Brazilian / American Youth Camp

Matt, Mary, Jennifer Porter, our intern Paul and our visitor (hopefully next year’s children’s ministry intern) Heather all went to the south of Brazil for a week of Brazilian/ American youth camp. We offered ourselves as odds and ends laborers: helping with the directory, filling up water balloons, decorating for the dinners, etc. There was a campaign group from Abilene, Texas of about 40 who came to put on this camp for 60 Brazilian campers, 25 of whom were non-Christians. The draw for the non-Christian kids to come to Bible camp was a chance to practice their English and have cross-cultural interaction with American teenagers – a pretty good evangelistic tool. For Jennifer, Mary and Matt who work with the youth in our city, there were some short term and long term goals reached on this trip.
The short term was to bring back some Brazilian games, songs, devo ideas, ect. to use with the kids here. Also, to receive some translation practice, strengthen the bonds between one of the teams’ sponsoring churches, and talk to some of the older Brazilian Christians in the South about possible internships in Salvador in the near future - We have 2 really good possibilities for this coming year: Jefferson (Paul’s – this year’s intern’s - cousin) and a guy named Gusto, both whom everyone loved at camp and work well with youth and teaching English using the Bible! Another short term goal was talking with the speaker of the camp about his evangelistic / teaching ideas for a coffee house night at the church. Coffee houses are just starting to become a new attraction here in Salvador and it would be a great and informal way to reach the 20 somethings that live in our buildings.
The long term goals were more observation oriented. We wanted to see what an American youth campaign that size looked like as well as get an idea for future (way future) youth camp / retreat ideas. Also, we wanted show our support for the Southern churches since their leaders (Paul and his parents especially) have already contributed to our settling in here and beginning the work.
We received a little from the camp along the way that we did not anticipate… new friendships. Mary and Matt got to spend much time in prayer with the American adults who came. Since there are no older Christians from our own culture at our church, we have not had much opportunity to be mentored to ourselves. It was a wonderful time to share and grow and receive spiritual food which we had been craving.