Camp's Always An Adventure!

Hey, I wrote this a two days ago, but it never sent, so here it is again. :0)

Well, most of you guys know that we've been having serious problems with health inspection while we've been at camp this year. Multiple times the health department has tried to shut the camp down for all sorts of fraudulent reasons (the most recent being the water) and multiple times we've managed to keep having camps even when they've said we couldn't or we needed their permission, etc. Radooga and the camp we rent (Camp Promin) has had independent water tests done that come out completely normal, but somehow the health department always manages to come up with test results that have bacteria results off the charts. A doctor in Kyiv looked at those results for Oleg and told him that if those results were really true every person who had put that water in his or her mouth at camp would be in the hospital right now. And not one person is sick, so it's quite apparent that the water is fine and someone above us (either Galina, Camp Promin, the factory who owns the camp, or the construction company that rents the other camp) is a threat to the health department and the health department wants them out. Radooga is sort of the hostage in this situation because it's a war between the campground and the health inspection and we're just kind of caught in the middle.

Well, every time the health department comes they always tell Camp Promin that they must give the okay before we can have more kids at camp. We never wait for their okay, mostly because we may never get it and also kids come to camp some from 20 hours away or more so you can't really call them up and ask them to hold up for a couple hours. Plus, waiting for the approval of a corrupted company who is only doing all of this for the hope of bribe money and turning kids away from hearing about Jesus at camp just really didn't seem like a very good trade. Yesterday health inspection called the office and said they were coming today at 10:00. Galina, the director of Camp Promin asked us to take all the kids in the woods and lock up their rooms when health department came.

So that's what we did this morning... Everyone got up and we led about 250 people into the woods not knowing how long we would be there or anything. It was so exciting! I felt like I was a part of the underground railroad or something hiding kids from health inspection. :0) Me and Veronica had to take some kids who had lost their English class back to the amphitheatre and we had to cross the road to get back on the trail and it was like this scary/exciting/thrilling feeling. Thanks for those of you who have been praying for us. The health department came, took some water probes (for the upteenth time), checked the auditorium (a place that we had discussed hiding everyone...) and then left. We don't know yet what the results of that test will be, but hopefully they will do it and then leave us along for 2 more weeks so we can finish out our last two camps. That's our prayer, anyway. Please keep praying for us.

Camp four is amazing and it's going great. Team 5 arrives tomorrow. I can't believe it! I love you all! I'll try to put pictures up here soon. Arrivederci!