Hi there.

Well last weekend we went to a Youth camp in the hills here.  It was from Friday night till Monday lunchtime.  There were about 50 young people aged 16 +.  We had a lot of good times with them.  We had services in the morning and evening and some discussions in the afternoon and games in between. About 90% of the young people were believers.  They were really enthusiastic and loved singing worship songs in spanish.  A lot of songs have been translated from English so the tunes were familiar.  I had to give a talk on Saturday.  It went pretty well but it was difficult to get my points clearly across because of the language.  Overall it was fine though.  Also, it´s normal here that people just talk when you´re speaking (not that that would annoy me!).  It´s very hard to have their total attention all the time. Late at night we had a bonfire and sang songs around the fire.

Sunday was the best day for me. We went to a small lake and climbed a mountain and then at night we played some games around the campfire.  We played a game I will definitely use with the youth group so get ready!  There´s a lot of clapping involved. We kept playing that game until 2.30am! 

As a result of the weekend many young people are now coming to some of the cell groups which the church runs and they are starting to learn the Bible from the basics up. They really have no knowledge whatsoever!  People do seem to be more open here towards home.

Unfortunately the last day of the camp, I had some food poisoning.  It´s easy to get here.  I´m still not sure what the cause was.  It could be unpasteurised milk which could have bacteria we´re not used to...not sure.  Anyway, I felt as sick as a dog and the sun was beaming down.  We came home and I took some drugs and started to feel better.  It´s taken a couple of days to feel back to full speed.  It´s a bit of a pain but because I´m eating what the natives (!) eat it makes you more susceptible cos they don´t get that you can´t eat certain things.  With Sergio´s family it´s normally okay but at the camp the food wasn´t great anyway.

On the other hand I had a great encouraging conversation with David and Johnica (the younger two of Pastor Sergio´s family).  They´re both quite sarcastic in their sense of humour (so we get on pretty well) but they were telling me that they were not used to missionaries coming and mixing with them so much and eating their food and stuff and that this was very different.  Normally missonaries stay in a hotel-hostal and eat western food so they were really impressed.  Also, they were worried that I would be really organised and they aren´t.  They go to bed late and don´t get up too early and they felt they might have to change cos this western missionary was staying with them. I told them that normally I´m very organised but I will try to adjust to taking things easier ;-)!!  When in Rome and all that.  Anyway I was really encouraged by that.  I told them what I was most concerned with was that I would be able to integrate with the people here so it was a big answer to prayer. 

That´s all for now,

Welly