It’s a nice spring day in Henri Coandă, the community where we are working on a weekly basis. As soon as kids see our staff they run up to us and ask: “When are we going to camp this year? Can I come as well?” The nice weather tells them that summer is coming and summer means camp!
For many years, we have taken kids from Henri Coanda to a camp in the mountains. It’s a beautiful place run by great people that give their best to these kids who often don’t get the best in life. Many come from broken families, often live in survival mode and don’t always have fair chances when it comes to education and opportunities in life.
The camp is the highlight of the year
These camps have been the highlight of the year for many of our kids, full of new and beautiful experiences. Many of them hardly get out of their neighborhood, and at least half of them have never left the city. During camp, everything is new to them. From seeing the mountains for the first time to sleeping in a bunk bed to eating three good meals a day to participating in many fun activities!
Throughout the years, these camps have been weeks where we bond closer to them and where we go deeper with them in their faith. And through everything they experience in their lives, they are worth it to enjoy this.
Our highlight this year has definitely been to see that our kids have grown up! We started bringing many of them for the first time as 8 year olds, being quite helpless and needing a lot of help from us with getting organized and solving fights. They have grown into confident and responsible teenagers, who can now invest in the younger generation. They are in a place where they can help lead games, be in charge of tasks, and help the smaller ones. They have learned so much about God throughout the years and are now at a point where they know it is up to them to surrender their lives to Him. Some are close, and others still count the costs as they realize it will cost them something. Comparing them with their peers from their community makes it clear that these kids are different. All the investment and exposure to the gospel has brought transformation.
Thankful!
Traveling back we are thankful! Yes, the camp has been wonderful again, as it has been every year. But what brings even more joy is to see the lasting fruits and to see how some of our kids have grown up in a beautiful way. There is kindness and wisdom in them. Some of them are now hoping to come next year as leaders, so that they, in turn, can invest in the younger generation.
Dorien Harder