ukraine (other than the chan in the Carpathian mountains two years ago) and this one was no different - we caught frogs in it nearly every day!

There were so many things for the boys to do too - these little cars, a trampoline, a suspension bridge, hammocks, big swings, a playground, the pools....it was just lovely to set them free outside for hours at a time with nothing to worry about. 

There was a restaurant on site but it was quite expensive so for the camp it was decided that we'd bring along our own cooks. The place where we ate was about an 800 meter walk into the forest where there was a big dining room and lots of trees and space to play ridiculous games.
Walking to lunch:

We also had "club" there every morning and evening with singing, dancing, silly games and then a message from Ruslan who was the speaker for the week. His theme for the week was Love Story and every day he shared more pieces of God's love story for us. 

Andy (sitting on the right) drummed for the band for the week. 

The forest:

 Let's talk about food! There were three cooks, the main one being a guy named Volodya (or Vova) who had a really interesting life story. Steve connected with him really well and he was just so joyful and fun to be around. His English was good but it's always fun to go back and forth between English and Russian and that way we all learn new words.

They cooked all of the main dishes in this enormous cauldron over the fire: 

Now that's a big pot!!

Below on the left: plov (rice pilaf with beef), on the right: spaghetti with MCC canned chicken (sounds super gross but it's not really) and akroshka soup which is cold....not milk....not sour cream but somewhere in between flavour-wise with ham, cucumbers, cooked potatoes, lots of dill and parsley. 

Above on the left: gretchka (cooked buckwheat) with sauteed mushrooms and onions, on the right: borsche with potatoes and more canned chicken. 

Below: two different versions of cooked potatoes, vegetables with meat 

Above: on the left was BREAKFAST - spaghetti with bologna and scrambled eggs, on the right was a delicious soup with sausage, potatoes and vegetables. They also served lots of Ukrainian salads - lots of cabbage in some kind of brine dressing. *Let it be noted that I sat across from one of the cooks at most of the meals and he must have thought that I was actually insane for taking pictures of every. single. meal.* ha ha

A lot of the challenges and activities happened at the pool in the afternoon. We also had a lot of free time and there were several pool games that happened during that time.

More evening club time:

The view from the door of our cabin:

One afternoon there was a 3 hour hike. I didn't think the kids would make it so only Steve went: 

They hiked blindfolded for a while and there was a short message about that. Also they had packed lunches for the hike and for everyone that stayed back they gave us money to go to the restaurant if we wanted to. The boys and I did and had some good Ukrainian food. We always order borsche and it came with a dilly bun and salo......which was straight-up uncooked bacon: 

I saved the salo for Caleb and Andy, I'm so nice, ha ha but they HAVE to at least try it or even just see it!! Of course it went in the garbage, ha ha.

The boys and I went and met up with the hikers at a sandpit nearby the camp at the end of their hike.

There were so many incredible sunsets over this sunflower field. It was quite possibly the most beautiful view I've ever seen.

By Wednesday evening Volodya admitted to Steve that the kitchen team was feeling some stress from ohhh you know, cooking over a fire for 40 people three times a day!!!! So we hit the kitchen to be useful in whatever way we could.

Peeling potatoes and talking with Volodya was probably our favourite part of the whole camp. It's amazing how fast peeling an enormous sack of potatoes goes when you're having great conversation!

The second last night was THE night at club where everyone was given the chance to accept Christ. It was followed up on Friday night with a big fun cowboy-themed party. We weren't told about the costume requirement but that didn't stop Andy (from Texas) from participating and picking out the most cowboy of all the costumes, ha ha. 

Camp was awesome. I personally wasn't ready to go home and that has literally never happened to me at a camp ever! ha ha It's been even more awesome connecting with people since then - we have some new relationships and new friends coming out of it and hopefully we can really grow those relationships and be able to share more about Christ and following Him in the future!